Back on the Job

I haven't posted in a long time. A few things have happened. First, the Class 1 Railroad that my husband hired out on in 2008 began hosting regular meetings for furloughed employees. He won a door prize for attending, they gave him a free flu shot, and they fed him a nice lunch last time. It was nice for him to catch up with some of the guys from his class, and the meetings helped him to have hope that the railroad would keep him on the furlough board until business picked up.

Every once in a while we would check for openings with other railroads. A few months ago, another Class 1 had a few openings, and he applied. He got a rejection right away- not even a call for an interview. We figured that there were so many more experienced guys out of work that he just didn't have a chance.

Then about a month ago I was surfing the net and decided to check the Class 1's again. I found an opening in our city, with the same railroad that had just rejected him. We decided that it wouldn't hurt to apply again. We logged on to re-apply- and that's when we noticed that his original resume had not loaded correctly! The top half of his work experience- meaning his most recent work experience (and most pertinent to railroading) had been missing when he was originally rejected! So we fixed that error, and went on our merry way.

I had almost forgotten that he had applied when suddenly, out of the blue, I got a feeling that he was going to get a call that day from the railroad for an interview.

I was in the car with my sister that afternoon, and I said to her, "Wouldn't it be funny if xyz railroad called my husband for an interview today?"

A couple of hours later I found out that he had indeed gotten a call for an interview that very day!

So we went through the whole testing, interview, background check, physical, physical abilities test routine again. It was pretty nerve wracking because we were pretty anxious for him to get back to work.

About 24 guys were in his interview session competing for a handful of positions. Half of them raised their hands when the hiring manager asked if they had railroad work experience. He got one of the positions, despite the strong competition. We are so grateful.

It is so good to know that he is going back to work again. He's leaving in a few weeks for a few weeks of training out of state. I think it will be easier for him to study, without the demands of family life.

When I get the energy, I may blog about everything that transpired during this hiring process. Let's just say that we left no stone unturned in preparing for the interview and the physical abilities test. We were determined that he would be the best prepared guy for every phase of this hiring opportunity, and he probably was.

I'll write more about that later.