Wow, that was exciting. No, not the New Hampshire Primary, but the pentultimate "Charmed" episode in which Shannon Doherty's character gets killed off. Yeah, the idea of Prue getting killed off isn't that exciting, but if you think about it as Brenda getting killed, well, who wouldn't get excited by that?

Anyhoo.....

A long, long time ago, before the Recent Unpleasantness even, I sent a resume to some place for a job. Several months later, I finally got a call in for the interview. I was balls out in the interview, smoking. Everything went well.

The job seemed good. Almost too good. Three weeks vacation, thirty-seven and a half hour work week, located in Fisherman's Wharf. The best part was that they said that most people complained that things sometimes moved too slow. Considering the break-neck, hectic, train-wreck of a speed of my past couple of jobs, that sounded dreamy. I sent out the perquisite thank you e-mails and was told that I would hear back the following week.

The following week came by and no word. I gave them a call to see what was up and was shocked to find out that I actually reached the HR person. Don't worry, she said, they still had one more person to interview, but I was at the top of the list. Woo-hoo, I thought, that was easy. Almost too easy. A month after I had lost my job, I had already gotten a new job.

Ooops. No call.

I called them again and found out that they loved me, but that they didn't have time to deal with training somebody. Told me to check in with them in December if I'm still around and give them a call. I thanked them, said a little curse, gave myself the "it's all for the best speech" and made a mental note to check in with them in December if needed.

December came and since I still didn't have a job, I gave them a call. Once again, I actually reached the HR person. Not ready yet, they told me. Check again in January but thanks for calling and way to show initiative and desire for the job by calling.

And so I waited another month, checking the job postings daily. One night I saw it posted again. The very next morning, first thing, I gave them a call. This was the place where the HR person, the very-same person who had been so good to me, had left. The new HR person praised me for my initiative, told me they still had my files, and that "I had everything they were looking for." I was so good, in fact, that they told me that they didn't need me to come in, that they all remembered me, and that they were going to interview three more people before making a decision. They told me I'd find out early this week.

Tuesday night and still no word. No biggie. I've been through this before. I'll just call them tomorrow. Besides, I have a good feeling about this job. I've been persistent. I've shown desire. I've sent thank you notes and called and said over and over again how much I wanted to work there and how I checked the job listings daily just waiting for the job to be posted. I should get this job. I've been persistent and worked for it and persistence and hard work gets rewarded. Right? That's what everyone says. After all, the universe should reward people for persistence and hard work because those are admirable qualities and the universe wants to reward people who show admirable qualities.

So what does it mean that I noticed while checking the job listings tonight that the job's been posted again? Except it's not the same job, it's changed. And what does it mean that after first posting the job over eight months ago, after interviewing about eight people over a period of six months, they decided to go in a completely different direction for the job.

Huh. Didn't see that one coming.