365 #6 - Tuesday, January 10

Today I am thankful for common sense.  I can not imagine how hard life would be if I were bereft of common sense.  It helped me immensely in my job search today.

The NY company did not get back to me with travel arrangements yesterday, but I did have the HR person's name.  So I did a little research, found her email and telephone numbers, left her a VM and email, and got on my way.  I spent a few hours with my aunt on family history research, and we found some new things, and got some other things starting to roll.  Often family history consists of 2 hours of searching and finding clues, 30 minutes of requesting a document, and 2 weeks of waiting.

While I was there, the company called to set up travel.  I came home, sent my career counselor an update, booked a flight, and then got a call from the company's HR rep.  She switched from a travel-to-the-interview mode to interview-the-candidate mode.  We spent 20 minutes talking about pay and benefits.  All the advice on interviews told me to not talk about this stuff until later in the process, but the company brought it up.  So, with a dash of common sense, I engaged in the conversation and found out some things.  At the end of the call, she sent me the company's complete benefits package, like I'd see in an offer letter.

The evening was spent at Cub Scouts - we made mousetrap catapults and used a block and tackle.  Pretty cool stuff.