Be thankful for what you have

I’ve hit a string of bad luck lately.  Nothing horrible, but just a lot of things not going my way.  The latest has to do with my employment situation.

Let me begin by saying that I’m incredibly thankful to have a job, especially one with the federal government.  There are no indications that layoffs are going to be happening here anytime soon.  If anything, government is growing.  Sure, our raises may be cut at some point in the future, and the fringe benefits might be going away, but I have a steady job and a steady paycheck, and for that, I am thankful.

That said, I don’t very much enjoy my job.  Due to changes in the direction of the agency, my actual job responsibilities are so far removed from the job responsibilities of my original position description that it’s laughable.  The work is good, and some people do enjoy it, but it’s just not what I want to be doing.

I had a line on a new job that seemed very promising.  The work was amazing, I loved the atmosphere, and it was a job that fit my skills.  It was to the point where I was told “Just apply, and this job is yours.”

Well, you can guess where that’s going.

I found out last week that the job is not mine.

I got this news at the end of a fairly bad day, and I was very disappointed.  I hate to admit it, but I had sort of counted on getting this job.  I’ve been looking for other jobs halfheartedly, but I really expected this one to come through.  I had all the right qualifications, amazing references, and reassurances from those in the know that the position was mine.  I’m not sure what happened, and it’s not like I can change anything anyway, so I have to move on.

Instead, I’m looking at what I have now.  And really, it’s not such a bad situation.

First and foremost, as I said, I have a steady job.  I have a good paycheck.  If I got the job I wanted, it was possible that I would have to take a paycut or end up at a pay rate where there would be no chance of raises for 2 years or more.  Unless something changes, I will be getting a small raise on my anniversary here in September as well.

I have the option to work a 5/4/9 schedule, which means that every pay period, I work eight 9-hour days, one 8-hour day, and I get a day off.  Having a three day weekend every other weekend is pretty awesome.

I can take my lunch hour and go to the gym.  This is a bigger deal now that it’s cold and dark when I get home from work, as I prefer to run outside, but it’s a great way to get out of the office and stay in shape at the same time.

I work in a very nice building, which is not common for federal employees.  It’s in a great location too.

Even though I’m disappointed, I’m really happy with what I have, and will just have to keep looking to find something new.   With the economy as it is, the federal government has been receiving an unprecedented number of applications, so it’s harder for those of us already here to move to different positions.   I just have to remember that it’s not all bad.

Megan Smith

Megan is a 40-something government employee in the Washington, DC area. She got interested in Personal Finance when she got out of college and realized that her paycheck wasn’t going to go as far as she had hoped. Since starting this blog, she has managed to buy a house and make a solid start on her retirement goals, and hopes to help others do the same. Here is her story:

In 2007, I was a gainfully employed 20-something with no debt but not a lot of knowledge about personal finance.  It was a co-worker’s comment about Roth IRAs that sent me to the internet, searching for information.  It was then that I realized that I really didn’t know a whole lot about personal finance and that my current financial situation was due a lot to inherent frugal tendencies, generous family members, a fear of debt, and good luck.  While that was working for me, clearly I needed a better plan.

While I had no debt, I was also pretty much living paycheck to paycheck and not worrying about going over budget (I say this as if I had a real budget) because I had an emergency fund set aside to cover any overages.

Except that’s not what an emergency fund is for.

So I did a lot of research, read a lot of blogs, and decided that I needed a plan.  I needed to budget.  I needed to know what I was spending my money on.  I needed to prepare for the future.

I decided to create a blog not only to make myself accountable to others but also to share the knowledge that I gained along the way.  I’ve learned so much from my fellow bloggers, and I hope that my readers can find something useful in what I have to share as well.