Day 59 Warn Notice – Beyond the Last hope

This morning I could not concentrate.  I thought about searching for a job but I couldn’t.  As the accelerated placement process was explained to me at my interview on Friday: the decision would have been made on Friday afternoon; the paperwork would have been given to HR so they could complete their end of over the weekend; then today a no post job requisition would be in the system.  Once this was all complete they would notify the successful candidate and then call all the unsuccessful candidate.

I kept recalculating the timing in my head.  When would they get all the paperwork completed.  How long would it take them to call.  When I finally heard back from my first interview the person told me that she had trouble connecting to my blackberry.  Was that happening, maybe I should reboot it just in case. 

I received well wishes from several people, which really were bright spots in my day.

This is my last hope of getting a job with Boeing.  The timing on the jobs that I have applied for through BESS has now past.  In order for them to have enough time to call, set up an interview, and then to respond, I would have needed to hear from them early last week at the latest.  A no post requisition is the only way now to remain at Boeing.

There could still be more last minute positions that come up, but he chances are pretty slim. 

My last two interviews that I have had, I came out feeling really good.  This is comforting, because I have dreaded interviews feeling that I don’t represent myself well and go into them very nervous. These last two though, I walked away feeling that I did a decent job, that I didn’t do anything that would instantly take me out of the running.

At about 12:30 I get the call.  “Sorry, best of luck in the future.”

It seems like every step along this journey has been a step of giving up another obsolete thought pattern.  I had to give up: my anger, denial, innocence, and sense of injustice at getting a warn notice; the idea of my current position in leadership development; my outdated ideas about how to look for a job (didn’t have many left after 22 years so this as somewhat new territory); and now I have to give up the last vestige of hope that I could just find a new position in Boeing and somehow avoid this lay off.  

It gets more complicated from here on out. 

I am unsure how much of my ego is tied into my professional persona and what the effects of losing the profession part will do. 

When I started with Boeing I think I received about two weeks of vacation.  I wasn’t one to let vacation build up.  Now I think I get close to 4 weeks per year.  The average job search is about a month per $10,000.  To have time off counted in months instead of weeks is rather daunting.

My boss called in the afternoon.  “Let’s keep hoping that something will turn up.  And let’s set up an exit meeting for Friday, just in case.”   

I will have to reset my job counter.  Taking out all of the Boeing jobs that I have applied for inside the company.  And I will have to start applying for jobs from outside, as a civilian of sorts.