The good news: I am once again gainfully employed
As of today, a written offer has officially been extended to me by a top twenty fortune 500 company, for a relatively senior technical consulting position.
I have accepted their offer.
In this position I will manage the information security operations of a multi-state "infrastructure" provider (vagueness at employers request, to prevent identification), and will not be required to travel; though it is a 65 mile one way commute to the office (but it's really only an hour and fifteen minute ride most of the time so it's not that bad).
The bad news:
It's about a 40% pay cut from my previous job. They tried to get budget approval for the next higher tier position, but couldn't, and I agreed to come in at the lower level, provided we agreed that I would be promoted to the higher tier (presuming performance warrants) in twelve months. The next higher tier is still a 25% pay cut from where I was, but it's certainly much better.
The manager understands that he's hiring me at a position and pay far below my experience and capabilities, and he'd like to correct that. Frankly he'd like to hang on to me for more than a year or two, and he knows the way to do that is to make sure I'm not getting better offers from competitors every six months. I don't expect it will be a problem advancing within the company, now that I'm actually IN the company. The hard part was getting me hired in the first place.
The important part is, I'll be taking home more than our "monthly cost of living plus 20%"... though unfortunately not MUCH more.
Oh and on the slightly irritating front, it took them FOUR MONTHS to extend an offer from the date of first interview, and exactly two months from the day of my tentative verbal offer to the day they cut my offer letter.
I was hoping to start next week, but it looks like with the pre-hire paperwork etc... they won't be ready for me until the 23rd.
Funny coincidence, that will put me out of work exactly six months; tieing my previous longest time involuntarily unemployed (though frankly, I could have been employed in November or December... I just really didn't want those jobs).
What about gunsmithing?
This won't be stopping me. Crispin Arms is still going forward. My FFL paperwork will be reprocessed shortly.
It's just that now I'll actually be able to... oh, I don't know... pay my bills?
