Part 5: Big decisions
For a while, I’d been sending my CV out trying to see if there was any chance of finding a permanent job so that I could keep living here in the UK. I just hated the idea of being forced to leave because my visa was going to run out. I wanted more time to see where things are going with Kevin and more time to experience what life in London is all about. When I go I want it to be because I’m ready, and not because I’ve reached my expiration date.
I’d talked with Kevin about what would happen when it was time for me to leave, and we agreed that there really wasn’t much choice except for me to go and see what happens after a month or so. Not exactly encouraging, but it was the best we could do given the situation. After no leads with jobs and the March 7th deadline looming on the horizon, I had pretty much given up hope. I wasn’t going to try anymore. No more scouring through hundreds of crap job listings online or sifting through nightmare job ads in the papers …I was done, mentally and emotionally.
The day after Kevin and I had our rather depressing conversation about my rapidly approaching removal, I got a phone call as I was waiting for a connecting train on my way home from work. When I answered it and found out it was someone calling about a job, I wasn’t too excited or surprised. I’ve signed up with several agencies and sent my CV to so many places I’ve lost count over the past few months, so it’s not unusual to get random calls asking if I’m looking for work. So when the woman on the phone told me she’d found my CV online at Monster.co.uk and thought I’d be perfect for a permanent copywriting role, I didn’t get my hopes up. When other people have made similar calls I’ve gotten really excited and heard all about the job before quietly slipping in the fact that my visa will be expiring soon and I’d need an employer to sponsor a visa in order to accept a permanent role. Then their tone changes, they tell me they’ll check on it and call me back, and that’s the last I ever hear from them. I didn’t beat around the bush with the woman who was on the phone…I told her flat out that I was on a 6-month visa that would be expiring in March, and unless the company would be willing to sponsor me I wouldn’t be able to consider the job. She said she’d look into it and call me back with more information. Nothing new there. I went home and didn’t give it a second thought.
I wish you could imagine my surprise when, while I was at work the next day, I received a phone call from the same woman saying that sponsoring a permanent visa wouldn’t be a problem if I were to be offered the position. I was completely gobsmacked. I called Kevin as soon as I got off the phone and told him the news that I had an interview lined up for early the next week. I couldn’t believe my luck. I had gone from being completely despondent about my situation to being genuinely optimistic for the first time in I don’t know how long.
I had already resigned myself to the fact that I was going home, and somewhere there was a little part of me that was happy, I think. I was trying to look for something to look forward to so it wouldn’t make leaving quite so hard, and I’d come up with plans of moving somewhere warm and sunny maybe, or possibly going traveling in the Caribbean or Central America for a few months. I tried to take some pressure off myself so that I didn’t get too worked up before the interview. I knew it was my only shot to stay here, but I told myself if it didn’t go well that it wouldn’t be the end of the world. I told myself that, but I never quite convinced myself.
I went to Canary Wharf for the interview at a company called Vectone, which specializes in two things: telecommunications and East Indian television broadcasting in Europe. The position was for a copywriter for a new product they were launching, and I’d be writing all the content for the Website as well as any copy for advertising materials. I’d also be managing the online help forums. The interview went exceptionally well. I knew coming out of it that I’d nailed it, and that if I didn’t get the job I at least had no regrets. They said they’d be in touch soon. The next day they called and offered me the job.
I was stunned. Not because I’d gotten the job, but that my luck had changed so drastically in such a short span of time. All of a sudden I found myself with options, which is all I had really wanted from the very beginning. I had choices to make…big ones. I could stay here and take the job, starting on a real career path, and I could be with Kevin. Or, I could go home, start my life from scratch for what feels like the millionth time, move to a new place, look for a job, and be closer to my family and everything that’s familiar and comfortable that I’ve come to miss while I’ve been away. This job offer, which had seemed like the thing that would suddenly make everything so much easier, had suddenly made everything feel so much harder. One way or another I was going to disappoint somebody, either my family, Kevin, or even myself further down the road. I didn’t accept the offer when it was given, but explained that I’d need some time to think it over. They needed an answer quickly, so I said I’d call them back the next day.
That night I went out to dinner with Kevin. I tried to explain all the things that were going on in my mind, but I didn’t do a very good job at all. I didn’t even know exactly how I felt, so it was an impossible battle trying to take the tangled mess of emotions and thoughts that were flying through my mind and try to string them together into cohesive sentences. And there were some things that I just couldn’t bring myself to put into words.
I felt like I was at a defining point in my life. I could stay or I could go. I could take a gamble and take a probably less than ideal job (the salary they offered was laughable) and see where things went after a few months’ time, or I could take a different gamble and go home, get a better job where this work visa yoke would finally be lifted off my neck, but also risk losing something that could turn out to be a very good thing. I tried to look at things objectively, and particularly through feminist-tinted glasses, to make sure I wouldn’t make any decision based purely on emotions to the detriment of my overall well-being.
One of the hardest parts of this whole process was calling my mom and explaining that after all this time, and after promising before I left that I wouldn’t meet a man and decide to never come home, that there was a possibility that I wouldn’t be coming home after all. In every e-mail she sent, and in every phone conversation we had she would make mention of the fact that I was coming home: “In March when you’re home…”, “I’ll help you set up your new apartment once you’re back in March…” It was really hard having to tell her that when I came back it may only be for a few weeks until my visa is processed and I go back to the UK. I could tell she was disappointed when I explained my situation to her, but she said she wasn’t surprised. She said that she and my dad had discussed the possibility ever since they found out I was dating someone over here. We talked about the job, what things would be like, what I’d taken into consideration in my decision, and how long I might stay over here. I said I wanted to give it another 6 months and see where things stand after that. She said that whatever I decided she and my dad would support me in my decision, and that she was glad that I had met someone and was happy. I was happy, but I was still sad about disappointing my parents, even though I knew that I had to make the decision that was best for me and my future.
I was still unsure what to do the next day, so I put off making the call for as long as possible. I told myself I’d call in an hour, and then when that deadline rolled around I’d purposely thrown myself into some new task so I’d be too busy to step outside for a phone call. Eventually I did make the call and I asked if I could have the weekend to think it over. She explained that they needed to fill the position as soon as possible and that she could only give me until the next day. I said I’d have an answer by then.
I took the rest of the day to chew things over and didn’t sleep at all that night for fear of making a decision that would ruin my life and leave me old, miserable, and alone one day. Worrying is a genetic trait that I’ve inherited from my mother. The next day at work I procrastinated for hours all over again, dreading the inevitable phone call that I would have to make, even though I’d made up my mind once and for all. I was beaten to the punch when early in the afternoon my phone rang and it was the HR representative from Vectone. She said she’d talked with some other people, and that since I was hesitant over the low salary figure they’d proposed, they were prepared to offer me an additional 2K. I accepted her offer and said I’d finish the following week at Amazon and start my permanent position in a little over one weeks’ time.
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