Things Fall Together

I was thinking that some of my readers might like to know a little bit more about my life than just the tantalizing tidbits provided in my profile. If not, too bad. I'm going to tell you anyway.

For the last three years in Paris, I've been working for a consulting firm which I shall call "the Office." The Office is perfectly pleasant, but the work is neither over-stimulating nor over-paid. So I began contemplating moving back to the U.S. My thinking was: I love living in Paris, but Paris is eternal, and parents are not. A couple of years ago, I start looking for a job in the U.S. in my own half-hearted, procrastinating fashion.

Early last summer, my landlord put my apartment up for sale. Under French law, I had the right either to buy the apartment (€298,000/$450,000 for a smallish one-bedroom with no particular charm or special features to recommend it? No thank you!) or move out no later than the end of my lease, on July 7, 2008. Since I was going to have to go through the expense and hassle of a move this summer in any case, I decided I should just move to the U.S. This gave me a firm deadline for my return, and somewhat more urgency in my job search.

Later in the summer, I was offered the opportunity to do some independent consulting work for an international organization which I shall call "the Group." The Group said they might be able to offer me long-term, stable consulting work, which would be one way for me to make a living in the U.S. So I agreed to start doing a bit of work for them.

In late October, my boss at the Office decided that he needed to do some down-sizing. Since I knew I'd be leaving by this summer in any case, I volunteered to be laid off. This may sound self-sacrificing (I'm such a martyr!), but it was really an ideal solution for me: it would give me time to organize my move and start developing my consulting work, while giving me the safety net of French unemployment benefits and health insurance until I was consulting full-time. So we negotiated my departure, and I was officially laid off in December. Of course, I then had to work my three-month notice period*, so my last day of official full-time employment at the Office was March 10. And then, I kept working for them for 1-2 days a week on a contract basis, so my really, truly last day there was last Tuesday.

On March 11, I got a firm offer for a long-term, half-time consulting assignment with an international organization which I shall call "the Corporation." This assignment should provide a stable base of income for me to live on, and (when my American consumerism gene gets reactivated) I can take other short-term assignments to be able to buy myself Pretty Things and New Toys. I'm really quite excited about working for the Corporation: the work is in my field; I'll be dealing with French-speaking countries and can continue to use my French; I'll be traveling a little bit and will probably pass through Paris regularly; and I can be based wherever I want (I picked the Twin Cities).

Big picture: over the past 12 months, things in my life have fallen together quite nicely.

But they say the Devil's in the details, right? Well, the details of the last few months have been rather chaotic: complicated move to organize; uncertainty in my work with the Group; need to find a place to live and health insurance and everything I'll need to be an independent consultant in Minnesota; constant interruptions at home from prospective buyers for the apartment; and the Corporation.

The Corporation is a Bureaucracy with a bold and capital B. It took almost a month for us to negotiate and figure out all the administrative details of my contract, which was finally signed on April 8. That day, the Corporation suddenly remembered that it needed to do a background check on me. It took another week or two to figure out how to have me fingerprinted in France and get the fingerprints sent back to them (in an act of frustrated rebellion, I finally just mailed the prints to them, which I had been explicitly forbidden to do!). The Background-Checkers have now had all the necessary information for almost four weeks but have not yet completed the background checking (and believe me, there is absolutely nothing interesting or complicated in my background!). And I can't start working for the Corporation until I'm Approved. In and of itself, that's fine with me right now--I have other things to do and get lovely French unemployment benefits for the days I don't work--but the Corporation wanted me to travel to Africa this Sunday, and if I wasn't Approved by Monday, they were going to have to cancel the trip.

Then on Monday, my Corporate Supervisor cut a deal with the Background-Checkers: they let me start working and go to Africa on Sunday, then when I travel to Washington the following week, they can have their way with me in person, checking my background, my foreground, and all my body cavities. They accepted the deal (lucky me!), so late on Monday afternoon, I found out that I'm leaving for West Africa on Sunday, will come back to Paris for a quick weekend, and then will go to Washington for 10 days. When I get back to Paris, I'll have about 10 days left to organize all my stuff before the movers come to take it away. (This is the part in the action move where the squadron leader starts screaming, "GO! GO! GO!" and everyone starts running around like crazy.)

OK. Deep cleansing breaths, Stephanie. Don't listen to the inner screams of "But I haven't even finished going through my closets yet!"

On Monday evening, while I was busy e-mailing about travel arrangements, visa request, etc., two prospective apartment-buyers stopped by, saying their offer had just been accepted, they were signing the papers this week, and they wanted to measure everything. This is great news because it means I won't have to deal with visits any more, and I'll have a better chance of getting more of my security deposit back (the owner was more likely to be persnickety in the final inspection if the apartment was still for sale). Plus the new buyers want to buy some of my appliances and furniture, which further reduces my to-do list.

Tuesday morning, I found out that I have a short-term furnished place to live in Minneapolis (in Powderhorn, if you're curious) while I'm waiting for my shipment to arrive from France and looking for a permanent home.

And I've had a total of four "good-bye" lunches and dinners since Monday. All in all, it's been an action-packed week, and we're just starting to kick it into high gear. I still have a million things to do in the next 5 weeks.

But even in the details, things seem to be falling together.

(Knock on wood.)


*In France the standard notice to be given whether you resign, are laid off, or are fired, is three months! Plus severance pay, if you've been with the company for more then two years. What a strange and marvelous land this is!