Obstacles

It's been a day of mostly small, annoying things.

I've been trying to get work done all day and the universe has been conspiring to keep me from it. I've been chasing mortgage paperwork from 9 to 4:45 (about 15 minutes ago). The mortgage company--actually, the lender, specifically; the mortgage company's been great--the lender has been asking for stranger and stranger paperwork, including something that wouldn't be available for about 3 weeks from now: a pay stub from my new job.

Oh, wait, did I not tell you about that? Ummm, yeah. I'm starting a fulltime, captive, permanent employee-type JOB on Monday.

It's my first in a decade. And I'm seriously pumped about it. The company makes factory automation management software, pretty cool stuff, and they're the industry leader. But that's not what made me want to go captive.

It's my boss. My boss is great. She does things pretty much the way I'd do them (always a plus, of course) and she's equitable, direct, and honest. The rest of the company is like that, too, and that was the next reason I wanted to sign up: there aren't ducal fiefdoms there. It's not your typical software/high-tech company: people are nice! They are people you'd actually want to know, to talk to, and definitely to work with! There's a strong sense of "If you don't win, none of us win" in everything they do. And people tend to be pretty supportive of each other. Management knows what it's doing, too: the company makes a good profit and sets strong-but-achievable goals and they don't work people to death and then shoot 'em to get there. The offices are attractive and comfortable, they have great kitchens with lots of soda and nibbly food, and they feed people in the evening whenever there's a development push. The company is very profitable (I approve of this). Employees tend to stay there for years and their turnover rate is really low. Pay's good. There's a lot of vacation. Very good bennies.

This is the only company I've ever gone to work for where I felt that I needed to be a better person just to measure up to the quality of the people I'm working with. It's a terrific honor to get hired here and I'm very pleased and not a little flattered.

Here's the best part: I get to work at home. So I have all the advantages of freelancing (no commute, flexibility of dress code, and it's easy to solve the "What's for lunch?" problem) and all the advantages of captivity. I'm in love. :)

So, anyway, as I was saying.... the lender wants a paystub from the new job, a thing I won't have until sometime in early October. Oy. So we got it worked out that I can send them a letter from the company on Monday that says I've started the job and I'm there and so on.

And with that in hand, the final piece of paper would appear to be in place (even as I type that, I don't believe it--there's always something at the last minute, as today's scurrying around to find more bank statements, tax info, and so on), and our mortgage goes through with a small *poof*!

Next week's going to be long, but things will get done.
And now it's after 5, and it's unlikely that the mortgage company will be phoning for Yet Another Thing, so I may be able to get productive work done at last.

Obstacles