Hurry up and wait

There is an old saying that I remember my high school religion teacher telling us. "Never pray for patience." God will test you, was the implied moral to the story. Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a patient person. When I am ready to do something and I start the something, I want to see it through.

Such is the beginning of my new career and life journey. It will be a literal journey eventually, but for now I am still at home. Since I am just kicking off this blog, I'll give you a brief history of my timeline.

• November 15, 2024 - My final day in the corporate world after 30 years.

• November 25, 2024 - My first day of driving school (160 hours, 1 week classroom, 1 week off, then 3 weeks driving)

• December 2, 2024 - School decides it's going to shut down for two weeks over the holidays. Nice to have time off, but remember the aforementioned impatience.

• January 15, 2025 - Take and pass my driving test

• ALSO January 15, 2025 - I get my first conditional job offer - wow, that was fast!!!! (after five follow-ups to them, still no actual job offer)

I'll go ahead, past the weeks of applications, dual applications, triple applications, etc. It was pretty non-stop. To anyone interested in this job space, skip the Indeed and Zip-recruiter nonsense. Find a company and apply.

On a Thursday I finally got an offer that I could accept. When am I ready to start? Now. Is Monday too soon? Yes, Monday was too soon, the next Monday you can start paid training. Paid? Halleluiah!!!!

Commence barrage of forms, physicals, more forms, doctor's releases, more forms, more forms and still more forms. You'll be alerted to these tasks through three different communication channels.

Get to the "training" day and it isn't training, just qualification. Once I'm hired, I can move forward with more training and then a mentor, and when I'm done with my mentor and "upgrade" to my own truck, I'll start making real money. Yes, my mentor time training is paid, but nowhere into "making the mortgage payment" territory.

I'm back home now. Waiting. Will I get more paid training? Will I get a mentor? When can I start? I hurried. Now I wait.