Happy Path

The Day After

I awoke the next day to a hangover and a flurry of texts from Charles:

CHARLES: Lark has your updates

Are available to take a phone call from the vendor today?

Head hunter name is Rise Up Tek Group

Person who will call you is Debbie Wan

In the meantime are you available to start work on Monday?

Interview will be this Friday at 11am...

Vendor will call you after 3pm and go over some basic stuff schedule you in for tomorrow

You wll need to email your resume to them

Monday you get your laptop and badge training...

Are you okay with all this?

ME: It's fast, but yes.

Charles had told me the night before to expect a call from the third party vendor. This was a little confusing to me, but it seemed the vendor took the place of HR in the case of contractors. It was a completely new notion since I'd had plenty of contract work in the television industry, but had always dealt with a company's HR department directly. It was hard for me to wrap my head around not having contact with the Scotiabank HR team, but instead having a contract with outside forces*.

I looked over my notes from the night before. There were words like invoicing, contracts and budget mixed in with more detailed notes about systems that were unfamiliar to me. There was a line in all caps encouraging me to SEARCH PROJECT MANAGEMENT. Then there was an entire section coaching me on what to say when the vendor called:

"project coordinator" – stick with the job description. Repeat key words from the job.

Detail oriented. Talk about how you managed schedules, coordinated work.

You want exposure to the finance industry to see whether it would be a good fit.

Admin experience – mention that

When I read the job description, I recognized a lot of skills I used in my old job.

Was Spin Doctor part of the job description? Because I was definitely going to have to call on that skill.

Here's an advantage to having a weekday free: you can eat anywhere you like in brunch-crazy Toronto without waiting in line. Making the most of a bad situation, I met my friend at a coveted Leslieville spot where we joined the moms with strollers, shift workers and the funemployed. Of course, there was still a line-up, but at least it was short. April had also suffered at the hands of ax-happy Bell and was laid off the day before me. Misery loves company. And brunch.

I can't really recall what the conversation was like over eggs and hashbrowns. There was probably a lot of Bell-bashing. I'm sure we discussed our severances and what we might do in the future. And all of a sudden, we both had plans galore! I mean, for two unemployed people, we had a lot lined up. Yes, some of it was work-related, but much of it was holy-shit-I-have-unexpected-free-time related.

"What are you doing with the rest of your day?" I asked as we finished a leisurely meal with a leisurely third cup of coffee.

"Dental appointment after lunch and I'm waiting to talk to a contact about working the Christmas Market at Union Station," she said.