After six months of unemployment Dan finally has a new job. He is working for a company that makes software that manages stock. By stock I don’t mean stock cubes or invisible money stuff I mean, real life stuff. I had to try and explain this in French to a school run mum in the supermarket and as we were standing by the chicken aisle I said something like: for example, you want to count these chickens, this company can help. Then she thought he was working in a supermarket and was very confused as to why he was going all the way to Toulouse to count chickens.
The interview process for this new job had a lot of stages to it. It was two online interviews, and then he had to do some work and present it in Toulouse. That day went well and he was feeling pretty positive but it was annoying not to know. Then the phone call that we were waiting for came on a Friday and they said… “You have a confirmation call with the big boss on the Monday.” That was such a weird weekend because it seemed like he had the job but he just needed to go through the details of exactly what the pay is and how often he would have to go to Toulouse. But we weren’t quite sure if we could celebrate.
We’ve spent the last 6 months saying, “when you get a job we’re going to do this, or buy this.” The list of things we were going to do and buy was long and I feel like our spending over the past few weeks has been a lot. On the first weekend, (the weekend when we still didn’t know for sure) we bought new clothes for the kids, me and Dan went to a spa, a really nice warm pool with a sauna and steam room and then we went out to Spain for a meal. (We live an hours drive from the bit of Spain we went to, we didn’t take a private jet.)
We found a restaurant outside the Salvador Dali museum that was very reasonably priced. The burgers were about 5 euros so I said to the kids, “you can have what you like from this menu.” So Eric said, “ok I’ll have the seafood paella then.”
We sat outside and ate and then it began to rain, the guy put up the umbrellas but it was still cold and we weren’t really taking our time to enjoy it. By the time we were done it was tipping it down. We ran in to use the loo and then realised there was a whole restaurant inside kind of hidden away down some steps that we could have moved to.
On the Monday Dan had his confirmation call, which turned out to be just a chat and nothing was confirmed! I was so annoyed! I just wanted to know the deal so I could get on with my life and sort out when we can have people to stay, when I can go back to England to see my new nephew and work out if the kids need extra childcare now for when we’re both working. We had been discussing if long term we should move to Toulouse. If he was going to make good friends there and if he was going to need to be there two days a week then it would save us money to move there. I would be happy to live in a bigger city but I would miss living by the sea and I wouldn’t want to up-root the kids again. That evening he finally got the call with the details including the fact that after a month of working in Toulouse they would let him work fully remotely. This was big news. It wasn’t the original deal at all, they were looking for someone who was properly part of the team, that’s why the job was advertised as “hybrid”, but they really liked Dan and didn’t want him to be tired. It would save us a lot of money and also just make everything less complicated.
The random spending continued, because the next weekend there was a lot of snow on the mountain which there hasn’t been for a while and we really wanted to get in one more day of snow this season (we had one day on my birthday). We found a place that was free to ski on the beginner slopes but we did still have to pay for ski hire. It was a super fun day though, the boys love it and they can do it by themselves now.
And we treated ourselves to one more extravagance: apple crumble with a Mars bar ice cream on top! One day a few weeks ago we were eating apple crumble and Dan asked if we had any cream or ice cream to go with it. When he looked in the freezer we only had Mars bar ice creams. I said there was no way we could eat apple crumble with Mars bar ice creams while being unemployed, so obviously that went on the long list of things we would do when he got a job.
It’s mad what people spend money on isn’t it? Loads of people would buy a car that they can’t really afford on finance but could not bring themselves to indulge in an apple crumble with a Mars bar ice cream on top. Maybe for health reasons or maybe it’s just too decadent. I don’t know, but I would highly recommend it as a luxury treat, that would still cost less than buying a pudding at a restaurant.
Dan did his first day this Monday and he was in Toulouse for four days staying over at a hotel in between. It seems like it went pretty well, they have long 90 minute lunches and work late, which is not what English people choose but it is quite sociable. It’s quite a young team of guys mostly in their 20s. All the communication is in French which has been hard work. Dan is very good at French but it’s not his first language, and he doesn’t know slang or business French. He said it was very weird being in an office again because he hasn’t worked in an office since before Covid.
On his last day in the office this week they threw him a welcome drinks thing after work, which was very kind but he would have rather just started his long journey home. The train takes 2 and a half hours but his train home was delayed and then when it got halfway it decided to be a bus. Our village is not great for public transport so I had left the car in town and cycled back earlier in the day. Which was a good job because the door to door journey took him 5 hours 45. I supported Dan emotionally with messages all the way.
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