Read Part Two Here

I went to drop off my till (the money from the register) at the Bookstore, then hurried back to the offices. I was thankful the interview was going to be in Mr. Director’s office, because I had heard from someone that they conducted interviews in the corner of the Cafe, and that just sounded scary to me.

Mr. Director was already in his office, and Mr. Assistant Director (the SET member I previously mentioned) arrived soon after I did. I was told to take a seat, and slid into one that seemed to make the most sense – creating a triangle between the three of us in the room. My mind was going over everything I’ve ever studied about business, interviews, etc… I tried to keep my body posture open, my facial expressions engaged, and my voice modulated and my words well-thought-out and clear. Before long though, I just started having fun.

It was a relief to have Mr. Assistant Director there because I’d spent enough time talking to him that I felt like we were friends and I could get a read on him. Mr. Director, on the other hand, was nice, but I simply could not figure out what he was thinking and that was stressing me out a bit.

Then, at one point Mr. Director was like “Um, I have a red flag.” I was nervous but asked him what it was, hoping it was an objection that I would be able to overcome. Instead, he mentioned a silly “red flag” that obviously wasn’t actually going to be a problem. When he said that I suddenly got hope that he did indeed think I would make a good SET member because surely he wouldn’t be joking about it if he wasn’t liking what he saw, right?

The week we did our interview was also the week that they were changing around a bunch of the offices, and that meant that Mr. Director was in the process of switching to a new office, and Guest Services was getting his current one. Because of that, the mic where they made the announcements that went out on the museum loudspeakers were located in his office, right in front of me, actually.

Partway through our interview one of the managers knocked on the door, then came in and asked if he wanted to proceed with announcements as usual or forego them since he was conducting an interview. He said it was fine, to send in the announcements guy at the right time. So, a few minutes later a guy sheepishly knocked, then came in. He apologized a lot and obviously felt very awkward for interrupting our interview. I didn’t mind though, because it gave me a few moments to collect my thoughts since I’d been answering a lot of questions.

Mr. Director and Mr. Assistant Director both joked with Announcements Guy and it really helped the whole interview process to feel homier and relaxed to me. This happened twice, and by then I was actually thoroughly enjoying the interview.

One of the other SET members (the same one who had sent Mr. Director out to talk to me in the first place) had come by Fair Trade one slow day and spent time asking me all the questions that he thought would come up during the interview. Therefore, I felt rather prepared for the questions I was now answering.

In fact, sometimes I felt like maybe I was answering the questions too well because I was so enthusiastic about the position I was hoping for. (The SET members had done a great job of making my life at the museum better, and although I didn’t want to leave the Bookstore, I was excited at the thought of making other people’s lives better, too.) One time when I was finished answering a question I was like “Did that answer your question?” and Mr. Director just kinda nodded and replied that yes, it answered his question, plus several more.

Our interview lasted for an hour, and by the time it was over I really didn’t know what to think. I thought it had gone well, and I knew it hadn’t gone bad, but I wasn’t sure if I was a good candidate for the job or not.

When I got back to the Bookstore to pick up my till I was greeted by a host of co-workers and managers who were all wondering how it went. Up until this time I hadn’t mentioned the fact to very many of my co-workers that I was looking into a position with SET, but after the interview pretty much everyone knew, and they were all excited to hear how everything went.

Throughout the process, I felt very supported and encouraged by my co-workers and managers. Even though they didn’t want me to leave the bookstore, being part of SET was the next best thing, because that meant I got to stay year-round, plus help out in the bookstore whenever they needed someone extra.

As time progressed I discovered that multiple co-workers, managers, and even managers from other departments had all gone to Mr. Director and told them that they thought I’d do great as a SET member. That made my heart exceedingly happy.

Now all I had to do was wait and see if I’d gotten the job or not.

And, I’m off to work again, folks. So, I guess this gets a Part Four. Have a great day!

 

Read Part One Here

After talking with the director of the Museum, I wasn’t quite sure what I was supposed to do next – so I prayed about it and looked for any opportunities to take the next step. I didn’t want to bug Mr. Director, so instead, I looked for a chance to talk to anyone who would know anything. Through my questioning, I found out that I needed to go to the HR department and request a transfer paper that I would then need my current manager, as well as Mr. Director sign before I could move forward with trying to set up a job interview.

My bookstore managers were fantastic throughout the whole process, asking me how it was going, what step I was on, as well as letting me slip away during slow times to get the transfer paper, etc…

Yo, folks, this kind of stuff is still new to me (I grew up working in a family business and then a small coffee shop, which is nothing like going through all the steps and systems of working for a place with a thousand employees). Everything I did outside of my current department was rather intimidating and nerve-wracking, and even though everyone was exceedingly helpful and kind it was beyond freaky to embark on the process.

When I was filling out my transfer request paper I had to write what department I was interested in joining and I was freaking out so much that I wrote that it was the Service Execellence Team. Yeah. As in, my official paperwork has me spelling the word excellence incorrectly. Classy, right?

With my transfer request in hand, I went to find my current manager. Now, although I always worked under the bookstore managers, I actually had a different over-all manager, and she’s the one who would need to sign the paper. I hadn’t yet informed her I was hoping to transfer (because I’d been talking about it so much with the mangers I actually interacted with, and I hadn’t realized I would need to tell the over-all manger). Well, when I went to find her, I couldn’t. After looking on and off throughout the day as time allowed, I was walking past the lunch break room and saw Mr. Director inside preparing his lunch.

I took the paper into the break room and asked him what I would need to do in order to secure his signature. He looked intently at me for a moment then told me if I put it on his desk he’d sign it and give it back to HR. That was pretty thrilling to hear, except for the fact that I still needed to get my manger’s signature on it. I thanked him for the offer, then explained the situation to him. He told me my manger wasn’t working that day, so I could still just leave the paper on his desk and he’d get her signature as well. Now that made me happy, except for the fact that I still hadn’t told her I was hoping to transfer to another department. So, I told him that. He said it was fine, he’d explain everything to her.

That’s when I began to get excited. Because, you know, if Mr. Director is willing to talk to your manager about you changing departments, that means he’s kinda on board with the whole idea, right?

So I left the paper with him and entered my long days (and even longer nights) of waiting.

In reality, it was a relatively short amount of time, but patience and I aren’t on a first-name basis with each other. We’re really sort of at odds with how life is supposed to work, so time seemed to drag as I waited to hear back. Therefore, instead of waiting patiently I searched out people to talk to about how the processes of transferring worked, trying to construct a timeframe in my mind, etc…

One of the guys on SET had recently been promoted to a pretty high position in the museum, as well as still being a SET member, so I figured he’d have answers. Plus, we were kinda friends, so it wasn’t intimidating talking to him. He was walking through the bookstore one day at closing so I asked if he had a moment, then started throwing all my questions at him. He was amazing and let me take all the time I needed to get clarity on what was going on. I found out from him that my transfer request was being processed and I would have an interview with him and Mr. Director sometime during the next week.

Some of the answers he gave me were rather vague, but I got the idea that he thought I’d do well on as a SET member and that I had a chance at getting the job. That was exciting, so I made myself stop questioning everyone within sight and awaited my interview.

Another part of the whole behind-the-scenes of what was going on was the fact that I didn’t want to leave the bookstore. I love the people there so much that the idea of not getting to work with them all the time made me really sad. But, there was no way I could stay there and work full-time, year-round. Plus, as a SET member, I would get to go back for a portion of each day to help out at the bookstore when they needed it most.

Finally, the day came when I was told what day my interview would be, although I wasn’t sure what time during the day it would be. It was mid-morning on Interview Day when I was working out by myself in Fair Trade and I looked up to see Mr. Director striding toward me.

He was like “You’ve not seen your email, have you?” Because apparently he’d sent me an email with the time for our interview, and it was basically right then. He told me not to worry, that he was sending someone out to replace me, and I could head on back to his office when my replacement got there.

And it’s time for me to head into work again, folks! So, I guess this saga gets a part three. 😉

If you would have asked me a year ago where I thought I would be on my birthday I probably could have literally guessed a thousand times without getting the correct answer.

If you would have asked me a year ago what I thought I’d be doing on my birthday, I probably could have guessed ten thousand times without getting the correct answer.

And yet, here I am.

My birthday is just a little over a week past, and that means I’m on day eight of my new job at the Creation Museum. I’ve been in complete awe every single day at how much I’m enjoying it. You see, I seriously thought I wouldn’t like the job for at least a month. I gave myself a full six weeks to settle in, learn the tasks, and acclimate to the changes before I would even allow myself to entertain the idea that I’d made a bad decision when I changed departments.

Confusing, right? The thing is, I really liked being in the bookstore at the Museum. My days were filled with happiness, and I found extreme delight in the every-day tasks, my co-workers, and selling resources and stuffed animals to people. But, my bookstore job was a seasonal one, which meant I only had work there about nine months of the year.

The manager of the bookstore (who’s one of the big reasons I liked the bookstore so much) and I were talking one day and he brought up the idea of me getting a fulltime position somewhere at the Museum. (Full-time positions aren’t currently available in the bookstore.) The manager is a very fatherly sort of man who’s advice and counsel I trust a lot, so after questioning him about why he said that (everything he brought up made a lot of sense), I started on my quest to find a full-time position.

The evening before I’d been talking to my mom on the phone I’d been telling her about SET – which stands for Service Excellence Team, commonly referred to the Red Shirts. They’re a very small department (at that time there were only five), and they’re trained to do pretty much everything. During my time at the bookstore, they’d been amazing with stopping by my station in Fair Trade to give me breaks when I needed them (because I worked by myself out there). Due to those breaks and short conversations as they passed by on slower days, I’d gotten to know most of the SET Members fairly well and always came to the conclusion that I could never do what they did because it would be far too overwhelming.

Well, when I was telling my mom about SET she randomly told me she thought I should one day apply to work with that team.

I laughed.

And then I informed her that was not going to happen.

My conversation with Mom was Sunday evening, my conversation with my manager was Tuesday afternoon, and since I can’t stand to sit around and just ponder something versus taking action, by Tuesday evening I was in an all-out quest to figure out what I needed to do to apply for a job on SET.

(Note I’d been praying about what I should do regarding my job for several months now since I wanted to stay at the Creation Museum indefinitely.)

That first night I didn’t get far in my questioning about SET except to find out that they did indeed have a couple of open positions, including a full-time one.

Later on that week I asked one of the SET Members what or where or how I should go about getting an interview (is that what I needed?), or who I should talk to, or??? (Pretty much I was freaking out and totally out of my comfort zone and completely unaware of the next steps I needed to take.) He off-handedly informed me that I’d have to talk to the Director of the Museum. (Gulp.) Then as the SET Member hurried off to continue working, he was like “I’ll just ask the director to come out to talk to you next time I see him.” (Double Gulp)

Sure enough a few minutes later I saw the director heading toward me. Mr. Director is a great guy – I’d had many short interactions with him and was always impressed by how he took time to talk to his employees and help guests. In fact, I’d seriously been planning on writing him a Thank-You letter earlier that week, thanking him for the time he took to keep things running so well. But, as I saw him striding toward me, I suddenly felt intimidated and wondered for probably the 745th time in the last 12 hours what I was doing.

I greeted him and informed him very ineloquently that I was interested in joining SET. He nodded and asked me what I thought it was that SET did. I yammered for a moment about how they helped everyone and did everything and were pretty much my heroes at the Museum because they gave me breaks. He nodded, said we’d talk about it more, and then hurried off.

And folks, this post is taking me far longer than I’d planned. In fact, this is Day Two of me writing it, and I’m about to head off to work. So, rather than continuing my saga in this post, I’m going to publish this as Part One, and hopefully, start writing Part Two tomorrow. 😉

Have a great day!

Next week the museum where I work is going back to it’s non-summer hours: Nine to Six instead of Nine to Eight. That means that I’ll be working less. Ya know, like a normal 40-hour work week. (Which has only happened once since I started working here, and that’s  because I had to take a day off work due to a family emergency.)

The problem is, I’m so used to working long hours that when I realized I was only going to be working five days a week I had a slight feeling of panic. Like, what am I supposed to be doing now? I’m fairly certain that this means I’m going to have to figure out a life outside of work here in Kentucky.

And, when I stop and think about it the possibilities seem pretty endless.

• I could start cooking massive amounts of food to give to my co-workers (Seriously, this is a dream of mine, I just need to figure out the details since I live in a little camper)
• I could start running again (This would be quite beneficial and will probably become a reality starting tomorrow)
• I could try and start getting together with my co-worker friends outside of work (Or, ya know, just go hang out with them while they’re working and I’m off duty…)
• I could finally begin writing again (Yes, yes, this needs to happen)
• I could actually take up vlogging once more (Especially because a friend gave me a vlogging camera…)
• I could explore the area (Maybe with a friend in tow?)
• I could hand-wash my laundry instead of going to an expensive laundromat (This is a real possibility until it gets cold outside)

Or, I could just go ahead and do what I dreamed about last night: Volunteer at the museum.

I went to sleep last night pondering what would happen if I went to work in my uniform on my days off. I considered the possibility of being able to wander around helping people while off the clock and realized that might not work. I mean, there are certain protocols we’re supposed to adhere to at work – like not doing any actual work until we’ve clocked in (I think this has something to do with liability?).

But! There are a lot of volunteers at the museum, which is probably why I dreamed about setting things up with my managers so they’d let me come in even on my days off and continue doing my normal tasks.

I’m not sure if this is a sign that I’m a very loyal worker, or that I need to work at being less resistant to change?

In reality, I’m pretty excited at the possibility of building more of a non-working life here in Kentucky. It is rather daunting though because I have really enjoyed my over-time working schedule.

Thankfully, I’ve been able to make a lot of friends at work. Now I just need to start inviting them to hang out with me outside of work. I’ve already invited one person over for supper next week, and I think I’ll start working on trying to plan a game night.

That’s it for today, folks!