city of brotherly love, pt. 2: the search

Ah, the job search.  It's such a party, isn't it?  (That wasn't sarcastic at all. Riiiiiight.)

It was not a party. To clarify. Unless your idea of a party is something that involves stress, computer problems, and the month of April.

You must be a tax accountant. Welcome to a place where you are guaranteed to feel uncomfortable.

{snickers}

I apologize. We'll talk about spreadsheets later and make you feel warm fuzzies, mmkay?

For now, back to the job talk.  To talking shop. About how I'm going to CHOP.

Bam.

Poet.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Aaaaaand, starting over. I just can't help myself sometimes. Seriously, though, here's what I actually did. It was a pain in the patootie labor of love!

Spending hours upon hours updating my resume, only to have my computer refuse to save a PDF. Boo. Emailing my dad back and forth only forty or one hundred times to address this problem. Phew. Dad and Adobe Business something-or-other to the rescue. Ok...now I have to find a job. So I spend many different hours on many different days poring over job options.  Researching different hospitals.  Talking to coworkers about options. Word of mouth, world wide web, carrier pigeon.  I swear, I think I did it all. 

Then, one particularly boring day in class last Spring (oops), I realized my laptop was in my school bag.  Being the...multitasker...that I am, I pulled that baby out and proceeded to do an excellent job of pretend-notetaking. Basically, I applied for about ten jobs in in hour.  All over the country, all different types of NP jobs (but they were all acute care jobs at children's hospitals).

And then...

...{crickets}...

Literally.

Nothing.  For a few weeks, I was sweating a little. (Why, no, that's not my makeup giving me that...glow.) Until I started getting phone calls! Turns out, my job application spree actually worked. I told myself I would stop applying for jobs, interview for the ones in which I was currently interested, and then I could always go back later and apply for more if needed.

There were a few standout places, which then narrowed down to 3-4 potential options. Houston, Dallas, San Diego, Philadelphia.

I interviewed in Dallas, San Diego, and Philadelphia. I did some phone interviewing with Houston, but they don't currently (or didn't at the time) have positions available for the type of job I'm interested in.

Now, all of those hospitals are great.  All have great cardiac programs, teaching hospitals, high surgical volumes, good patient outcomes. So, what's a girl to do?

There were several a few late night phone calls to my sister and friends. Some praying. Some research. But, I got a really good feeling about CHOP the second I walked in the place. Something about it just clicked. I remember talking on the phone with my sister the night after my first day of interviewing and saying, "It would be so cool to work here, but..."

Lots of "buts."

But...I am fresh out of school and have no NP experience.

But...it's, hello, in Pennsylvania.

But...I don't want to leave Austin.

But...there's all these schedule conflicts with my current job and school requirements.

...

And then they kept calling me. I would call them back, and they were so nice.  All of the people I met there were so nice. You can tell everyone really takes pride in the hospital, and you can tell all of the people who work there like what they are doing.  Is it perfect? No. It will be a lot of long hours, hard work, weird scheduling. Lots of sacrifices of my "free time."

But, it will also be amazingly good experience. Working with innovative people, innovative technology. It is the #1 children's hospital in the country. Gulp.

I'm so excited to work there. Like, full on, nerd-out excited. I am also quite excited to buy some new clothes. Can't go walking in a place like that, looking like a scrub.

 I also want to vomit. I think someone forgot to tell them that I am a twenty-six year old duckling. Shhh...

Anyhoodle, that's how it happened! Crazy to think about sometimes. My sister and I are going to Philly in a few weeks! We'll be doing some fun things, some job things, and some apartment things. Can't wait!