To Burn or not to burn those bridges?

Good news, the woman who sits next to me behaved relatively normally today and respected my boundaries. Hopefully this is the end of the drama.

During my lunch hour I ran into two of my fellow temps from my residuals gig in April--Neisha and Shawnese. It was good to see them and catch up. Residuals did not bring back the suck whom I wrote about early last month, lol. Shawnese managed to throw a nice b-day party for her 6 year old and she's navigating all the red tape in order to get her job back at LAX. Neisha's pregnancy is coming along--her boy is due in September. She's still getting tired though. Hopefully she won't have to go to bed rest. Sadly, Neisha told me that Amy, whom she befriended during the first residuals gig, has left LA. Amy moved out to LA around the same time I did. She moved with a promise of a job, but it fell through due to her credit situation. Which is ridiculous given that the position she was taking had nothing to do with finance or handling funds. Amy's gig in residuals was her first steady stream of work since moving to LA. However, her dream was to establish herself as a photographer. But the finances were shaky and she had to leave LA and move back home. I really hope she gives LA (or NYC--her boyfriend's there) another shot once she gets her affairs stabilized.

Amy's story really resonated with me for the rest of the day. When I got home there was an email from the University of Michigan IRB. They want a second interview with me via webcam and they're going to contact my references. I replied with my consent. But after I hit send, I realized I don't want to move back to Michigan and I don't want to work for an IRB, ever again. Not really. Well, I must be practical. But I want to stay in LA. I don't want to be like Amy and have to go back where I came from. And unlike Amy, who's fresh out of college, I'm not a spring chicken. I'm not going to have many opportunities to make over my life. Before I left today, I got an email for an internal job opening. I'm going to inquire tomorrow what I as a temp need to do to get the interview. If I can secure an interesting position at the place with a decent livable wage and health insurance I can stay in LA and I kiss off the IRB world forever.

And how I would love to burn my bridges! Last night I sent an email to the Professor who maintains the Institutional Review Blog. I praised his latest post and briefly described my experiences in IRB world. He wrote back and invited me to write a "guest" blog. If I can get myself away from IRB, I'm going to do it. I feel like playing with matches--metaphorically speaking, of course.