like the side swiper

My last post on August 16th I could not have guessed that the next day would be my last day at the company I had been working for for the last ten years.

This employment termination did not come as a big surprise to me as I know that I was hardly working for the last six months (or more). Putting in maybe three to five hours a week. I just lost my motivation to do the work that I was assigned to do. This was the fourth role I took within the company and so they figured they had given me enough chances to find a role that would work for me.

I received 30 weeks of severance at full pay, which is getting paid to me a little bit oddly: for eight weeks following my termination date (from Aug 17 to Oct 12) I will be paid as normally as if I was still an employee. Then, within 30 days of Oct 12 I will receive 22 weeks of salary as a lump sum all at once.

So my goal is to get a part time job close to where I live before that October 12 date, and, hopefully sooner. I've done an analysis and it looks like with a part time job paying me between a quarter and a fifth of what I had been earning and doing this until age 60 would be just as financially survivable as if I had continued on my current salary and retired two years from now.

My first choice of part time job is that the parish secretary position has opened up in my church. What is a point of consideration is that I am at the moment a warden at the church. There are six of us as wardens and this volunteer position requires monthly meetings where we discuss anything that is with respect to the financial running of the church. There are rules that say I can not be a warden while also being an employee of the church. We (the wardens) will have our next meeting in the next week or two so hopefully I will find out then what can happen. Advantages here is that the hours are only on weekdays (like 11h to 15h or 10h to 16h) and I don't need to speak French on any regular basis.

I have four other options, none of which really stand out as above the others.

The advantage at Home Depot is that even as a part timer, I will get medical and dental benefits, which I would not get at the church or at the other two options subsequent to this one. They would provide the training and the location itself is at the border of how far I'd be willing to walk to work. I'd need to brush up on my French speaking skills. At the moment it looks like they have two part time roles open, a spot in the tool rental place, and to work in the lumber/materials section. Both would require some French speaking skills, to know the names of the tools and of all of the different lumber and materials, and the lumber/materials role would need strength as well. Of the two I can't decide which I'd prefer as the tool rental is easy as people just come to me asking for a tool to rent, while the lumber/materials will give me some amount of exercise every shift that I work in terms of lifting and moving materials.

The advantage at Subway is that there are four locations nearby and none of them, as it seems to me, will ever have super busy times, so it will be mostly stress free work. Three of the four locations are within walking distance and three of the four are easy bus rides. I'd need to brush up on my French speaking skills, but less so as compared to Home Depot as at Subway it would be a very limited vocabulary that I would need to know with respect to sandwich making.

The advantage at the Metro grocery store is that it is the closest of all of the options listed above. This Thursday and Saturday they are having 'career' days where people are welcome to bring in their CV and see what jobs can be had. It is just too bad that I won't know about the parish secretary job this soon. Depending on the job at Metro (customer facing, or simply stock reshelving) I may need to brush up on my French speaking skills. Though, if, say, I am behind the deli meat counter, I think the vocabulary I would need to master would be limited much as it is for Subway.

The advantage of GDI is that the ad on the bus that I saw about them indicated they pay up to 40% more than minimum wage jobs. GDI is a cleaning service company for commercial and institutional places and they have part time positions. They would provide the training and I don't think French language would be an issue. I'm not certain I could get this job as on the general job application form they ask if I have a driver's license (which I do) and as a follow-up question if I answer yes to that, they ask if I have access to a vehicle (which I don't). Still, their questionnaire also asks what area I would want to work in, and I can pick downtown and west which all have public transit options. They also ask what shifts I am good to work in terms of day, evening, night and weekend. Of these I would say yes to all but night as sleep is more important to me. 

Since it seems I have so many options, I will wait to hear about the parish secretary job and hope that that works out. If it doesn't, only at that time will I investigate the other options. Doing this means I will miss the career days at Metro; but I figure I could still apply there after the fact if they still have positions open.