Where does it begin?

After many posts of mindless rambling of the weather and love, I need to return to write about the ending of my employment situation. It has been almost three months and not a day of actual work. Bottled between email communications and paycheck are many pages of forms that have to be signed, verified, faxed, and mailed. I am really not a big fan of paperwork- not only it kills trees, but it costs more money to operate anyways; Think about the postage, the ink, the envelop, and many people hired just to pass the paper around the country.

I am not saying that all should be done electronically because it creates its own headache too. My orientation, benefit enrollment, I-9 check, all are done online. You would assume information traveled electronically should expedite the process, but in reality it takes me longer to think if I have indeed completed what I was supposed to do. I know there is no one behind that web screen, and the "confirmation" email was just sent by a robot, nothing more than a few lines of code. I know it, I used to write those codes. The cold hard... *Do not Reply to This Email*.... email...

I have time to think about all of these because I had a long vacation as I have been semi-idle for nearly over six months. It sucks that I can't even get unemployment check since I wasn't laid off. It's almost an envy to my old coworkers that I am able to sleep in most of the days. What do they know? Should I be glad to be having a job now, or feeling annoyed that I can't start it before the holidays. My autumn and Thanksgiving holidays went past like any other day... I barely feel the joy of holiday cheers.

In retrospect, the road to employment has been of hassles and waiting- in its true nature, it is a testament of my patience. Just when I thought I could start yesterday, I have no badge. Without badge, I will need an escort around the office,...even to the bathroom? So here we are at another level of security check for the badge purpose. Why didn't my paperwork simply flow to the badge office, and why despite passing many tiers of security check, badge office can still manage to say "please wait for another 5 days"?

I just want to be busy daily. I feel I am wasting my brain cells for not using them effectively to serve any purpose. I have yet to prepare any Christmas gifts... I really don't have the mood for it now

A closure

After close to two months worth of agony, I finally received a solid confirmation of an offer. This has been a bumpy ride, hitting some problems I have never thought of. I suppose in this tough economy, there are many more factors to consider than simply hiring someone.

Moving onto my next stage of waiting-game, instead of checking my email relentlessly, I need to wait by the mail box to wait for an actual offer letter arrive. It should be here within days. The company's HR processing time turned out to be pretty fast and the people reasonable. As of this morning, I had to do my first counter-offer negotiation (seriously, am I out of my mind?). It wasn't that the original offer wasn't great, it was. But the responsibilities expected of my new position just doesn't warrant such a pay. I didn't want to be greedy, especially considering the high unemployment rate in this country currently. So I wrote back and asked them to reconsider my qualification and expressed my sincere belief that I deserve to get a bit pay bump.

I remember how I regretted about accepting a position too fast back in 2007. It was my first full-time job after all. But after two something years, I learned to screen my position better, and to really wait for the right one that suits my interest and personality. Excitement is great, but once it cools down, I need to really think about the career development. I think this pans out alright,....I am doing alright