Katy's Good News

I tend to keep quiet when I apply for anything regarding work. Be it a position at a new office, promotion at my current office, or a selective program. In late January, I completed my application to the Leadership Excellence and Development (LEAD) program. It is a selective program to enhance/develop leadership skills for people in the Central Region in the weather service. Within a couple weeks, I'd heard they were about to send out the "Dear John" letters to those people who didn't get interviews. I hadn't received a phone call, and assumed I would be getting my letter soon. During a curiously busy period of a rather benign weather day, the phone rang. I answered and was greeted with "You're just the person I wanted to talk to...Congratulations!" Now, we had just hired a new administrative assistant named Kathleen, so I assumed that this person actually wanted to talk to Kathleen about the new position. Then the person on the other line introduced herself as a higher-up with Central Region Headquarters who was associated with the LEAD program. I lost every ounce of air that was in my lungs, and immediately my hands started to shake. She informed me I had gotten an interview! We set it up so that it was the day after I was done with my evening shifts the following week, and in the later afternoon hours to ensure I would be awake and alert. 

Oh man did I sweat that interview. It's been a while since I have done so much to prepare for an interview. I contacted 3 women that had been selected for the LEAD program in 2008 to ask them about their interview experiences. They were all very nice and told me what they could remember. I went in to work the day before the interview to meet with our Warning Coordination Meteorologist (WCM) just to see what kind of questions he thought I would get. We chatted for about an hour, and at the end he gave me 5 and told me that he thought I would do great. I was iffy on my shift the night before the interview. I worked on some notes on topics in-case I lost my train of thought during the interview. I stared at my application (and found a couple grammatical errors!) and felt my stomach do flips. Amazingly, I fell asleep quickly when I got home at 3a. I woke up fairly early...probably around 930a or so, and couldn't get back to sleep. I got up and showered to wake myself up more so I wouldn't be sluggish during the interview. I cleaned up areas of the house I would be looking at so I wouldn't be focusing on the neglect the house was under during my time of stress. I put out my notes on the table with a pen so I could take notes. Paul came home and we had a nice lunch while he watched me stress. :) After he left, it was around 1p, and my interview was around 2p. So I called my Mom and chatted with her for the majority of that hour. She helped calm me, and when I hung up with her I felt ready for the interview. The interview went well... 6 Meteorologists-in-Charge were on the call, along with a regional union steward. I stumbled during 1 of the questions, and had to come back to another one... but they seemed happy with the answers. I felt ok after the interview. Then the waiting period began. I was a tad jumpy Friday, Monday, and Tuesday whenever the phone rang hoping it was HQ telling me I'd been selected. No call...and I started to think I didn't get it. I was driving to meet a couple girl friends for dinner when I received a text message from one of my coworkers. He congratulated me on being selected, and let me know that our regional director had sent out the announcement email!!! I couldn't believe it! Dinner was great with good friends and good conversations. You know as soon as I got home I checked to read the email myself just to make sure. I can't believe I got picked! Overall, there were 91 applicants of varying positions. In the end, 30 people got interviewed...and 15 people get selected for the program.  

So, now another chapter begins. It's a year long program from what I understand...though it seems that the last couple months is really helping to prepare offices for getting their employees to apply to the program. I have a week long, intensive training session in Kentucky in June, and after that I believe it's quite a few teleconference calls. It looks like some interesting people are in the class with me, I recognized a couple names on the list...and was told by our WCM that a couple other people from the list are outstanding people. I think that's a good sign. 

Maybe 2009 won't be such a bad year afterall.