The Outcome

I broke the clip off my pen while talking to his secretary. I was nervous. I apparently had reason to be since the 35 minute phone call was a bit stressful. I took three pages of notes with the pretty blue ink that flowed from my pen. I stared at the fuzzy inside of an iris petal while thinking this job sounded hard. No, challenging, I reminded myself. Challenging is good!

Pick something impressive, I ordered myself when he asked for a situation that showed leadership skills. I glanced through the notes I'd written this morning, took a breath and launched into a description of project X and how some people thought it couldn't be done. How I'd found funding from multiple sources, collaborated heavily, presented the work multiple times to gain insight and was planning to hand the project over when I left. "I think that the work is more important than the credit," I said humbly.

I hung up after the VP assured me someone would be in touch after they all talked. I placed the phone back on the table and sat for a moment, willing my hands to stop shaking. I blinked a couple times, realizing I was moderately weepy and sat on the loveseat and stared at the television. Realizing I was growing more upset, I clipped the leash on the dog and headed outside to weed my front yard in the steamy afternoon heat.

The spikey weeds, thwarted in their attempts to take the back yard, have launched a frontal attack and set up camp in the flower bed. I sat down on the front walk and began to dig at them with the pokey tool. When I realized their roots weren't very long at all, I began to nudge the mulch away from the base and pulled. The spikes are present there, but not yet firm enough to sting my fingers. I soon had a decent sized pile of spikey weeds next to me on the concrete. So I went to fetch a bag from the garage to hold the awful plants. While transferring them inside the plastic, some of them poked through my gloves and into the flesh of my palm. It hurt.

I crawled toward the house a little more before tucking my legs underneath me and continued to wiggle and pull root systems from the beds that should contain flowers. I gasped with dismay when Chienne decapitated an iris with her leash. I smiled gently when I noticed the pretty flowers that bloom in the fall had started to sprout already. When Chienne began to pant, I put her inside and focused on pulling the plants that didn't belong and let my mind drift a bit.

I met my current department chair in flip flops, I recalled. He wasn't on my schedule, I assumed we were almost done as it grew late in the day and had slipped my blistered feet into pink sandals and tucked black pumps in my bag. Boss entered his secretary's office and said the chair had time to talk and I was to follow him immediately. So I went - in my gray suit and pink blouse and matching casual shoes - to chat with a very important doctor about my qualifications and how they'd love for me to work here. It was all very pleasant, if embarrassing, and I underestimated how tough this VP would be. He was clearly evaluating me before signing off on anything, and I doubted I'd been impressive enough.

Trying to be philosophical, I glanced at the progress I'd made in the flower bed, dabbed at the sweat on my face and came inside the cool house. Remembering how I'd prayed before the call started, I took a breath and tried to show a little faith that things would work out. I showered and washed my hair, I dried off and slipped on clean pajamas. Then I returned to my loveseat to sip some water.

I blinked to find email from the man who would be my boss should I get this job. He said to call him!!!! So I did, commenting on the number of exclamation points in his email and starting to feel flutters of hope. He asked about my current salary structure and any benefits I currently receive. Then he promised to call me back in 10 minutes. That was approximately 1 hour ago.

*****

Shortly after I typed that, he did call. Though he hadn't yet gathered all the details, he wanted to let me know that they wanted to offer me the position. At which point I put down the paper I had at my side and responded that, yes, I did own my home. And did not have dependents other than my pets. "The dog and cat are pretty flexible when it comes to offers," I noted.

"Wait," I said when he commented that he'd try to track down the HR man with whom I interviewed to get back to me about salary. Relocation would be included, he assured, so my house shouldn't be a problem. "Thank you," I told him when he paused to let me speak. "I'm a little surprised, I think, and I'm thrilled and thank you for thinking I can do this."

"I may be slow at responding to email and phone calls," he teased, "but I am good at recognizing quality. I'll be in touch soon."

At which point I started calling people. Mom cried. Dad sounded relieved and offered to come if I needed help getting ready to move.

Brother was suitably excited and impressed. They celebrated his recent promotion last weekend. We'll celebrate mine this weekend while I'm home, he said happily.

Carrie squealed with glee for me. "This is it!" she said. "You'll be there forever. And I can finally tell my husband to hush when he tells me how worried he is about you keeping your search so narrow. We were both a little worried about you. But now I'm happy! And you ended up near home! Congratulations!"

Steve, another collaborator I met in grad school, echoed her thoughts. "Can I tell you how relieved I am?" he asked after we did the happy congratulations. "I was getting concerned that you hadn't heard anything and were sort of running out of time. But this is great. Are you going to wait to hear from Pseudo-Academic?"

I called Anna after allowing her time to get home from work. She never lets me down with her pleasure over my accomplishments and this was no exception. After each call, I'd smile and sigh.

Friend and I met to sit outside and talk for a bit. The weather was perfect - it was almost cool by the time we headed inside. We snacked on bread and fruit. I listened to the wind rustle the thousands of leaves that hung above our blankets and realized with profound relief that those voices in my head who constantly fretted over what I was going to do come August were quiet. Somebody picked me, I thought with awed happiness. It's going to be OK. So thank you for the good wishes and crossed fingers. It looks like there's a path for me that leads away from independent research and, after we figure out some details and I talk to some other people, I'm very likely to take it. I'm very happy and tired and scared and relieved.