Finally...Employment!

I'm really excited about my new job I start tomorrow. I get to work at the capital for the governor. (OK, really I work for the attorney that works for the attorney that works for the governor, but still). I'm excited to be at the epicenter of politics and policy in Utah and maybe even rub shoulders with some state congressmen. The job has great benefits and no billable hour requirement. I will be doing all the legal work that the general counsel doesn't have time for or doesn't want to do. Mostly processing GRAMA requests, other legal research, and some low level contact with the media.

The hiring process only took four days. This is the story.

This last week was quite a roller coaster. On Monday, I interviewed with the Governor's general counsel for the open staff attorney position and felt like I hit a home run. I was hopeful, but I knew that it would be a competitive interview process. I had a friend from church that knew the son of the Lt. Governor. After a short phone call, the Lt. Governor's son agreed to try to help me get the job by working through his dad.

On Tuesday, I received a call that I was being invited back for another interview. On Wednesday, I interviewed with the Governor's Chief of Staff. I was a little more worried about this one. If the first interview was a home run, the second was just a base hit. I found the Chief of Staff to be inscrutable, taciturn, and incredibly cagey. He was a nice enough guy, but after a career in sales reading people, I was at a loss with him. There was a lot of this:

In answer to my long term goals, I started talking about wanting to be a trial court judge some day. He stopped me and told me there were two types of ambitious people in the world: those that work hard where they are and those who are just trying to get to the next thing. He hoped I wasn't the latter. I wanted to do this: 

But I think it came out more like this:

But I tried to recover as best as I could and finished the interview. I was sweating it pretty hard and put in some more applications that night as a stress reaction.

The next day I went to work at my other job as a case analyst. Around noon, I noticed that I had missed the Governor's office's 10:00 am call. There was some of this when I couldn't reach anyone while they were out to lunch.

I finally got a hold of the general counsel I will be working for after lunch. He said some of the most beautiful words I've heard in my life: "We'd like to offer you a position with the Governor's office." I had a really hard time playing it cool.