I just accepted an offer!

I've just accepted an offer for a job that I am excited about, working for a company that makes a great product, and for a boss who can teach me new things. I am so psyched!

I'll be spending the coming week re-reading The First 90 Days and making some initial notes as well as reviewing the casts on "Managing Your Boss" and "Jump Starting Internal Customer Relationships".

For those of you keeping score at home, March 12th marked the beginning of Month 6 of my unemployment/job search. If you listened to the "Getting Laid Off - Finances Rule" cast, Mark says it takes, on average, 4-6 months to find a new job. It took me 5 months and 2 days. Mark is right again! If you haven't started planning for the day you unexpectedly find yourself unemployed, start now. It may make the difference between finding the job you want and selling insurance door-to-door to make ends meet.

I'll put this as plainly as possible: the interview series works. Key things for me from the interview series:
- There is no such thing as over-rehearsing your answers.
- Handwritten thank you notes do make a difference.
- CLOSE EVERYBODY!

During the past five months I've learned just how much of my identity is tied to what I do for a living or, more specifically, what I achieve over time. The key to not going crazy was to find other things to accomplish and feel good about while job hunting. Some of the thing I did:

- Volunteered in my daughter's kindergarten class twice a week. 20 kindegartners look forward to me being there. The hugs and compliments from small children are beyond value. I'm going to miss them a lot.
- Refined my cooking skills from following a recipe to creating great-tasting food using available ingredients.
- Improved my photography skills by learning how to take pictures of verbs instead of nouns.
- Learned to ski the black runs (ok, at least some of them :) ).