Today I woke up to a message from an HR person in Dublin telling me my offer letter was finally ready. This only took six months, by the way. Six months of pushing it along, negotiating how much I would see my salary reduced by, health care, and then a start date of sorts (end of Sept. presumably). But now it’s here, the offer letter. The terms of employment are full of scary and career ending terms.
“Don’t worry,” she says, “I know the language in the contract is scary. I will walk you through it in three days.” She is on paid time off. And paid time off is a thing. In the last year, at my startup based here in San Francisco I have “unlimited” PTO. But we all know it’s a scam. It’s for those who get pressured not to take time off, instead heroically swinging their hammers on the tracks all year long and saying they have no time for time off. Who takes time off? Lesser people. This is the implication.
Now I will be forced to take 25 days a year plus 9 bank days and I have allotted 5 sick days (negotiable with a doctor’s note). This is more or less where I end up anyway with what I usually game startups with, the initial run at the infrastructure automation to then bank days away for the first year and then take a month a year after that.
But that’s not an approach that fits everyone. Plus, I’m tired. I want to be less intense about my job. This time, I got little resistance when I took my usual routes into this company and things got done sooner. I will feel no fear about taking a month in August.
Now it’s time to prepare. I’ve gone back to the treadmill. Often winded with the effort. It hurts, for this isn’t just a treadmill, but an elliptical and stairclimber. It hurts. And now back to stretching and weights and strength. I will barely be ready by August. I am disgusted with the weight gain from the pandemic. But here, in California, we are done with that nonsense.
Now it’s back to the business of getting ready for Ayereland.
My friend, Jaap, has assisted me in the business of many Messenger calls and letters in preparing for the big leap across the sea to a land of no drought, no fires and equally high rents.
So far we know we will meet in mid August and gleefully take a train to Cork, rent some hotel there. Then we have secured a room in Kinsale, Connemara and even a night in Dublin to kick it all off. I can live anywhere in Ayereland. I am giddy with possibilities. But much to shore up before shoving off.
Perhaps this man can be my guide to finding the new pub to make home base around: