** Caution: This post is going to be long **
So, as most of you know, Michael had some job problems this last week. Everything was resolved and figured out very quickly. I am very thankful for that. But for those of you who are looking for the whole story, here it is...
Wednesday was Michael's and my 3 year wedding anniversary. We were very excited to celebrate and had big plans for our day. Michael had to work on Wednesday, but I had the whole day off. So the plan was for me to go have lunch with him at work, work on cleaning the house for our company this weekend, and then when he got home after 5 we would give our gifts and go out to dinner and a movie. Well, I was getting ready to go over and see Michael when he texted me and told me not to come for lunch, because at work they were having a meeting over lunch. I was disappointed, but went to see Mama and Dayton instead. While I was over there, I got a call from Michael. He said, "It's bad." I asked him if he still had a job. He said no. :( Obviously I began to cry and get upset. I told him I would see him at home and hung up.
On my way back to the house I cried a little bit more thinking of the bills we have to pay, our mortgage, and what this meant for our lives, especially with a baby on the way. My mind flashed to ruined credit and us having our house repossessed because we couldn't afford it anymore. By the time I got home I convinced myself that we would survive. Michael and I have learned a lot of financial survival techniques the last few years of our marriage. We have also learned how to mentally and emotionally deal with those situation. I decided that getting myself worked up wasn't going to help, it wasn't good for the baby, and it would only make Michael feel worse. So I took some deep breaths and went out and laid in the hammock waiting for Michael to get home. He got home and joined me in the hammock. We made a plan about applying for unemployment and who all to talk to about following up on new jobs.
For those of you who are not as close, Michael has not been happy with Dell for some time now. They hired him for a project with Pioneer out of Iowa. However, that project had fallen through a couple months after Michael began working there. They allowed him to do training for a while until the upper management at Dell insisted he needed to be working on a project or not working (He was a contract worker and was paid an hourly rate, so if they didn't have work, they sent him home and he didn't get paid.). That was when Michael went a week without work around the time we were closing on our house. That's when my anxiety level with Dell increased significantly. Suddenly I felt like this job that was such a God-send was not as stable as I had been led to believe. However, the people in Michael's office liked him and wanted him to be able to work, so they scrambled together and got him on an AgCo project out of Minnesota. This required Michael to spend 2 week stints in Minnesota. As an emotional pregnant woman, I did not care for that arrangement at all! But I was working 70+ hours/week and Michael was working and getting paid, so I tried not to complain too much. Well, it happened again and the AgCo project fell through too. This time, it was nearing the end of Michael's contract, and they didn't have any more work for him. So they made a business decision, and Michael, being the engineer with the least experience (not the one hired last), was let go.
On his way home from work that day, Michael called a few of his engineering contacts at other companies, explaining the situation and asking if they had any leads on other jobs. One of the people he called was my Uncle Ed, a senior mechanical engineer currently working for Aerospace Turbine Rotables. Michael had interviewed with AeTR before he got the job with Dell, but since he was related, the company chose to sit on his application instead of pushing it through. Well, after hearing what was going on, Uncle Ed went to his boss and pushed to have Michael hired. After convincing his boss, the two of them went to the head person in the office and explained the situation and the relationship and asked if it would be ok to hire Michael.
I got the call from Michael that he had lost his job at noon. He got home and we talked. We made a plan. We prayed. And we decided that God would not give us more than we could handle. We decided that we would not fret, but turn things over to God and know that He had our best wishes in mind. We were worried, but knew that we had many people praying for us, and that we would get through. We decided to enjoy our unexpected afternoon together, and we took the puppies to the dogpark. It's been months since we've been out there. The girls had a very good time. We planned to go out to our movie that evening to celebrate, but not get dinner, as we needed to cut back on our spending now that Michael was unemployed. While we were out at the dogpark, Uncle Ed called Michael and told him that the AeTR would be extending him a formal offer the following day by email!! We were absolutely elated!!! Michael asked if it would be ok to come in the next day and meet people and see the place he would be working. He also made plans with Uncle Ed to take him to the airport the next day. Everything fell into place very quickly. Praise the Lord for good timing, because He knows I don't do well with waiting. ;) By 4 o'clock that same day, Michael knew he had another job.
This was a stressful anniversary, but having everything figured out in only 4 hours was entirely a work of God. We had to wait 11 months for Michael to find his first engineering job here in Wichita, but this one came quickly and without incident. We are so extremely thankful for that. What a huge blessing and relief! God is so very good. :)
That night Michael and I went out to see "What to Expect While You're Expecting" and we were able to get dinner with our movie as well. It was nice to be able to celebrate without the stress of wondering how we were going to pay for the evening. We had a wonderful anniversary together (after the drama settled down). I got Michael a new Tungsten wedding band and he got me 2 Blake Shelton CD's and an hour long massage! What a blessing that man is to me. I am so thrilled to have spent the last 5.5 years of my life with him, and the last 3 years that we have been married have been the best years of my life. He is absolutely amazing. *sigh* :)
Michael begins working at AeTR on June 4th. He will no longer have to be going out of town for extended periods of time. He will be a salaried engineer, which means his paychecks will look the same whether they are having a light or a heavy week of work. He will get paid every 2 weeks, which means 2 months of the year we will have a 3rd paycheck. He will have benefits and 401K options. The job is stable and not something likely to change, which is good, because Michael can stay with them for several years and work on getting some practical experience, which will make him more marketable when he's looking for another job later. They will reevaluate him and his salary after 90 days, at that point he could get a substancial (several thousand dollar) salary increase. Then he would probably go to a yearly evaluation and raise schedule. This job will be so great for him and our family. I'm glad to know I won't have to worry about the stability of his job.
Michael will be reverse engineering at his new job. That means, he will take a part from an airplane that has failed. He will analyze the part and figure out what went wrong. He will redesign the part to fix the area that failed. His company will then go back to the manufacturers and sell the new and improved design. Those newer, better parts that Michael designs will be manufacted and sold to the companies that build the planes and those new parts will be incorporated into the design of the plane.
Congratulations to those of you who are still with me after all of that! Michael and I are very excited and blessed to have friends and family who love us so dearly and who care about what's going on in our lives. Thank you to all of you who were praying for us when we didn't know what was going on or what was going to happen. We appreciate it very much. We love you all! Thank you again for your love and support!!
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