81 Days Away: No One Saw This Coming
This is a daily documentation of my adventure from Hillsboro, Oregon to Cape Town, South Africa on September 16th, 2017.
Day 20 throws a wrinkle in the plan (maybe)
Yesterday, I told my boss I was leaving the country in September and I was giving him my notice of resignation. He took the news in a way I didn’t expect; after asking me questions of why and where would I be working until South Africa, he tried to calculate if he could afford keeping me until I left.
Yes: My boss is trying to pay me close to double so that I stay through August!
Nobody could’ve ever predicted that to be one of the possible reactions. My heart is in travel and fitness (and writing about it), but I lucked out with this boss. He’ll always be the best employer I’ll ever have (because my dad is an awful foreman and I’m not going to like being self-employed all the time).
The hardest part of this adventure was telling him. And it went so smoothly!
So I have two weeks where I’m stuck in employment limbo. Either my boss finds a way to up my pay or I leave after that and go work for Lyda Excavating, my dad’s company. It will depend on if it’s feasible for my boss to get close to what prevailing wage offers.
(And yes, I’m aware that I’m making this choice based on pay, but if my heart is in neither and this gives me an extra $5,000 in savings, why not?)
If the options were even, I’d stay; sitting in front of two computers for 8 hours isn’t healthy, but it gives me the opportunity to write during the day, build my brand, and work with my beautiful girlfriend 10 feet away.
These next two weeks will decide my 2-month fate.
Honestly, I feel relieved that my boss has all the information. He definitely deserved the truth, and the amount of gratitude I tried to relay to him the other day will never be enough.
This job gave me the chance to figure out what I really wanted in life. That’s exactly what I said to him. In the end, if it weren’t for this position, I’d be somewhere else, absolutely miserable; I wouldn’t be moving to South Africa for three months, THAT’S for sure.
I am thankful for the time I had here in this office. I learned more this last year than I did in all of college — at least retained knowledge — and I got to see how Jess and I function side-by-side. Our relationship got stronger, we made miraculous decisions about our future, and we were given a springboard to test our ideas…all because of this place.
I can tell you right now, when we get back in December, I’m visiting this office, along with the amazing people who work here.
“Never be sad for what is over, just be glad that it was once yours.” -Unknown
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