Real Job, Here I Come

Good news for me!  On Friday, I was finally offered regular, full-time employment thank god.  On top of dropping the temporary status, I got a pay increase and I'm eligible for health insurance.  That was my main concern with getting to regular, full-time status since my health insurance from my dad was ending at the end of this month.  Now I don't have to worry about that, which is a relief.  And I'm eligible for personal days and paid leave too. 

Friday morning I spoke with my boss about tasks that I had to do that day and he scheduled a meeting for that afternoon that was just labeled with my name.  I had a feeling that this meeting would be about my future since I had spoken to my boss about it the week before.  It was still kinda awkward because my boss has a very long-winded way of explaining anything so for the first 15 minutes of the meeting, he explained the thought process behind the decision.  So instead of just saying, we're giving you a pay raise, he explained how this followed past precedent and how the company compensation plan is structured.  I tried to act interested because it's knowledge about the company, but at the same time all I wanted to do was look through my offer letter and see what my raise would be.

He also went into the recruiting process for the job and that they picked me because they think that I can have good potential to grow with the company and blah blah blah.  It was interesting information to hear about, but again I just want to read over my offer letter.  So I sit there waiting to get to the interesting part and eventually we do get there.  The offer letter though states that my job title is HR Assistant instead of HR Associate, which is the title of the job that I applied for.  It's a stupid thing to focus on, but still, I feel like 'Associate' sounds a little higher up or something than 'Assistant'.  I know that my job is clerical in nature and I'm still an hourly employee, which kinda sucks, but I feel I'm worth more than that.  Because of this, I don't think that this experience would count toward getting my PHR (Professional of Human Resources) Certification.  For the PHR you need two years of exempt-level HR experience, and my job is non-exempt.  Hopefully somewhere in my future, I'll be able to move up.  You never know.

For now though, I'm going to be happy that my job is 'real' and that I can have all the perks of a 'real' job.  The next step will be getting an apartment, which I hope to do by the beginning of 2010.  John is still trying to find a job so we might have to wait until he finds something before we start seriously looking at apartments.  I'm ready to move out though.  Living with my parents is getting pretty old, as is the commute to work.  Hopefully, we'll be able to move soon.