When despite your best effort, things do not go as planned

As some of you know already, I have been unhappy with my job. This is not a shock to anyone, but anyway. Within the past 2 weeks, I got contacted from a employer who I had applied for about 6 months ago. The call came pretty much out of the blue!

This past week I interviewed for a position that would be in effect a promotion for me. While I have mastered the technical skills required for the job, there were 2 things that concerned me that would not make me such a good fit.

The first one being delegating tasks. While I do really good at juggling things that need to get done, delegating anything to other people has almost always been my weak point. Usually when I delegate I am greeted with an attitude from the person who I am asking and it doesn't always get done. I usually just find it much easier to do it myself instead.

The second being a people person. While I do get along with people and do have excellent customer service skills, I never really considered myself a people person at all. Those who know me online might find that as a shock.

Those who know me in person and who have talked to me on the phone know otherwise. Now don't get me wrong, it isn't that I can't be friendly and carry on a conversation with people, its just that when dealing with clients it can be stressful at times.

I have another interview with the same company for a floater position on Monday too. The company seems so interested in me that they decided to just go ahead and schedule me a pre-employment drug screening test.

While I think that taking a drug test for a job is rather stupid, I understand why the company such as the one that I applied for requires one. When I spoke to the recruiter on Thursday she said that the labs are open on the weekend and I could go there on a Saturday if I chose.

While I received the confirmation email for the paperwork and locations that I could go to on Thursday, I was so busy and distracted that I did not end up looking at it all until very early this morning. Much to my surprise, none of the locations where in or in the immediate area of Boston. The closest locations were 20 miles outside of the city!

Since I do not have access to a car, this made things interesting, I had to figure out how I was gonna get out there via public transportation and back. I looked up the locations on Google maps, looked at the train schedules and devised my plan. Since I was up anyway, I would just hope on the Commuter Rail Train earlier in the morning. I just needed to print all my paperwork so I was prepared.

The buses to the Rapid Transit Subway run every 20 minutes from my apartment on Saturdays. I decided that at 7:30, I would start planning to get things in order, getting ready for a bus that leaves :49 after the hour.

I go print my paperwork, check and I am getting ready to go when I realize, the bus doesn't leave at :49 after the hour, but :39 after the hour instead, I almost always seem to get that confused! So here I am suddenly scrambling to get it all together and out the door in time!

I grad everything and I am now on my way! I did not have time to check if all my paperwork was there or not and just grabbed everything and went out the door instead. While I was on the bus, I look at the papers that I have. Missing schedule to my destination. No big deal as I knew that the train was leaving at 8:45AM and that I still had plenty of time.

Then I am looking for the required paper for test, where is it? Its not there! Ok, I do not have enough time to go back to my apartment and reprint it so I improvise, I will just go to Kinkos/Fedex Office and print an extra copy instead.

I get out at the train station and go to the Kinkos at Government Center, closed. Ok, I will just go to Post Office Square instead, cutting it a little close now. As it turned out, also closed! One final effort, I will go to the library on the way and see if they are open and print it there, also closed!

Now I am kicking myself for not printing the paper. I make a calculated decision as to whether I should go without the paper in hand, and decide that would be a bad idea and that I will just need to reschedule. My thinking being that if they are really that interested in me that they will make the accommodation to reschedule the test instead.

Since I am Downtown now anyway, I decide to go for breakfast. While I am eating I am looking at my paperwork, the one that looked like was missing and realized that I did indeed print the correct form afterall, but my computer printed it at the equivalent of 1% its regular size, rendering it unreadable! As it turned out, because I use Google Chrome for my browser and not Internet Explorer, it printed it that way.

Now I believe in God's provision and that He sees things even through our limitations. So I will just have to wait and see what happens. I know that I should have been better with my organizational managing, however this has always been one of my weaknesses and I will just need to learn from my mistakes in the future.

Thank you for reading!

Blessings,

Mike