So far I’ve looked at 4 places.   The first was a room in a house that I would have been sharing with the owner and his aunt.  I really liked the owner and the house was beautiful.  But the room was a bit small and there was a fair amount of car noise from a nearby street.  So I passed on that place.  

The second place was a 15 minute bus ride to work.  I would have been renting the upstairs bedroom in the house and would also have my own bathroom.  The house was nice looking but I didn’t care for the current tenant (who I would have been sharing the house with).  He was a nice guy but a bit weird.  Just couldn’t imagine sharing space with him.

 The third place was also the upstairs of a house.  I would have been sharing the house with the owner and her 13 year old daughter.  I really liked the owner but didn’t care for the idea of living in a house with a 13 year old.  

The fourth place is the place that I’ve decided to apply for.  It’s also the most private of the four.  Assuming I get it, I’ll be renting a fully furnished studio apartment with my own kitchen and bathroom.  So no roommate!  There is one quirk to the place.   The aparment is part of a house and get to the front door of the apartment, you go in the front door of the house and then walk past a living room and kitchen.  The living room and kitchen are part of an apartment that’s being rented by a family of five.  Their space is “open” so you can see right into their living room and kitchen as you walk past.  There’s also no stove in the apartment but I can use the stove in the family’s kitchen.  I’ll probably just end up buying a hot plate instead.  You can see photos of the place here:

http://portland.craigslist.org/mlt/roo/1067776297.html

I was talking to a different co-worker today that it turns out that her parents are from…you guessed it…Canton, OH!!!  Oh but it gets stranger still.  Her parents actually went to the same high school I did.  In fact, it’s the same high school that my parents, many aunts and uncles and my grandparents went to.  In fact, it’s possible that one of her parents graduated from high school with my Aunt Marilyn.  What were the odds of that????  

One last thing….you may remember that back in Thailand I read a couple of books written by women who had survived the killing fields in Cambodia.  Well, it turns out one of my new co-workers is also a survivor.  While definitely a horrible experience, it sounds like what she experienced was nothing like what the book authors went through.  My new co-worker acutally knows one of the book authors – they went to college together in the US after escaping from Cambodia.

Anyway, I left about 7:15 and picked up the bus.  I needed to switch buses but realized I hadn’t written the directions down properly so I had to wing it a bit.  But I still made it there by 8:30.  I soon realized that I had a slight problem.  My boss was out on Friday and she had told me to meet up with Kathleen, another staff member.  I had stopped by on Monday to fill out some paperwork and ran into Kathleen but forgot to ask what time she gets into the office.  So sure enough, she wasn’t in yet and I was told that she normally comes in around 9-10.  Great.

So I then asked if Tracie was in since I was told that she would have some more paperwork for me to fill out.  Unfortunately, she wasn’t in either.  Meanwhile, noone seemed to know where my cube was.  So I sat by the secretary’s desk, reading some materials.  Fortunately, Tracie came in about 5-10 minutes later.  Tracie was great.  She had me fill out a bunch of paperwork and also gave me a basic orientation and showed me around.

By the time Tracie was done with me, Kathleen had come in.  So I then met with Kathleen for a while.  We eventually figured out which cube was mine.  The previous occupant had left  a bunch of files behind and everyone was very apologetic over that.  I didn’t mind though since cleaning the cube gave me something to do.  In the process, I realized a bigger problem.  While there was a monitor and a keyboard in the cube, there was no computer.  By the time I left that issue still hadn’t been resolved. 

For lunch, I went out with Kathleen and 2 other co-workers.  After lunch, I spent most of the afternoon boxing up files that the previous occupant of my cube had left behind.  So far I have 14 boxes.  Eventually I ran out of boxes and will have to wait till Monday to finish the task (when hopefully the mail room will have more boxes).  Everyone that I met was really, really nice.

The one piece of bad news is that I found out we may be getting furlouged soon.  The governor is proposing 26 furlough days over the next 2 years.  That would amount to about a 4.5% pay cut.  I don’t mind the pay cut if it means extra days off.  But here’s the thing….the governor is proposing that 15 of the furlough days take place on state holidays.  Gee thanks!  So we’d get a pay cut but very little extra time off.  Of course, all this has to be negotiated with the union so time will tell what happens.

The other interesting thing is that the governor is proposing to cut his own salary by 5%.  The article mentioned what the governor’s salary is.  Get this….when I was working for USDA in DC, I was making more than the Governor of Oregon.  I knew salaries in Oregon were low, but that’s crazy!

Obviously Friday is an odd day to start on.  But the State of Oregon lets you start on any day.  And by starting on Friday, my health insurance will begin March 1st.  If I waited till next Monday to start, my health insurance wouldn’t begin till April 1st.  If you’re curious about what I’ll be doing, here’s a link to the job description.  Scroll down to the bottom to see duties and responsibilites.

http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/jobs/LEH88065.shtml

This will probably be my last post.  But I’ve said that before, haven’t I???

So….I’m still waiting to hear about the state of Oregon job.  As I mentioned, the hiring manager called me last Friday…she wants to hire me but she’s not sure what salary she can offer.  I’m still waiting to hear from her.  Meanwhile, I was supposed to have 2 more interviews this week, one on Wednesday and one on Thursday.  I decided to cancel the Wednesday interview.  It was also with the state of Oregon and had the same salary scale as the other job.  I just didn’t see any point in going if the salary was going to be the same.  The interview today was at 4:00 with the Native American Youth Center (NAYC).

Now…Tonya lives in Tigard which is a city to the Southwest of Portland.  NAYC is in the far Northeast part of Portland. I went the the website for the Portland city bus system, typed in my  location, my destination and my arrival time.  Guess what…2+ hours of travel time and 3 different buses.  I scribbled everything down and then went to work on my return trip.  This was a bit harder since I didn’t know when the interview would end.  I tried various departure times.  Depending on what time I left,  I would need to take different combinations of buses to get back to Tonya’s.  So I wrote everything down.  About an hour before it was time to leave, I realized I had made a mistake.  The interview was actually at 4:30!  So…back to the website to figure out how to get there and back.  Based on the 4:30 interview time, I was going to need 4 different buses to get there (though only 3 to get back!).  

I soon realized I had another problem.  Buses require exact change.  I had enough small bills for the ride there, but not to get back home.  I started looking all over Tonya’s for a couple of dollars I could borrow (shh….Lisa…don’t tell!).  Nothing!!!  Finally, I spotted some loose change on her dresser.  I picked up a couple of coins.  Don’t know what they were but they weren’t American.  So I had no choice but to leave and hope I could get change somewhere along the way.

I headed out, got on the first of my four buses and away I went.  When switching from bus #1 to bus #2, I ran into a problem.  I coudn’t figure out where to pick-up bus #2.  I finally figured it out but by then had missed the bus.  I had to wait 15 minutes for the next bus which put me in danger of missing bus #3.  Sure enough, I got off #2, just as #3 was pulling away.  :(  So I had to wait about 10 minutes for the next bus.  Fortunately, I only ended up being 5 minutes late (and they weren’t ready for my anyway).

The interview went well though we had to cut it short.  They had 18 questions for me and by 5:30 we were only done with 10 of them.  I definitely wasn’t upset about not having to answer 8 more questions!  Now I still needed change for the bus.  I asked a couple of people if they had change for five dollar bill.  But they didn’t.  So I ended up walking about 5 minutes until I found a bar and getting change from the bartender.  Then it was back to the bus stop for the 2+ hour ride home on 3 different buses.  Yep, riding the bus is a joy!

In the meantime, on Monday, I’m going to start housesitting for my friend Tonya.  She lost her job recently and is going to take some time to travel back east to visit family and friends.  I’ll be at her place for 2-3 weeks and then????  Anyway, many, many, many thanks to my cousin and her husband for letting me stay at their place during my transition back to the US.  Oh, and thanks to Bo (their dog) as well!!!

I caught the bus to Hillsboro, then took the train into Portland, arriving a little after 8am.  Since my interview wasn’t until 11, I went to Starbucks, got some caffeine and got ready for the interview.  Needless to say, I went to the bathroom several times while at Starbucks.  Fortunately, this time there were no zipper incidents!

Around 10:30, I left Starbucks and walked up to the State office building.   Guess where I headed first???  Yep, the bathroom!  Now, up until this point, everything had gone smoothly (except for waking up at 4am).  But you just know that couldn’t last.  Earlier at Starbucks, I buttoned the middle button on my suit jacket.  As I got ready to go to the bathroom one last time, I unbuttoned the button.  And off it popped!  I stood there, holding the button in my hand, staring at it for maybe 30 seconds.  Hoping, I suppose, that if I stared long enough it would magically pop back on.  But eventually I had to accept that there wasn’t much I could do.  And honestly, do I want to work for a place that might reject me becuase of a missing button?  I think not!

As for the interview itself, I thought it went well.  Better than the first one.  Of course, there’s only one opening and 3-4 finalists.  So who knows?  I’ve got my fingers crossed.  I could hear something by Wednesday.