The First Diving Catch

In an alternate timeline/universe where I have much more readership, someone asked me: "What is the significance of your blog name?"

I have been saved. I have been saved not only by my last minute efforts but even more so by the opportunities that came seemingly from out of nowhere. Now, the pragmatist in me tells me that these opportunities were always out there...that I merely did not know how to search them out or recognize them. Yet I cannot ignore the timing nor that they opened up out of the efforts of other people. How have I been saved? I've flirted with unemployment twice this year already. In each case, I felt like an opportunity was thrown in my general vicinity out of nowhere and I had to exert that last bit of effort to dive and catch it.

Friends tell me that the job market in the SF/Bay Area is brutal right now. I have been lucky to receive advice from friends and colleagues and remain employed. However, I was at the brink of being laid off at the end of February and then again in mid-March. I went around to different people trying to find something that would fit into my future goals and promising opportunities kept slipping between my fingers.

Other things were at stake. I was 2 months away from earning a 2 month sabbatical (read: paid vacation) and I was looking specifically for temporary assignments as I was applying to graduate school. I did not want to get a job and then run off if I got into school after only a couple months into the assignment. However, at the point, I had no guarantee of being accepted at any graduate program...I had been just been rejected at one of my top choices. As it turned out, this very issue turned out to be a test of integrity.

Three days before my layoff deadline, my former manager sent me a job requisition describing a job I thought I could fit into very easily. It was a full-time position in a different city but it was a logical progression in terms of my own technical development. I submitted a resume and got an immediate response from the hiring manager. I set up a meeting for the next day to discuss the job in further detail, desperately hoping that I could somehow change the parameters of the assignment to fit into my design to go back to school. When we met, I probably overplayed my hand by describing my situation of wanting to go back to school and needing a little more time to get feedback on my applications.

The hiring manager negotiated from a position of strength. He had other candidates for the job and plenty of people within our internal company pool. However, my background was good enough that he did want to interview me with one caveat: if I interviewed and he extended me an offer, I would take the job and give up my aspirations of going back to school. Strained between the pull of my future aspirations and present need, the best I could do was to ask for more time to think about the decision. He gave me the weekend.

Over the weekend, I discussed my situation with a couple friends and spent some time alone in thought. If I end up taking the job, will I jump off to school if I am offered admittance? Would I be ok with burning bridges like that? What are my chances of not getting into school? How much do I want the chance at this job compared with a chance of going to school? By the end of the weekend, I had decided that I could not make a definitive decision about the job unless I interviewed...and to let the manager decide if he wanted to interview me. I had accepted that there was a high likelihood that he would not interview me and I would be joining the lines of unemployed people.

In our Monday morning discussion, I laid out a line of reasoning on why I could not promise to take the position until I interviewed for the job:
1. Our previous half hour discussion was not sufficient to fill in the details about the job requirements. Was it truly a job I would give up on school for?
2. I needed to meet people in the group. Could we work together effectively as a team? Would I be able to further develop teamwork skills?
3. Training and circumstances. Having been thrust into difficult situations before, I wanted to make sure I was set up for success.

After I barfed all these reasons on his lap, he was still willing to interview me. Through the ensuing interviews, I earned a couple more weeks towards my eligibiity for sabbatical.