I have been horribly busy. I leave work on Monday and they are determined to get their money's worth from me before then. In addition to that I have 7 years of e mails and personal files to sort out from my PC which is taking a lot of time. I'll try and do an update post next week once I have some free time. However, the window of opportunity for posting is small as I start my new job on 27 March and I expect I'll be really busy again.

Things have got away from me somewhat this week so I wasn't able to deliver my promised posting at the beginning of the week. The reason things have been manic is because (pause for big fanfare) I have a new job. I resigned on Monday morning and now am working my way through 4 weeks of notice period. Yes I was one of the people I referred to in my previous posting who has a new job. I wanted to check all of the paperwork before making the news public, hence the veiled hint last week.

After 7 years I am leaving telecoms to move into retail, more specifically alcoholic drinks retail. I will be working for the largest independent specialist drinks retailer in the UK (all the time I spent reading about on the company on their website was obviously not wasted) as a Senior Finance Analyst in their Commercial Finance department. I will be doing things like month end, budgeting and forecasting, reporting and ad-hoc work like assessing the profitability of special offers that get dreamt up e.g. price reductions and multibuys. The work is very similar to what I've done here which I'm happy about as I enjoy this side of Finance. I will also have some arse to kick, as I will have a junior analyst reporting in to me. The job is everything I was looking for and the remuneration package is far better than I would ever have got if I’d have stayed here.

I'll give you a bit of the back story on how I actually got the job as it all happened so quickly. I get loads of role profiles sent to me in the post most of which I bin immediately (I identify my junk mail by the fact that my name has ACMA on the end of it) After Christmas I started opening these letters and I got a role profile for a job in another telecoms company which looked interesting. The role was being recruited via an agency so I e mailed my CV to them. I didn’t hear anything for a couple of weeks and then I got an e mail back asking me to call them. By then I’d got bored of the idea and was insulted by the fact they wanted me to call them (I know I complained about the previous agency I was registered with calling too much, but at least they were working for their commissions) About a week later they finally called me. After a chat on the phone, they said that I probably wouldn’t have the experience the other telecoms company were looking for, but invited me to go in and see them to see what else they had available. I arranged to go in the following Monday (which was about a month ago) After much indecision, I went to the meeting and whilst I was there they showed me the job spec for my new role. I said I liked the sound of it and wanted to be put forward. I got a call later in the week telling me I had an interview on Friday of the same week.

So I went in for the first interview which was with my new manager and the other Senior Finance Analyst. It was quite a short interview, and was quite informal as it was late Friday afternoon. I was concerned that I was too informal as towards the end they asked me why I wanted to work for the company. As we'd been getting on well I joking said it was the alcohol and I was just there for the staff discount! At the time I couldn't believe I'd said that, but luckily they saw the funny side. I thought that I was going to spend the weekend stressing about that comment but my agency called about half an hour after I came out to say they wanted me back in for a second interview the following Monday. I decided that I couldn't go in on Monday as I wanted more time to prepare. This really pissed off my new company, but I stood my ground (The agency started asking me questions like 'If it's today or never what will you do?' I told them it would be never and that I was going to be dictated to!)

Anyway, obviously I didn't completely alienate them as I went in for the second interview last Monday. The interview was with my new head of department and seemed to go well. However, I had to do a test which involved them giving me about 6 pages of financial data and a laptop. I then had to write a summary for the board based on the data. I had 45 minutes but I didn't think I acquitted myself well. I was concerned that I had only written about half a page which seemed a tiny amount for the data. Turned out I needn't have worried - they really liked what I'd written which proves they were looking for quality not quantity!

I got the job offer last Tuesday night and was in complete shock for most of last week. I still can't believe I got the first job that I applied for. The agency were surprised I was so shocked, but I think having applied for so many jobs here without success had really knocked my confidence.

I had to write my resignation letter last weekend and this exercise once again proved what a wonderful invention the internet is. Never having resigned before I had no idea what I was supposed to put in my resignation letter. One Google search later and I had enough ideas to write the world’s longest resignation letter. I managed to keep it to a modest one pager in the end. The company hasn’t formally acknowledged my resignation yet, but I have been told informally that my last day of employment will be 24 March. My last day in the office is still open for debate as I have 11 days holiday owing to me. I want to take my last week as holiday and so finish on 17 March (2 weeks today!) However, my manager isn’t so keen on this although she has begrudgingly acknowledged that as I haven’t had any holiday this year I should be allowed to take some before I leave. I’ll keep you posted on the outcome.

This is a huge post, but I’m not apologising as there was a lot to say.