USAA Job

A few days ago, a fellow I used to work with who is now at USAA called me up. Now, I hadn't spoken to him since he left our place of work about 3 years ago, so this was an unusual thing. He told me that he was in the IIS and Exchange support group and that they had an opening. He asked if I was still looking, to which I gave my standard reply: "I never close my eyes to opportunity."

He said "Good," and asked that I send him my resume right away so that he could give it to the team to look over. I asked what the job was all about, but he said he didn't have a job description to give me right then. He said that it was my kind of job, though - Microsoft Exchange support. He told me to just send my resume and he's send back the job description later. Okay, I'll bite, I figured.

As it turns out, it was just my kind of job. Good pay, and benefits, not to mention that USAA is consistently listed as one of the top places to work. It was my dream to work there when I first started college in 1993, so I was fairly excited but also a little apprehensive. I had heard that USAA was a fairly high-stress place to work. I was also worried that maybe the time wasn't right to change jobs considering baby H2 is arriving in not long at all.

Jen and I talked it over at length, and after asking my friend some more questions, I finally decided that the time just was not right. I emailed him my regrets. This last part was today, in fact. Concurrently with emailing him (roughly) another fellow from there called my house to talk to me. Jen phoned to let me know and gave me his number. I phoned him back and left a message, which was answered by a phone call about 2 minutes later. He sounded fairly excited and told me that he thought my resume was very strong and that they wanted to set up an informal phone interview with me as soon as possible. I regretfully and sadly explained to him that I'd decided not to apply for the job, how I was about to have a baby and didn't want to start a new job and then ask for time off. He said that he respected that and understood. However, he also said that he wanted to keep my resume and that he might call me again sometime - "People change all the time over here," he said.

I thanked him and told him I really was sorry that I had to pass up such a good opportunity, and we hung up.

I was fairly sad about that, but Jen and I had really decided that the time wasn't right. To change jobs and risk not being able to get off work was just not worth it. I am planning to take 6 weeks off under FMLA when the baby is born and that's just not something you can do right after you start a new job. For one thing, I have that much sick leave saved up (and more) at my current job and I'll get paid for the 6 weeks. Also, I was kind of afraid of the high-stress environment I've heard so much about at USAA, which I'm not at all used to. I also know that when business turns down, layoffs are not at all unusual. I don't know if I could deal with being laid off. That would be crushing.

Oh well, there goes opportunity, but I'm sure that I made the right decision. Aren't I?