Doorways

I may have a door opening for me far sooner than I was initially prepared to walk through.

I got a call from a colleague at work last night.  Actually he emailed me on my work account to call him at work about a personal matter.  What exactly does it say that a colleague knows that I check my work email even on my days off?

Anywho... we talked on the phone.  A relative of his talked with a nursing supervisor.  This nursing supervisor works in a prison located in the town that I live.  I think I've mentioned before that I drive quite a ways to and from work, but there are actually several state prisons in my home town.

So this nursing supervisor is looking to fill a vacancy.  This colleague at work isn't interested as its for an 8 hour shift where he is only interested in 12 hour shifts.  He figures the gains he would get by a little less traveling (he lives further away from our current prison than I do!) wouldn't make up for the extra days traveling nor for the fewer days off.  But he knows that I'm certainly interested in 8 hour shifts.  So he passed the supervisor's name on to me.

Now if this were simply a matter of transferring to a nearby prison, I wouldn't be interested.  But this job offers a very interesting opportunity.  Instead of working every other weekend (and more or less having one weekday off a week), this job is Monday through Friday and every 6th weekend.

Weekends off!?
Sure, its still every 6th weekend, but that's way more weekends off than every other weekend.  In addition to the normal work week, the schedule gets even better.  I currently work from 1:30 PM to 10:00 PM.  This job evidently is 10:30 AM to 7:00 PM.  That's about as close to a 'perfect' schedule as I can get.  Considering that this job is about 10 minutes away from my house, I would have to be awake by 9 AM to have a bit of time at the computer before taking a shower/shit/shave and getting to work on time.  I can't recall the last time I slept in past 9 AM.  In other words I still wouldn't have to set an alarm (I WOULD set an alarm for 9 AM just to be safe, but that doesn't mean it would ever truly be used to wake me up).

Yes, technically it would still cut into my morning schedule.  For instance I am writing this up at 9:21 AM.  If I were working that schedule I would have to be focused on packing lunch and the whole shower thing.  That way when 10 AM rolls around I could get into Fiona and drive off to work on time.  But what I lose in the morning I more than gain in the evening.   Getting out at 7 PM means that I could do shopping and such AFTER work.  I could watch prime time television live.  I could go hang out with family and/or friends in the evenings.

In other words, it would be the best of both worlds.  It wouldn't be waking up early to go to work and at the same time it wouldn't be working so late that my day ends at the end of shift.  Add that to the whole 'every 6th weekend' thing and um... WOW!  That's a shift that I would be interested in.

Above and beyond the shift is the obvious point... it's close to home.  I would more or less gain about an hour and a half every single day NOT driving.  That's time I can spend however I wish plus it's miles Fiona wont' have to suffer through.  Less Gas (at my current mileage in Fiona I'd only have to fill up once a month!), less chance of a speeding ticket, and less chance of hitting an animal (like the coyote) in the road.

Now having a good shift is only part of having a good job.  I currently enjoy my shifts at work.  I enjoy what I do and I enjoy who I work with.  At the very least, I would be changing who I work with.  Maybe it would be better.  Maybe it would be equivilant.  Maybe I wouldn't like my co workers.  For the most part I'm a 'Bird in the hand is better than two in the bush' kind of guy.  But more than my co-workers, I would almost certainly be changing my job.

You see, I currently work at a correctional facility.  Long term storage of the convicted.  We deal with emergencies, but we also deal with long term care.  There's no reason to think that an inmate currently under our care will be leaving any time soon.  Sure, they will eventually get paroled or released and they may get transferred to a different facility, but for the most part our guys are our guys.  This job opportunity would be at a receiving center.  It's still technically a correctional facility, but it's not for long term storage.  All male inmates aged 17 and up go to this receiving center first.  They are housed there for around 30-45 days and then they get transferred to another facility.

The majority of inmates transferring into my current facility come from this receiving center.  They are either new to the Department of Corrections, or are return visitors.  Obviously a big part of my job is doing transfers every night.  That wouldn't be the case here.  Well... we'd get 'new' inmates in but the process would obviously be very different.  Another part of my job is exit interviews.   Those inmates lucky enough to get paroled or released.   That wouldn't be happening at the receiving center.  All inmates there get transferred out to another facility.

So.... the shift would obviously be different.  Maybe good, maybe bad.  But most definitely NOT the same.

So there's an unexpected door in front of me and I have to make a choice.  I'm all about making informed choices so I can't simply turn away from this without knowing more.  But to do that I have to more or less let my supervisor know that I'm interested in leaving.  Even if I find out that I don't want to have that job, I can only find that out by talking to my supervisors.

But honesty is almost always the best policy.  So today I think I'm going to talk to my supervisor (and/or her supervisor) and see what this job is about.  I have almost no doubt that if I end up wanting this job that they'll help me transfer over.  I've heard you have to be a state employee for at least a year before transferring to another facility and I won't have those twelve months under my belt until November (remember, I was a contract employee from July to November last year).  But several months back they hired an LPN.  Like me, she commuted to work.  But where I drive a fuel efficient Ford Focus, she drove a gas hog Chrysler 300.  She quickly found out that almost all of her money earned would be put into her car instead of her purse.  After her six week orientation they helped her transfer to another facility much closer to her home.  So if they helped her, why wouldn't they help me?

Anywho.... I'll be talking to them today about it.  For better or worse I'm going to crack open that door and take a peek through.



On a completely unrelated note;  My older brother finally got a better job.  Like me, he was working at the shitty retail store.   It was never a good fit for him.  This corporate giant had its way of doing things, and the plebes at the bottom of the pecking order had no way to really help other than doing as they were told how they were told to do it.  My brother is a fixer.  If he sees something that doesn't work out perfectly he wants to improve it.  He's also a very hard worker.  But hard work isn't appreciated at this retail chain.   Seriously.  If you show up on time, don't rock the boat, and don't steal, then you're in like Flynn.

The retail job was also just above minimum wage (with no raises offered for the past four years), part time, and offered no benefits.  It was, in other words, a dead end job.

Now this new job is with the local housing commission.    It's a very entry level job paying just under ten dollars an hour.  BUT it's full time.  It offers health insurance (pretty good insurance at that!).  It offers paid holidays.  It offers sick time off.  It offers paid time off.  It offers a pension.  No, I'm not talking about a 401k like I have... it's an honest to god PENSION!

All of that would be worthless without this bit.... they appreciate hard work and they encourage their workers to improve their job.  He's only been there a week, but he likes his coworkers, and has been praised both for his ability to improve his job and his work ethic.

While the pay isn't quite enough, there is the opportunity for advancement.  His current job title is custodian and groundskeeper.  He can easily work his way up to maintenance supervisor.  In fact, the current maintenance supervisor started out in the very same position.

So really my brother hasn't found a better job.  He may have well found a career!