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New Job?

About a month ago I sent my resume to a local resort, The Great Wolf Lodge, which was looking for an IT technician. No big deal. I’ve sent a few resumes out recently just to see of there was anything interesting out there.

It’s not that there is anything wrong with my current job. I’ve been an employee of that company for 14 years. I started there when I was 17 and now I’m 31. As I’ve worked there, I have slowly moved up the ladder to where I am now a manager. But the thing is, I’m completely burned out of working there. Other than cleaning rooms at the local Holiday Inn from the age of 14 till 17, I have never really worked anywhere else.

Fast forward last weekend. The HR director at Great Wolf Lodge calls me to ask if I’m still interested in the IT position with the resort. Of course I still am! I’m told that they had a good candidate, but corporate didn’t like him for a couple reasons and they have decided to widen their search.

This Thursday I had an interview with the current IT manager. He is being promoted to the corporate office in Wisconsin. To me that seems to be a good sign for the job, that it isn’t a dead end. He appears to be a few years younger than me, which is another good sign to me.

The interview seems to go well. Apparently they are actually looking for an IT manager. There is no one that works under this IT manager. 75% of the IT manager’s job is tech support for the front desk and all the office people. The MS Exchange Server and all the accounting software is run out of the corporate office. They don’t advertise the job as being for an IT manager, because they don’t want the add answered by people that expect $90,000+ a year and a staff working under them. One positive for me was that he liked the fact that I live two blocks away from the resort, so I could get them in a hurry in case of an emergency during off hours.

The current IT manager seemed to like me and thought the interview went well. The next step was to be interviewed over the phone by the corporate office.I got a call Thursday evening that the corporate office wanted to interview me the next day. I already had plans to go down state to attend my cousin’s graduation party. I told them they could call me and I would just pull over at some point. At 10:00 am on Friday I was interviewed by the corporate office in Wisconsin while I stood in the parking lot at a McDonald’s in Cadillac, MI.

The corporate office had questions for me that allowed to expound on my experience and my thoughts about computers and IT. As soon as I hung up the phone with them I knew I had blown them away. I just had this feeling that things couldn’t be better.

Around four O’clock on Friday I got a call from the HR manager. They wanted me. The corporate office told her to make it happen. So I entered into negotiations with her. I got more money than I expect to get. The benefits for the job are good. Two weeks of vacation to start, 3 personal days, BC/BS health insurance, Delta Dental insurance, 401K with matching funds to 4%. One of the biggest pluses is that I live right next to the place! I’ll be able to ride my bike and save a lot of money on gas. They also have a couple different restaurants in the resorts that I can eat lunch in at a deeply discounted rate. Lot’s of cool extras.

I still haven’t given them a 100% thumbs up on the job offer. I still need to talk to the president of my current company. I think I owe it to them. It would take a lot for me to stay. It would take a lot more money, frankly. We will see how it goes. I’m very excited.

Here is a link the the webpage for the Great Wolf Lodge.