After getting up at a godawful hour of the morning and taking takaza to O’Hare in time for his 6:30 AM flight yesterday, I collapsed back into bed on my return to Z’Ha’Dum. Four hours later I woke up feeling much better albeit with my internal clock completely out of whack. Feren was feeling under the weather so he was around when I woke up. We trekked to Meijer in search of storage containers for the MFF Art Show components, then grabbed some lunch. After that I hit the phones, calling ten different temp/contract agencies around Chicago that I had identified as handling technical/engineering placements.

Around the last place I called, lightning struck. By the time I hung up, I had an interview at Abbott Laboratories lined up for the afternoon of Monday, June 21. The job description sounded vaguely familiar. Hmm. After all the phone calls (and getting my ass beaten in Bloody Roar Extreme a bit more), I met roho, genet, linnaeus, datahawk, and posicat for dinner at a yummy brewpub in Libertyville. Over dinner Roho confirmed my suspicions: the position I’m interviewing for is in his group. We’re going to meet for dinner later this week and discuss more about the job, but from what it sounds like there’s a very good probability that I’ll get the job. Wowsers!

Granted, it’s only a 6-month contract making about 75% of what I used to make, but that is still a hell of a lot more than the zero income I currently have! Plus, of the people hired for similar six-month contracts in January, there’s been no word about getting rid of them, so this could last for a while. This opens up several useful possibilities: it gets me a toehold at Abbott, and it opens up a new possible career direction. I may or may not pursue either, but more options are always good. The position starts with four weeks of classes, and those start on July 12 – the day after Anthrocon. This means I’ll probably be flying out Sunday night of Anthrocon, which sucks but it’s unavoidable.

In the meantime, I’ll still be looking at other positions – a salary matching my last one and a full-time job are always preferable, but I’m grabbing whichever real, paying job is made available, be it at Abbott or someplace else. The time for holding out for other possibilities is past – it’s time to lock something down now.

In the short term, the one downside is that I won’t be in North Carolina with my love until next Tuesday at the earliest. Yes, I’ll get to spend more time with the friends that I care for so much up here in Chicago and even catch a Carbon Leaf concert on Saturday, but it’s not the same without Dan. I saw him off yesterday morning and I miss him already. Not much to do but try to be as useful as possible up here and stay busy. And by the way, special thanks to Feren for letting me stick around for a lot longer than expected! His hospitality has made this whole venture a lot less stressful and it’s very much appreciated!