Monday, May 22, 2023

Weekly Round Up: Catching Up

 

A weekly round up: eats, workouts, watches, and reads.  This weekend was Boy Scout camp weekend, which means that the menfolk went to the woods and I went on an out of town adventure!

Eats

At home - nothing memorable

On the road -  I had a busy Saturday and was STARVING at dinner time.  I went to a local brewing company and absorbed an amber ale and a burger.

Workouts

For the next few weeks I'm going to work my way through a bunch of "one week" Caroline Girvan series.  This week I did the Complex Series, which was based around 3 minute blocks of alternating exercises.  It's a tough format, but I liked the workouts.

I've gone back and forth on her Sunday HIIT workouts - (1) I'm not a big fan and (2) I don't have Sunday mornings consistently open for workouts.  My current plan of attack:

  • If it's a workout that for sure I know I'm going to hate, for example pretty much all of the no equipment workouts, I'm skipping it.
  • If I have something better going on - for example this Sunday I was traveling and yes I coulda brought weights with me and I coulda worked out but I would rather enjoy vacation - then I'll just skip the workouts.
  • If I'm home on Sunday, then I'll do one of the dumbbell HIIT workouts, and I'll choose them from the pile of workouts that I've skipped so far - specifically the final Beastmode workout and the final Complex series workout are on the list.

And guess what, it just so happens that the place that I went to for my long weekend getaway is known as a bike friendly town, so I took Bikie along for the ride.  On both Friday and Saturday, I spent the day exploring, walked from the Airbnb to dinner, and then walked back to get my bike and went to the biking trail to close out the night.  It was a fun routine.

Watching

Oh my, The Last of Us started good and then got even better.  I'm on episode 7 of 9.

This weekend I caught a few movies.  When I travel, my goal is to be in the Airbnb for as little as possible but also I don't want to be out at night, so there's a natural movie watching slot at the end of the day.  Both movies were repeat views.

First up - I've been seeing a lot of noir stuff on Youtube, which is making me want to rewatch all the noirs plus catch the ones I haven't seen.  I started with a rewatch of This Gun for Hire.  Alan Ladd is a hitman who gets double crossed by a client and wants to send the message that it's not cool to screw over your hitman.  Veronica Lake is a nightclub singer who's been recruited as an agent by the police to investigate the same client.  Their paths cross, their missions are compatible, they have hella chemistry....

Second up - Blazing Saddles.  I saw it when I was a kid and thought it was hysterical, and then saw it as an adult on a day when I must have been in a mood and it didn't register with me at the time.  It was back on my radar because a few weeks ago when I was teasing my Champaign trip I was looking for a short clip of "I Get a Kick Out of You" and was surprised to see that it had been used in Blazing Saddles.  Then I saw that the Unspooled crew were doing an episode on it, so I felt it was a sign from the universe that I needed to take a fresh look.


Wow, I really must have been in a mood the last time I saw it.  I remembered everything that was hysterically funny when I was a kid and enjoyed it on an adult level now.  10/10 recommend.  Fun fact that it was the first US movie where farts were heard on screen.

Reading

All done with Trespasses, which had a "did not see that coming" ending.  It was a good 'un.

Next up: I started Before We Were Innocent.  Between you and me...I have no idea where I heard of this book but for some reason I put a Libby hold on it, and it finally came in.  So far it's "two friends who are adults but when they were young Something Bad Happened".  I've only just started it so we'll see if it takes.

Werkity Werk

FINALLY FRICKIN FINALLY I GOT A JOB OFFER!!!!  And made the easy decision to turn it down.

The backstory on The Good Fish Co is here.  I had a panel interview with the coworkers on Tuesday.  I liked them, but they kept mentioning routine parts of the job that required waiting for information to come in late in the day.  They also really liked that I was on Eastern time because that would be a huge help to them on Pacific.  There were red flags popping everywhere that this job meant working both Eastern AND Pacific hours, so that gave me my answer.  Actually I already had the answer, because the more time I had to think about it the more I realized that I really would not enjoy the daily workload for this job.

On Friday as I was getting ready to leave for my trip, the recruiter emailed to ask if we could have a call.  I emailed back that I was free for the next 10 minutes or that we could talk on Monday.  She called right away and said that I had gotten the job.

They were nice enough to have put a salary range in their job description, and when we'd talked on my first call, I told her that I was making the top number.  Their offer was for $5k less.  I asked her if I could have the weekend to think it over and also to have a call with the supervisor to discuss work hours - the purpose of doing this was to get the job offer in writing for my trophy case and to keep the fish on the hook for as long as possible just in case I changed my mind.

The two things that I didn't like in the offer letter:

  • The bonus amount wasn't stated and the way that it was written was confusing
  • Their PTO was mediocre

Here's how they stacked out in the end:

If I had wanted this job - I would have asked for the extra $5k, asked what their merit increase process was (a big mistake that I didn't do for my current job), asked them to spell out the bonus and if there were any weird conditions on it, asked for more PTO, and big time would have asked for clarification on the time zone difference and work hour expectations.

As it was - nothing changed in my thinking over the weekend and no one at my current job did anything to piss me off today so I sent them a Dear John letter and said that it was a very difficult decision for me.

The plan from here - ima put my search on the back burner until late June.  That gets me through vacation and my next stock payout.  If something fabulous pops up I'll change my plan accordingly.

That's all she wrote!  If I get time later this week I might write more about my trip.  I think it might be too far off the beaten path to be of interest.


21 comments:

  1. I was wondering about your job search, and if anything had transpired. I hope something comes along, later in the summer, and it matches with your criteria ;-)

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    1. Yes it took a while for anything to transpire for this round of the search. Getting any interview let alone an offer in the tech world is no mean feat right now.

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  2. Congratulations on your job offer, Birchie! It's a great feeling, even if you decided not to take the job in the end.
    I think you made the right decision. Working for less money and longer working hours is not a good thing. Your Friday evenings will be so messed up!

    We want to hear about your trip! I guess it wasn't an FLW trip this time, but we still want to hear all about it!

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    1. Fridays would have been awful at Good Fish. And that's assuming that they only work until 5, and we all know that finance people love to rack up overtime.

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  3. I'm so glad you got the job offer, and that you knew it wasn't right for you! You make such informed and rational decisions - I like the way you decide things.
    Now, re: Trespasses! I'm glad you liked it and I KNOWWWW. I thought it was so well done and also, whew. Intense.
    Looking forward to hearing about your trip, if you want to write about it! I like "off the beaten path" places.

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    1. You and I both KNOWWWW. I need to do more research on The Troubles. As it was I got the gist from the story but OUCH.

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  4. YAY for an offer! That must be such a great feeling! And it sounds like you made a really great decision, too -- the comments about the time zone stuff really sounds like a red flag. And mediocre PTO definitely sounds like a downer.

    I don't care how obscure your journey was, I am interested!

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    1. Yes, yay for the ego boost. And now back to real life and a job where I can take a Friday off every month to go to cool but obscure places!

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  5. I am also interested in hearing about your trip!
    That's great about the job offer, and great that you knew enough to turn it down. I think the more things that don't work out, the closer you're getting to finding something great.
    I'm intrigued by CG's Complex Series! I wouldn't do the HIIT workout, but I might try one of the other ones this week.

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    1. Complex was solid! I go back and forth so much on how many times a week to work out. 5 days has always felt right, her programs are set up for 5 days...but the HIITs have always felt "off" to me.

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  6. I love getting brewery food. They often have a surprising amount of vegan options!

    That is so awesome you brought your bike and got to explore that way!

    Congrats on the offer and sticking to what matters for you. I can't imagine needing to be available for pacific time on the regular. I start and end work early and just... ew, no. And the lower salary doesn't help!

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    1. Yes, this place had the option to make all of their sandwiches non-meat.

      Finance people are so weird about working all the hours. I'm over here doing my job plus my boss's job while she's on maternity leave and it's still hard to fill up an 8 hour day. I just don't get it.

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  7. I'm with everyone else who thinks hearing about your trip would be fun.

    I am starting the Epic series from CG and the first workout is leg day with those three-minute complexes and I nearly just stopped doing the whole program after that. I feel like it's really unsafe to try to use fatigued muscles for so long. Not my jam. But I really think her HIIT workouts (minus her burpee obsession) are excellent, so we may be looking for different things in our workouts.

    Yay for the job offer and yay for feeling comfortable turning it down, too!

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    1. Wowza are you doing Epic I? From what I've heard it's really intense and the workouts are pretty long. I'm dying to hear what you think.

      My issue with the HIIT is that the moves feel awkward which means that it's hard for me to build very much intensity -they just end up been IIT instead of HIIT. These workouts make me feel like an idiot AND like I haven't worked out. The strength focused workouts make me feel like I accomplished something.

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  8. I would like to hear about your trip, and especially since it is bike friendly! :)

    That is great that you got the job offer. I think sometimes it is hard to know what to expect, what to ask for, what other companies offer etc. so having this data point will help you in the next round! You won't know until you try, or something like that...

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    1. One thing that I love about remote work is that I get to do so much more interviewing than I was able to do back in the "old" days. It's been very fascinating to see everything out there - good and bad.

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  9. The more I read about your job hunt, the more I realize how very little I know about job hunt in the US.... merit increase, salary negotiations, bonuses..... all doesn't exist when you're working for the government.
    I think it's great that you know what you want and (are willing to) ask for it. I am keeping my fingers crossed for you.

    Also yay for taking the bike on your weekend adventure. I love it.

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    1. With any luck you will never need to know, since it sounds like you like your job. It's both a blessing and a curse to have options. If I *needed* a job then my criteria would be more like "a paycheck and not horrible", as it is I've got a bunch of boxes that I'm trying to get checked.

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  10. Congrats on the job hunt! and the brewery beer and burger! Both of these look like highlight to me. I find it really annoying when jobs are posted n a range and you say you expect the top of the range... then they offer less than the top of the range. And when companies talk too much about "Flexibility" regarding hours/tasks/workload it's a huge red flag to me. IMHO when people say "work flexibly" they mean "you work flexibly around our poor systems / hours structure"

    Hope it's given you a morale boost, even if it hasn't resulted in a new job.

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  11. Congrats on the offer AND on knowing yourself, and what you want, well enough to turn it down. That's important, and it's something I lack. I could learn a lot from you, for sure... I want to hear about the trip, too, please. :)

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