The Omnibus Good News Thread

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
81

I’d post here more, but my good news can be rather inane.

My husband and I saw a symphony and a play yesterday. I hadn’t been to a concert in probably twenty years. I don’t know why we’ve neglected the performing arts because we both enjoy them. I used to play trombone in school, so I was once a part of that world. I really liked the Rachmaninoff. We’ve been trying to get out for more dates so I expect more stuff like this in the future.

Preliminary, tentative good news, my son was just re-evaluated by his speech therapists and he scored above average on many parts. They have to score the whole thing but they think he may no longer qualify for speech services!

82

I’m getting married six weeks! You only have one chance to get married a second time, so we’re living it up. Decent size party, family and friends. I don’t have kids, but the soon-to-be mrs. does. I love my new family.

83

Wonderful!
And congratulations to you, @Yodalicious.

I saw this today and it can go here, even though all it did was make me cry.

84

I don’t know anything about her, but I’m happy for her family, since I didn’t know she was sick.

85

It’s official. Out of an average score of 100, he scored 120, higher than average by a full standard deviation. Last day of speech is this Thursday!

Today we went pumpkin picking with his ECSE class. We got some adorable photos of him in the pumpkin patch. He loved the trailer ride, and he climbed a big pyramid of hay bales with his Dad (as high as a two story building.) He’s braver and stronger every day.

86

Well, I guess it has been long enough I can consider it “real” now…

During the summer, I got a random email asking if I would be interested in a change in career… the sender was supposedly from HR at a multinational corporation that has a local presence. It was definitely out of the blue, as I had been happily working from home since COVID, and had no plans to change that, but thought I’d respond to the email and see what kind of scam was going on here…

I received a response to my reply, asking me to look at a job listing, with a link to the listing on said company’s actual website, so I did go ahead and read it- the job was definitely in the realm of something I was capable of, and had been doing for a much smaller company for over a decade prior to COVID; however, I didn’t come close to meeting the educational requirements and such that they set forth in the job listing. I responded back to the email stating as such.

The HR representative set up a phone call with me, and after our phone discussion, said he would really like me to officially apply through the company hiring portal, and that he would then like to set up a zoom meeting with the department I’d be working in; the zoom meeting was just a job interview type thing. Then the department supervisor asked if I would be willing to come down to their office for another in-person interview, which I did… and this job sounded fantastic. It was work right up my alley. And it probably helped that I had to be the world’s most relaxed interviewee, as I was still happily employed and working from home, so wasn’t even looking for a job!

The next day, I received a phone call from HR, was told that everybody was excited by the prospect of me joining the team… I was then “unofficially” told the offered salary. I bet my face was a sight, because it was a CONSIDERABLE increase over what I was making at the time, even before the benefits package that came with it. I was asked if it was okay for them to draft up the official offer letter and get it over to me.

It was.

So, long story short, my first day was 9/11, and it has been a great job. It was a bit of an adjustment going from “I wake up whenever and work on my own schedule” to waking up and getting to the office by 7am most mornings, but I have definitely been enjoying the work. For the first week, I half expected somebody to jump out and confess to playing an elaborate practical joke on me… but I guess it was real!

87

That’s amazing! It always feels great to be recognized for your talents and it sounds like they are treating you well.

88

Yaay @Kron; that’s fantastic!

Living at the ends of civilization as you do, it’s not surprising that skilled workers able to be there in person are rare. And the more specialized your skill the more that’s true. Congrats!

89

Thanks! It does seem that post-COVID, they had difficulty convincing people to move to Wyoming…

90

In wildlife news, captive Scottish Wildcats are doing very well in their conservation program!

91
92

I have been with a nonprofit serving domestic violence survivors for about eight years. I wrote grants part-time in my nice, quiet way until I was promoted last year to full-time Grants Manager, which requires new responsibilities like administrative oversight of about $2.8m in federal grants. This happened along with a ton of veteran executives and directors leaving my agency. Suddenly my new CEO is looking to ME for strategic advice and really pushing me into a leadership role. It’s been a trip.

I met today with representatives from the county continuum of care, which is the agency that provides oversight to all organizations providing housing services to the homeless. It was my first time meeting by myself with someone outside my agency, and I was the one who took the initiative to meet them, to better understand what they do so that I can write more informed grants. This is a really big moment in professional development for me, because I am shy and don’t have a lot of experience as the face of my agency. They talked about the need to have a representative for domestic violence survivors on their board, which was previously held by a veteran employee who left our agency last year.

Long story short, I’m going to be joining the board as a representative of my organization. It’s a little bit flying blind because I don’t know much about housing services or how the system works yet, but it’s going to give me the opportunity to learn so much that will inform strategic planning at my organization. When she described the role, which is about making decisions about funding and policy for housing coordinators within the county, I thought, well that’s me. I’m a proud and passionate macro social worker so my nerd brain is overjoyed to learn about a whole new big and complex system.

After years sitting behind a computer desk working in the background, I am slowly learning how to be a leader in the community. Today I held a meeting all by myself and got a leadership role out of it, one that I am genuinely pumped to be a part of.

That’s a big win for me.

And having the full support of everyone in senior leadership to take on this role is nice too.

93

Yaay! That is so awesome to hear. We like you for who you are. Those folks like you for what you’ve done and can do. IOW, votes of confidence all around.

Don’t let self-talk habits convince yourself otherwise.

94

I really appreciate that! And I appreciate you specifically for the support you’ve given me. Thank you.

95

Congratulations, Spice Weasel! Sounds like fantastic news!

96

That is phenomenal, @Spice_Weasel!

97

It’s bad that it existed in the first place, but it’s good news that the NHL has dropped its ban on players using Pride tape on their hockey sticks.

98

This has been a feel-good story for me, even when the ban was instated, because I could see that such a ban wouldn’t last, but mostly because the use of the tape was driven by the players. There aren’t many sports where at least some of the players actually celebrate gender diversity publicly.

99

It’s pretty cool. I don’t follow hockey at all but it makes me happy there were players showing their support.

100

Unexpected free money is always good news.

I refinanced my NY apartment back in early 2019 before I retired.

Today I got a check in the mail for $560.34 from my mortgage company,which is afflliated with a large banking institution. The attached letter said something about competitive offers in effect at the time they priced my loan.

While I’m not completely sure why they are sending me free money, my guess is that there was some sort of $500 towards closing costs offer in effect at the time I took out the loan and they failed to apply it to my loan. I’m further guessing that the sixty bucks and change is the interest on the $500. It’s sounds like an oddly specific guess, but I have a vague recollection of receiving multiple advertisement mailings for that offer shortly after I took out that loan.

But YAY! Free Money!