New Job Unlocked!

Occasionally here on the blog I have mentioned this thing that I have called “a job.” It’s the place I go when I am not blogging in order to make money so that I don’t starve while I blog. Vicious cycle, really. I have a pretty good job, as jobs go. Reliable hours, steady pay, no back-breaking labor, solid benefits. But ever since I started working for the agency there’s been another job within the same organization that has my eye. A job that pays more, sure, but also that caters more to my particular skillset and the way my brain works. I’ve kept an eye out for that job to open up for quite some time, and a couple months ago I found out that I’d have the opportunity to apply.

I applied for the job full of hope but also with tempered expectations. I think of myself as someone who is good at what he does, but when it comes to the professional world I am pretty untested. During school I only worked during the summers, and fresh out of college I worked jobs of a temporary nature because that was all I could get. The organization I work for now is the first place that I have ever worked for one consecutive year. With only a year’s experience here and maybe two years of prior experience when you add all my other jobs together, I’m just the sort of green young fella that might get passed over for someone with a long career behind them.

Yet if you have read the title of this post or looked at the expertly-drawn featured image, then you already know that I did in fact get the shiny new job!

I share this news on the blog not just because I am excited, but because it will likely have a direct effect on Adventure Rules in the coming months. Counted among all the new things that this job means for me is a move to a new city. My family’s future home is an hour from where we live now, so the process of looking for houses, packing up, and getting moved is going to be a bit of a challenge. My goal is to not slow down one bit here on the blog, but realistically there may come some days where all the stuff we have to do in order to get moved out will outweigh my ability to write a post. So that’s one reason I felt it was relevant for you all to know that this is happening.

Of course, it’s not all bad news for Adventure Rules. Once I get moved and settled, in fact, it should be nothing but good news! One of the perks of the new position is that I will no longer have on-call shifts. My posted hours are my hours – no evenings, no weekends. Unless I need to work a bit of overtime to finish a significant project, I won’t be working extra hours which means more time to game and more time to blog about the games. Oh, and love my family and stuff. I guess.

There’s also a pay increase involved, and because the cost of living is lower where we’re moving, my wife and I will be able to make responsible adult decisions like saving money and investing for our son’s college future. And then undo those smart decisions when we buy entire consoles on a whim (NINTENDO). But the plus side of that is we’ll have more games to play, which means more games for me to talk about here on Adventure Rules! No more weeks of nothing but Breath of the Wild articles, amiright?

This is a pretty big opportunity for me and it’s going to be an interesting transition. Here in the beginning, I’ll still be working from my current office for awhile, slowly incorporating travel as the weeks go on. Depending on when my wife and I are able to move, I might end up commuting for a bit. All that stuff can impact the schedule here, so I guess the moral of the story is this: please be patient with Adventure Rules as I go through this transition. The payoff will be worth it – a happier, better-rested me will be able to write even better articles and host even more compelling events.

“So, uh, are you gonna tell us what you actually DO?”

Oh, right, I guess you would maybe like to know that part, eh? Well, my new official title is “program coordinator.” If the agency were a party of adventurers, I would be the support character. I’ll be providing training and coaching to new employees as well as experienced employees to help them do their jobs to the best of their ability. I’ll also be coordinating special events like regional meetings or meetings with outside agencies that we work with, which means booking facilities, organizing schedules, and making sure everyone eats. Each program coordinator provides these services to a specific region of the state but can also travel to other parts of the state to provide support. A big part of starting out will be cementing my specialty – every program coordinator has a specialty area with projects that they spearhead. Discovering what I uniquely bring to the table will be part of the early months of the job, though it looks like my first big project will be related to analyzing data. Thank you, RPGs, for teaching me to draw conclusions from a grouping of numbers, because college sure didn’t.

So as you can see from the pencil sketches and poorly-constructed jokes, while my job might be changing, Adventure Rules will be pretty much the same. I’m still planning to be here three days a week with goofy articles related to the world of video games – and occasionally one about Dungeon World. If things get crazy and posts need to take a break for a bit, the one thing that absolutely will NOT take a break is the Blogger Blitz – a bunch of people are involved in that and counting on me to host it, so come what may I am going to make sure the event runs as smoothly as possible!

I appreciate you all for the patience and support that you will undoubtedly show in the coming months – this community is fantastic and I know you’ll get it if I need to take a day because of moving difficulties. My goal is to prevent that from happening altogether and to deliver to you great content that you enjoy reading and that somehow, just maybe, enriches your day a little bit. At the very least, it should be good for a chuckle! If you’ve read through this whole mess and you’re not already a member of the adventurer community, I encourage you to hang out and poke around for a bit – if you like what you see, be sure to follow so you don’t miss any Adventure Rules content! I personally recommend following me on Twitter, as I typically retweet articles from other bloggers that I enjoyed and also tweet teasers, screenshots, and stuff related to big events like the Blogger Blitz. It’s the best place to follow if you don’t want to miss out on one second of Adventure Rules fun! Thanks for reading, folks!

Oh, and as for my new design?