the joys of riding the bus….

I sold my car before leaving the US at the end of 2007.  And I have no plans to buy a car until I’m working.  I also don’t have a driver’s license.  As you may recall, the state of Virginia cancelled mine when they found out I was no longer living in Virginia.  I looked into getting an Oregon license but the cost is abotu $65.  I’m not willing to pay that until I know for sure that I’m staying in Oregon.  Right now, I’m wishing I had a license.  I’m staying at my friend Tonya’s place while she visits friends and family back east.   She said that if I had a license, I could use her car while she’s gone.  Instead I’m relying on the bus to get around.

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!

good news, bad news, and a change of scenery

The good news first.  I spoke with the woman from the State of Oregon and she wants to hire me.  The bad news is that the salary level may not be what I want.  She feels I deserve the top of the salary range but said there’s no way the Human Resources department will go for that.  She’s trying to get me the mid-range.  The mid-range would be about half of what I used to make for the federal government.  But she’s not sure she’ll even be able to get me that.  She submitted the paperwork to human resources on Friday so now I’m just waiting to find out.

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!!!

job update

On Monday, I finally got a call back about the State of Oregon job.  All I got though was a message saying they had a few questions for me.  Unfortunately, we’ve been playing phone tag ever since.  Still, it sounds like a still have a shot at that job.  In the meantime, I have two more interviews coming up.   One is for another job with the State of Oregon.  The other is with the Native American Youth Center.  The latter sounds really interesting but its with a non-profit so I have a feeling it won’t pay very much.

the interview…take 2

Today was my 2nd interview for the job with the Oregon Department of Public Health.  As I mentioned before, I needed to catch the 6:15 bus in order to get to the interview on time.  I’m a morning person, but I normally wake up around 6:00 which clearly would be too late.  So I set my alarm for 5:25 am.  Actually, that’s only partially true.  The truth is that I set 3 different alarm clocks, all for 5:25 am. Since I had never used any of these alarms before, I wanted to make sure that nothing went wrong.  Needless to say, I woke up around 4 am, decided that 6 hours of sleep was enough and that I didn’t want to risk anything going wrong.  So I got up. 

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.

2nd interview!

Just found out that I got a 2nd interview for the State of Oregon job! Woohoo!!! This one is at 11 am on Monday. Which means I need to catch the 6:15 am bus to get there.