Job news for me!

Well, last week I sent my resume to a local hospice agency. I had googled all the different hospice agencies in the area, but this specific one didn't come up. A friend from my NFP board told me to look into this specific hospice because she had seen it in the Texas Catholic magazine. I looked it up and unfortunately the website is rather plain and simple with very limited information. There was no job info but I took a chance and sent my resume to the email address listed on the website. I got a call back within 3 hours first wondering how I had heard of them and second wanting to schedule an interview.

I made sure to wear my lucky interview jacket (Thanks Janice!)... Janice went shopping for me over 3 years ago and brought home this great professional social worky suit and I have worn atleast the jacket part of it to every interview and I have always landed the job!

So I drove side streets to the office and it's approx. 9.3 miles from my house. It has a Dallas address but I definitely pass "Welcome to Farmers Branch" signs which I think is just a bordering town to Dallas? I don't know. I haven't quite figured it out yet. I filled out an application with as much info as I could recollect and just hoped that they would use my resume for info rather than the application. Oh, the other thing is there was a Noel St (or Dr.?) so that was pretty neat to see.

The interview process went well. There were 5 people interviewing me... I think if I had known that ahead of time I would have been *really* nervous but luckily I had no clue so I just rolled with it at the time and kept myself feeling at ease. So I was asked to provide information on my past hospice agency, on my responsibilities and caseload, and my experience and thoughts, etc. I thought maybe I overshared but candidly explaining challenges I experienced during my time there, but I figured that I was remaining true to myself and they would either like that or not. We also had to figure out terminology of Long term care facilities because they are all called different things in different places.. in California they are called Board and Care Homes, and here I think they are called Personal Care Homes. I wanted to make sure that we all had the same definition of what I was talking about. They had all sorts of questions for me, specifically they wanted to know more about my work with the Ombudsman which was so long ago!! It was during my time at UCSC.. it was essentially the start of my work. Then they gave me a scenario and wanted to know what I would do... I answered that to the best of my ability focusing on safety of the patient first, second on what my role is and then prioritized what, if anything needed to be addressed right then and there versus at my follow-up visit (all make-believe of course); they seemed very happy with my answer. I discussed conflict resolution, boundaries, teamwork, advocacy of patient and family, and the importance of self-care for myself and other team members.

They explained the responsibility of the job which in all honesty sounded pretty overwhelming. I thought I had shot myself in the foot when they told me how large the caseloads are because I had talked candidly about the challenges of carrying a highly acute caseload which was half of what they expect you to carry... plus the social worker helps with intake, they go to most, if not all deaths, there is an 8am daily staff meeting (8am!), they help with marketing by making contact within the medical community weekly, there is a rotating oncall, etc etc etc. I was a little bit scared but mainly only about the marketing contacts!! (well, okay and the 8am meetings.. yikes! maybe i'll become a coffee drinker?)

I left the interview feeling good about it but feeling conflicted too. How am I supposed to know if this is the right job for me? I essentially felt like I was challenging God because I wanted some very clear answers. I prayed and said, I think I am going to believe that if I am offered this job that I am supposed to be at this job, and if I don't get this job than it's just not where I am supposed to be right now. I felt like that maybe sounded convenient but you know what? Right now all I can do is just trust in God to lead me because I can't do it myself.

I do feel confident that hospice work is something I am called to do. I was just scared by the "other" responsibilities related to this job... what if I couldn't cut it? What if this job turned into a disaster and then what if I decided to leave it like my last job and then I would be a total and complete failure.. ugh.

The crazy thing is I have two voices.. one sane and one not so sane, one logical and one not so logical, one that can psychoanalyze me and one that is just plain psycho. So I know that I could do the job even with all the extra responsibilities and that I could very well be happy there since I would ultimately be working in hospice and that feels like my true calling (besides motherhood but well, that's just not happening yet). I know that my negative voices are just trying to distract me and make me question everything when I have to get my more positive, sane voices to exclaim the truth louder... okay now i am just sounding crazy.

At the interview they told me they were interviewing other people and would make a decision by Monday.

Anyways, so today I got a phone call. C and I had gone to the movies to spend some time together and when I got out of there I had a message from the hospice. The woman was calling to offer me the position and stated that they just loved me and really would love for me to join the team. I called her back and left a message.. she called me back shortly after. We discussed the details of the job, the benefits, etc.. I discussed some of my hesitations and she told me to please not worry about those things and not let those things determine whether I take the job or not..

I decided to accept the position!

I start next Monday-- C's birthday!

We are still waiting to hear about C's job leads... please continue to pray for us!