How quickly things can change!!

I switched shifts today so I was on the 9 to 5 shift rather than the dreaded 12 noon to 8 shift. I toddled off to work, thinking it would be a normal kind of a day considering I'd be headed for a weeks vacation and this would be the last day before I left. But as things turned out, it was the last day I worked in that department!!

I haven't said a lot about where I work - and will only give the bare bones here. But it needs a bit of a back story. Just over four years ago I was working somewhere else on a contract. I really liked it there and was hoping that I would get hired on full time. But then Ron got sick and I took time off to be his caregiver. After he died, I was all set to go back when I got a call from my supervisor. To make a long story short, while I was off, they decided to let all contract people go and since I was a contract person, that included me. There I was, having just lost my husband of almost 32 years and no job. Both my sons had moved out of the house by then so it was just me. Not surprising, I started falling into deep depression but finally a few months later I gave myself a kick in the pants, got myself in gear and signed up with a temp agency. After I had finished the testing (and passed with pretty good marks) they told me they had an employer who was looking for someone with my kind of skills and after sending them my resume, this place said for me to start the following Monday. I didn't know that much about them, but when I went in for training, the person I was replacing for 3 months while she had surgery, told me that they arranged for home care for people who were released from hospitals or from walk-in clinics who needed visiting nurses or who were in their last stages of life and other various health care help.

A weird feeling came over me as I realized that they were the ones who arranged for the nurses to come into our house to help look after Ron. While I had serious issues with some of the things that happened at hospitals, the home care they gave him was excellent. In fact, that's who we chose for any monetary gifts people wanted to make. So when the girl I was replacing was telling me this, I knew that it was Ron helping to take care of me. At the end of the three months, I was told they wanted to hire me full time. I've had a number of jobs over the years, but none were as emotionally fulfilling and the people so nice as there. They had a position in mind for me in the Intake department - the start of the whole thing department - for people coming onto the program and I've been there ever since. While no job is perfect, this one has been so good that the not so good occasional stuff has been far outweighed by the job satisfaction I feel at the end of every day. I was a part of helping people, instead of working for a company concerned by profits.

I've been very happy where I've been, but one of the few other departments that interested me greatly was the Supportive Care department. This department looks after clients and their families who are at the end stages of life. There was an opening a year and a half or so ago and I applied but it goes by seniority and someone with more got the position. Then that very person got pregnant and here in Canada, maternity leave is a year. She went off on maternity leave a couple of weeks ago and again the job was posted and again I applied and again someone with more seniority got it. But it wasn't a "right fit" for the person who got the job and she decided to stay where she was and the job went up again. And again I applied for it, thinking I wouldn't get it, but still thinking "what the heck".

The posting came down yesterday and today I got a call from the manager of that department saying I got it this time!! And because the job has been vacant for a few weeks now, they want someone asap to fill it. So, it turns out that as soon as I go back to work after RWA, I'll be going straight to the Supportive Care department. I found out just after lunch that today was my last day in the Intake department. I have rather mixed feelings about it. I love the work I do and I adore the Case Manager I work with. And I quite like all the other Case Managers and my fellow Client Service Assistants. And now that I have quite a number of them reading romance - well, it's tough leaving.

But I also think I have a lot to offer in the department I'm going to. As someone who has lost the most important person in the world to them to cancer, I have the empathy for those going through it themselves. I believe everything happens for a reason and I think one of the reasons I didn't get it before was because it wasn't meant to be at the time. And the good thing is it's only for a year and when the girl on maternity leave comes back, my old position in the Intake department is guaranteed to be there for me.

And the really strange thing - I start my new job almost exactly to the same day that I lost Ron. He died very early on August 4th four years ago and I start working in the Supportive Care department on August 3.