. Just back from my interview at the publisher's this morning.
I think it went pretty well, better than expected. You have to remember that when I saw that, after the editor in chief had emailed me to ask if I'd still be interested in the job after they decided to change it from full-time to part-time, and then they posted the position on the job boards anyway, I actually felt a little betrayed by that.
Well, I'd forgotten to consider that they are looking to hire TWO p/t project editors, so even if they had decided in their heads they wanted me,they still needed to post the other position.
When I walked in there, the editor in chief was talking to another gal who works there, and the other person stayed there thruout my "interview," which was more like a friendly conversation and the editor showing me on her monitor what the files and filemaker docs looked like and how they updated them. It was a quick breeze-through, of course, and it would require some training.
While I certainly have learned not to count on ANYTHING, it did sound like they had sort of already decided before I arrived that they planned on having me fill one of the two openings.
I felt comfortable enough that toward the end of our talk, I decided to be very transparent about what I perceived to be my shortcomings as far as this job goes, and that is, my lack of knowledge about Quark and Filemaker. So I asked if it might make sense, if I knew I was going to get the job for instance, if I enrolled in an online tutorial for either or both programs. They basically said no, it's not that hard.
Then I said, gee, even if there was one of those Quark for Dummies books or another Quark or Filemaker manual lying around the office, if I knew I was getting the job, it would be great if I could take it home so i could study up on it before starting, just to try to get a leg up on it.
The editor swiveled around in her chair and picked up a Quark manual on her desk and waved it in the air. I felt comfortable enough saying in a kidding manner, Does that mean I have the job? They both laughed, and editor said she had to talk to her boss first.
When i left and was saying goodbye to both, the other gal said "See you soon." So I got pretty good vibes.
It may simply be becus, as the editor acknowledged at one point, it's hard to find good people when you're only paying them $15/hr. Yes, i confirmed that is still the rate of pay, but she pointed out that I will have more money in my pocket becus the company would be paying my FICA taxes and treating me as a regular employee, not a freelancer.
she said they're moving away from freelancers because there were some problems with availability. Some of the freelancers had small kids and not all were "invested" in the job the way they would like them to be, and some freelancers' work was inconsistent with others. So for all those reasons, they want to hire 2 p/t project editors who would be responsible for a total of 3 (not 2, as I thought) annual directories. the editor said she didn't feel that one person could do all 3 directories full-time becus it was just too much work. So that alone may have been the reason why they changed the job from f/t to p/t. I had assumed it was a purely money-saving move.
She wants to make a decision next week and have both positions start on Feb. 6.
So it looks fairly positive. It won't at all be an easy job. Learning new software always makes me feel a little apprehensive and it looks like it would be the ed in chief herself who would be training us; she tends to race through stuff very quickly, so this has me feeling even more nervous about it.
At least for the first month, they'd want us to work at least 2 full days in the office and then the third day could be at home. Sounds like down the road, it could be more work done at home, but it would require a lot of copying and updating the database on flash drives and bringing that back and forth, a little inconvenient. They have extra Macs so I could just bring one home and keep it there for when I worked at home.
So we're looking at $375 gross a week, 3 days a week, and of course that would supplement my existing freelance work. It won't be enough to live on once I lose my unemployment benefits in April but for now it will be ok. And of course if I start Feb. 6, it will further delay the end of my unemployment benefits I would think at least through May.
My monthly net after taxes would be about $1343. The bare minimum I need now to pay expenses is $2300, so once I exhausts unemployment benefits, I'll have a sizable shortfall of $957. Once my mortgage is paid off hopefully some time next year, my minimum monthly expenses would drop to $1740 and my monthly shortfall would then drop to just $400, which I can more realistically make up for at least partially with my other freelance work.
Put another way, it's certainly not a "cure," but it will slow the loss of blood.
In other news, I think I'm getting a cold. Hopefully will be rid of it prior to any work start date.
I also heard back from the husband of the husband/wife realtor team for whom i wrote that blog post. They only anticipate getting new blog posts once a month! It doesen't surprise me on the one hand, as the real estate market is still very slow. But no shot at this being anything other than a small $50 monthly injection into PatientSaver's household.
Keep on truckin'. That's all you can do.
How my interview went
January 24th, 2012 at 05:50 pm
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Suzanne
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I will definitely be availing myself of whatever free tutorials or free trials I can find online if I get that job and cheapiepoo, I'm hoping that what you said is right, that at least having a smattering of exposure of it will be enough to get me in the door, provided I show the right "enthusiasm."
January 25th, 2012 at 06:00 am 1327471213