A New Chapter

My friend Alison put it that way, and it seems just right.

Life is finally -- FINALLY!! -- turning a page.

After two long years looking for a full-time job, I just about have one.  I started this week.

What, you say, how can you not know if you have a job? 

Well, said job will have me returning to the Embassy to work as a secretary, and doing so requires a security clearance.  I've been offered the job provisionally, and even been able to start -- but if the Department finds that I don't merit the clearance when they finish their investigation, I'll not be able to keep the job.  Given everything I've been through in the last three years, I'm not taking anything for granted.  Logically, I should receive the clearance, but lots of other things that should have made sense these last few years didn't, so I am holding my breath.

There's also the matter of the four-month trial period.  With French permanent job contracts, there is an initial "period d'essai" in which either the employer or the employee can walk away with no penalty.  So until you're through the trial period, you're not assured of the job either.  That, I think, is hopefully not an issue in this case!

All this is to say that for the time being, I'm keeping my weekend job at the bookstore.  Yes I'll be working seven days a week. But that's fine -- for the past two years, I've been working two or three or four or five days a week, so I can stand to put in some time.   And I found that as the end of the "normal" work week approached, I was looking more and more forward to going back to the bookstore.  They're two totally different kinds of work, so that helps too.

I was hired to be the secretary in the Embassy's Administrative section, but upon arriving Monday, they sent me upstairs to work for the Embassy #2 (Official Title: Deputy Chief of Mission, or DCM).  This is the front office with the Ambassador, the DCM, the Ambassador's Office Management Specialist (OMS, a professional State Dept. Foreign Service secretary), and the DCM's OMS (for the moment, me).  So it's the nerve center of the whole embassy in a way and certainly an honor to be there.  In addition, our current DCM is a very nice man and super smart guy, so he's a pleasure to work for; my counterpart who works for the Ambassador is lovely, VERY good at her job, and happy to be helpful; and the Ambassador is a class act. 

Working in the front office is kind of a pressure cooker because of course there are all sorts of demands on the time of the Ambassador and the DCM, and it's up to the AMB OMS, myself and a "Staff Aide" (a junior officer who does usually a six-month rotation to help out substantively in the front office -- the current incumbent is ALSO terrifically talented and super nice) to manage those demands.  Our DCM, however, is finishing up his tour here and will be leaving post at the end of June.  So he's scaling back his schedule, meaning that there is probably never an easier time to learn the job.  There's less pressure now than there normally is.

So, as I prepare to go back to the bookstore this morning, I'm wrapping up my first week in my "new" life.  It's been a fun week -- the Americans at the Embassy, who have almost all changed since I worked there, have been very welcoming, while the French employees, who are the backbone of the Embassy and stay constant for years, have been delighted to see me return.  It's been very gratifying -- and a huge ego-booster -- to see the faces of people light up as they see me coming down the hall.   When I explain that I'm now back as local staff, they smile and seem genuinely pleased to know I'm back on board.

If and when the moment comes that I resign from the bookstore, I will be quite sad.  I will miss it a lot.  These last two years have been hard because we've felt in such a limbo -- without a decent income, our lives have been a bit on hold and we've not been able to do or have a lot of things that might have made life a little nicer.  But I have enjoyed so much working at the shop, being surrounded by books, talking about books, reading about books, reading books, same with magazines, meeting nice people . . . I don't know, I'm not explaining it very well, but the bookstore has been an unalloyed positive in my life, and I will miss the connection to it when I am just another client.  I am grateful to the opportunity that the deputy director and HR director gave me two years ago . . . they might have brushed me aside as "too qualified" but they decided to take a chance on me.  I believe they have been well served by their decision, as have I.

So there's a little bit of irony.  Now, if everything works out and I retain the position permanently, we will have more money and hopefully be able to move out of this closet, and maybe start traveling a few weekends in France again -- maybe I can even save up and get a French driver's license.  Ultimately I want a car here again, but I'll be happy at first with going by train and then with being able to rent a car.  But I will miss the first job that I've truly enjoyed for years.

It's also a bit of an adjustment to my new position.  For example, the first day, one of the Ambassador's meetings was with the German Marshall Fund president and the Paris office director.  I interviewed for that position -- and was a finalist -- when I first got here.  Now I'm "just" the assistant who shows them in the door.  The Political section officers walk by and go in to talk substance, and I'm "just" making car & driver reservations.  But I believe I can do a good job, and I am proud to be some small part of helping the American mission in France do its job.  I can get my intellectual stimulation outside of work, just do a good job, and go home and not have to worry about things.

Anyway, those are my reflections as we turn the page.  Please keep your fingers crossed for me that the clearance will eventually come through, and I can settle into this new job and this new life -- and a new apartment a few months down the line!!

Comments

[Carolyn]

Oh, what fantastic and well-deserved news! Fingers massively crossed that this all goes smoothly -- a wonderful new chapter, indeed!

I think your reflections are incredibly intelligent re doing a good job and (for now, anyway - how long until you're offered one of the 'higher' positions!?) then being free of the often-insane 24/7 stress and pressure that many exec level positions carry as a matter of course these days. Not that you couldn't do those very well, too, and already have - just you're in a different place in your life etc.

Whatever happens next, GOOD ON YA and enjoy! We will miss seeing you at the bookstore.

Cheers and *clink* -- and how great all your French colleagues now have you back as a local :)

[anne]

Super super super... and well deserved, after all your perseverance..

I am so pleased and happy for you. Lets hope it all works out for you. xx

[Res]

Congratulations! Hopefully we'll still cross paths at the bookstore once in a while!

[Diana Strinati Baur]

Got a little emotional reading this. I know what you have been through. I (with a little piece reserved for the security clearance) am over the moon happy for you. So so thrilled. Your perseverance, your modesty and your intelligence have all conspired to move you forward. I will toast you tonight with a glass of good Piemontese Barbera.

;)

[nyc/caribbean ragazza]

This is so exciting!!

I'll keep my fingers crossed regarding your security clearance as well.

Congrats again.

[giftsofthejourney (Elizabeth Harper)]

I've been trying to get back here to comment since reading this post when I first saw it.

FINALLY ... does seem a good word to start with, you finally have a job that you can enjoy and earn more or what you're used to as well as being in familiar surroundings. I am so happy for you Kim.

Selfishly, perhaps soon there will some extra in your travel budget for exploring Cornwall. Of course, I'm not ruling out a trip to Paris to see you in your ' City of Lights ' either. :)

Big congratulations and well done!

[Mariellen]

As a person looking for a job and surrounded by people who are very well qualified and experienced also loking for a job...all I can say is WELL DONE! VERY, VERY, well done. I hope that security clearance held/holds good for you. Phew! been through that one too.

[Drew]

I realize you only post periodically so I stop by once a week or so to check on your blog. It's so good to see that you're excited about working at the Embassy. I must confess I have really enjoyed all the stories you tell from working at the book store. When the day comes that you leave (the store) I think that may be the one thing I'll miss most from you. I recall a time in my life when I too had to struggle for a couple years yet it was not until after I had moved on into better things that I realized just how important the past had been in preparing me for the future. I can only imagine the hope you have for the future. I hope your dreams come true. The very best to you and your husband.

Sincerely,
Drew...
from the big state below Oklahoma, lol.

[Karin (an alien parisienne)]

It has been a little while since I have visited here, and I'm back to wish you the very, very best with these changes coming up! Wow! How wonderful for you, and I really hope that things go well with the embassy job!

I know what you mean about leaving a book store. I mentioned to you very briefly, when we met so quickly that afternoon in WH Smith more than a month ago, that I used to work in the Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver, Colorado. I was there for three years and yes, it was the best, if the most low-paying, job I have ever had. I truly look back on my book store work with joy and warm memories. So I can understand the bittersweetness involved with leaving. Well, eventually. I hope working weekends there will go all right for you. :)

Be well, best as you transition into this new opportunity, and I hope you get to keep blogging about it all!

[Ann]

So, does your new job mean no more blog posts? I miss you, Sassiland!

[Chris]

Dear Sassiland - We (your rabid readers) are waiting with baited breath for something...anything...to be published to update us on your comings, goings and in-betweens. While we've no doubt that you consider your life much too mundane to bother sharing with us, we (you know, the fans) would love to know what you've been up to, where you've been, who you've seen, and why you're neglecting us!

Sincerely,
One of many Kim Baker Sassi fans who feel that your writing makes us feel that we're walking along with you through your journeys.

:D

P.S. I only had to change one you're to your. :D

[Chris]

Please come back, Sassiland!