Back to Work?

Just home from the hospital (operation successful) and saw a job offer on the STC France site. Since they are looking for someone for only six months, from May to November, I thought I should look into it. When I clicked the link to email my resumé, I noticed that I knew the addressee - in fact, when she was just starting out as a technical writer and was a bit in a panic about using FrameMaker, I met with her and helped her through the beginning of it. We have exchanged several emails since yesterday and it looks like I may very well be in the running for her job when she is off on maternity leave. Just when you least expect something, it just turns up.

Of course, if it doesn't pan out it's no great catastrophe either. Paul thinks that he might start his retirement with our trip to Australia. He has so much vacation and untaken RTT days (those are the days off one gets to create the illusion of a 35-hour week) that he must take before retirement, that he could stop working in April and not officially retire until late fall.

Also, I was thinking of getting back to the States for a visit sometime during the summer. I got an email from Erica suggesting a bunch of us Girls' High orchestra girls try to meet in August. I'd like to do that and go to Pittsburgh. If Paul were with me, we could then continue on a bit of vacation elsewhere. If I took this job, I wouldn't be able to do it.

While at the hospital, I read several Alexander McCall Smith novels -- mostly the ones from the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series. They are very pleasant reading -- ideal for the hospital, actually, when you can't concentrate on heavy stuff. I'm also trying to finish The Fatal Shore, about Australia, but keep getting bogged down in it and not advancing.

Leaving a job

Leaving a job is weird. I'm in the process of leaving my job, now. In France, that process can take three months - yes, three months! When it is your decision to leave, three months is long.

If you are leaving for another job, you and your new employer are stuck waiting. Of course, your new employer might make it worth your while to buy your way out of your obligation, but if you have to wait it out, it's long. And your mind has probably already switched over to the new job.

If you have no job to look forward to, you will probably spend your time looking for it.

Whatever your future job situation is, you have a really hard time doing any work at your current job. In my case, if they were recruiting my replacement, I could be busying myself with that and then the knowledge transfer. I should be doing my day-to-day work -- at least updating existing documents.

Is it good for the company to hold you to these three months? If you are fired, they owe you the three months, but they usually don't want you hanging around, so they just pay you and let you stay home.

When it you who has decided to leave, are they really saving money by keeping you at work for your salary? I doubt it. If you could go on to your next job sooner, do you need the salary from this one? I doubt it.

As soon as you announce your departure, they should start looking for your replacement and hire that person as soon as possible so that you can spend some time together during a transition period. Then let you go. They'll have someone working enthusiastically earning his or her salary rather than a dead weight.