From Bob to Bon…

…Secours. Bon Secours. So the campaign thing for Bob McDonnell ended a couple Thursdays ago, and that same Thursday  I had a phone interview with Bon Secours, which is one of the main medical organizations in Richmond–they have a few hospitals and tons of small practices all around the Richmond area.

The interview went well, the guy said I got the job, and now here I am about to start my second week working for Bon Secours: “Good help” to those in need. I’m training to be a float pool Patient Service Representative, which is a fancy way of saying that I’ll be the one sitting at the front desk greeting patients and setting up appointments etc. Being part of the float pool means that I will be “floating” all around Richmond going to whichever facility has one of their reps absent for the day.

It’s kind of interesting how I even found this job: it all started with Hollywood video.

Jacob and I had rented a video for our hot date on a Saturday a couple months ago, and the following Monday I went back to return the video. The thing is, I’d recently read this insert in an Ensign saying that when you’re looking for a job, one way of showing faith in your search is to dress every day for an interview, even when you don’t have one scheduled. So when I went to Hollywood video I had on my fancy schmancy interview apparel–and also I happened to be carrying my job search bag containing copies of my resume.

I dropped the video off in the box and was about to leave when I had the thought that I should step in at the dentist office next door to see what job opportunities they had. Luckily I finally obeyed the thought after second-guessing myself and hesitating a moment. I had been letting myself feel very discouraged and intimidated lately about the whole job search thing and was lacking a lot of confidence, so I was a little shaky. But I went in and started talking to the receptionists with the pretext of checking out dentist offices and asking about insurance companies because we were new to the area.

They said, Do you get insurance through your job?

I said, Actually, I’m looking for a job; do you have or know of any opportunities?

They said, Well what kind of job are you looking for?

I said, Oh, receptionist, something like that.

They said, Actually, we are looking for a receptionist!

And I thought, That’s why I had the thought to come in here!

I was very pleased and gave them my resume and they said they would get in contact with me when the hiring person was in the office.

My encounter with the dentist office (they’re not part of Bon Secours) gave me the courage to ask around at the shopping plaza for other job opportunities, and that is when I found the Bon Secours office on the other side of the plaza.

I walked in and said, Hi, I’m wondering if you have any job openings or if you know of any. And the girl said, I don’t know, you’ll have to talk with the lady in the back.

The lady in the back ended up asking me into her office and we had an informal interview. As we talked I found out she is the manager of the Bon Secours float pool, and she said, Oh man, we always need people in the float pool, because people sign up with us (it’s an on-call position) and then once they’re in the Bon Secours system, they are able to find a full-time position so they leave us (which is actually my plan as well…). So she was really glad to have me apply especially because I speak Spanish. She said, Well, just apply online, but make sure to call me after you apply so I can pull your resume, because we get hundreds of them and it would just get tossed otherwise.

I applied and called just like she said, then waited to hear back. I thought she’d be getting back to me soon, so I was excited. (I kept looking for other jobs though, of course). However, after awhile of not hearing from her at all I began to think she was like all the rest of them who never get back to me and I gave up on that opportunity. I thought maybe the whole experience was meant to just be a lesson on following the Spirit but not an actual job thing to come to fruition.

Until the guy called to set up an interview and it all worked out from there.

But even if nothing had come of it, I feel like I received yet another reminder lesson about the importance of following the Spirit even when it doesn’t make sense or is intimidating (it’s amazing how often you don’t follow through no matter how many times you learn, at least in my case).