Crossroads

Mark has been thinking for a long while now about leaving his job at BJ's mostly because he wants a schedule that is more conducive for a family man. His friends have stopped calling to invite him places because the assumption is that he is always working. Even when he does have a day off, he usually spends it recuperating from the hellish 60+ hour week he's just had. The company has been good to him and it is a growing company in an economy that is not so certain but he has started to feel like he lives to work rather than the opposite.

At the beginning of June, I noticed a posting for a job with the school district as a cafeteria manager. It is 40 hours/week, 10 months/year - the same schedule that I work. That means, spring break, Christmas break, Monday holidays, etc. would all be days that we could share together. He, of course, turned in his resume immediately. There are four steps in the process of being hired: 1) The paper review 2) The test 3) The panel interview 4) The final interview. He has passed step #1 and will be taking the test on Tuesday. One great thing about this process is that the woman who would be his boss is a friend of mine who is on my softball team. She was super excited to hear that Mark applied for the position but he must still jump through all of the hoops in order to get to the final interview with her.

Knowing that this job with the district might happen and being fed up with his current position at the restaurant, Mark put in his 2 week notice last Tuesday. Well, he attempted to at least. His area director (his bosses boss) told him that she worries that he may not be making to best decision and that he should take as much time off as he needs to figure out what he wants to do. She told him to apply for jobs and try to get hired elsewhere (not in the restaurant business, of course) but that, if he doesn't find anything, his job at BJ's is still there for him. I think this response is incredible!!!

At this point, his plan is to take the next period off (from July 30-Aug 26) to see what happens at the district and, of course, take a trip to MI. When we were discussing this change in his career and his desire to leave BJ's, I never imagined it could work out so well. We will be able to take the vacation we want AND he can wait to hear about the job he really wants before officially leaving the company.