"Yes!"

“Yes!”

I’m not talking about what my wife told me after I proposed; I’m talking about a way of living.  When opportunity knocks… answer the door.  My wife and I have noticed that we both tend to live life that way and we sometimes sit back amazed at where we are and trying to remember how we got here.

Where to next?  Back to the USA!!!  The next chapter for us is Bloomington, Indiana, where my wife is taking a promotion and I have also found a great job.  We aren’t sure that we’re quite ready to leave Europe, but then we wouldn’t be in Europe if we always had to be sure about things.  Sometimes a leap of faith is required to take you out of your comfort zone and keep your mind nimble.  And in the great American tradition before we depart the UK we will… 

ROAD TRIP!!!

OLYMPICS!!!

I am sitting about 15 rows from the field at men's semifinal Olympic football. Sweet!

Never thought I'd say this...

Giving me more vacation days is approaching ridiculousness.

I just filled out my benefit elections for the year and since I get the best benefits via my wife's job I only had to elect the 3 extra vacation days.  I wonder if declining the vacation gives you negative personality points in the HR file or raises the company health insurance risk profile...

So I got to interview in the UK a couple times before I landed this job so I can say that 25-28 days of vacation (or "holiday" as the Brit's call it) is pretty standard for a full-time professional job in the UK.  Surprisingly, so is a private health insurance benefit (costing you above what you already can't get out of paying to the "free" national insurance scheme that apparently is insufficient but that deserves its own entry).  I currently get 25 days holiday, and I think 9 national holidays (US is usually 11-12 national holidays but only 10-15 days of vacation to start).  I also have the option to "buy" an additional 3 days at my daily salary rate, but I'm given a "flexible benefit allotment" amount that covers this plus allows a little surplus to defer to my pension.  Needless to say, I signed up for the extra vacation days to help feed my travel habit.

The benefits were recently re-evaluated and now we have the option to purchase 5 days instead of the usual 3.  That means a clean 30 days per year for me!  Now before you go and say "no wonder Europe is crashing", let's think about this.  As a salaried professional, I'm expected to get the job done, and not paid overtime.  Giving the option to purchase extra vacation doesn't reduce my yearly objectives, so most likely the company will still receive the same net work/benefit from an employee regardless of  whether I skip 5 days of work over a year.  On the flip side, I'm extremely grateful and the money I spend on vacation will keep me coming back to work!  What if the US began offering a "purchase" of vacation time before implementing mandatory furloughs?  It accomplishes nearly the same thing but with an entirely different outlook by the employee.

The fine print:  the flexible benefit allows you to choose +/- 5 days, so if you elect gym membership or private health insurance that costs more than the standard allotment 'selling' a vacation day can compensate in lieu of salary deduction to cover additional costs.  Either way the choice is appreciated by employees whatever their situation.  Happy employees are more likely to stick around and do their job well.

I think I'll take this Friday off and fly to Barcelona...

I am unemployed

They say the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem...

I'm unemployed.  I can no longer deny that I am unemployed; the recognized description is essentially anybody that is not currently employed but looking for employment.  I quit my job in October of 2009 to take the opportunity of a lifetime and travel to Ireland with my girlfriend.  The writing was on the wall at my company, funding was limited and even without knowing that it didn't make sense to employ 50 people in R&D when the company wasn't selling any products and knew it would have to wait through at least two years before market approval once the impending clinical trial began.  So I alternated  between spending some time in Ireland and some time back in AZ with my family and friends that I hadn't spent so much time with over the previous five years.  I had quit my job but was not seeking another so I somehow felt better inside, telling myself I was not unemployed since I was not seeking employment.  Then I started looking for a job but only because a job in Ireland would result in permission to stay in the country rather than a 90-day visa granted upon entry subject to the discretion of the immigration officer ("Subject to the discretion of immigration officer" leads to the creation of my blog ironically, and a later letter confirms I had every right to be in Ireland despite their "discretion").  So I convinced myself that I still didn't qualify as unemployed because I was only looking for a job to get a visa, not because I needed the money.  Then back to the US and only looking for something temporary because I knew I'd be headed back to Europe soon, no use finding full-time employment.  Well, now I am happily married but that means I have every right to work in the country I also happen to be living in; a rare situation as of late.  AND I'm looking for a job.  We're here, we're gonna be here for awhile, I've got permission to live here, I've got permission to work here, and I'm looking for a job.  Therefore, I'm u-n-e-m-p-l-o-y-e-d.  Period.  And turns out if one were counting I've actually even passed the 99 weeks threshold (assuming I qualified as unemployed from the get-go).  Don't get me wrong, I've had an absolute blast and most importantly it enabled me to confirm that my instinct was right about following my now wife to Ireland.  Had I waited an extra month to quite I might even have been laid off allowing me to gain unemployment benefits along the way.  I bring that up as a good "almost" story but in reality here I am still getting by.  I would've just been gaming the system to collect unemployment through all that, and probably many people needed it worse than I.  I had some savings initially and most importantly a great support network that kept me going and now a wonderful wife that is quite the breadwinner herself.  I started writing this blog about a month ago but couldn't bring myself to finish it, and somehow lost the progress along the way.  I think I have some upcoming news that makes it a little easier to revisit this now, but I just don't want to jinx it.  So this is where I'll leave it...   I'm currently unemployed.

The picture is of myself during a post-interview café latte immediately before I began to write the first and unpublished version of "I'm unemployed" blog.  I was interviewing for a social media internship around the corner from my flat rather than a full-time engineering position, hence the lack of tie.