I can talk about this now because I know the outcome. I applied and interviewed for a job back in my home state over the last month.
Long story short, I did not get the job.
The disappointment isn’t just because I’m mourning the job, I’m mourning the opportunities that the job would have provided. I have a restorative license that allows me to do fillings and similar restorative work in the states where it’s included in the scope of practice. I have hardly used it since graduating four years ago. This job would have not only provided me an opportunity to be doing restorative work on a regular basis, but also the opportunity to work with a very specific population of individuals in a public health setting.
I have always enjoyed public health work, and I found this prospective job so exciting. The opportunity for career growth not panning out for me has been the most painful part.
I was not keeping it a secret, but definitely on the down low.
Was I expecting this outcome? Honestly, yes. I currently live in a completely different state than where this job opportunity was located. That means I would have needed to move almost immediately. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make the disappointment any easier.
Rejection, especially in my line of work, is something that I have not dealt with a whole lot. I have had some VERY humbling moments in my career, but I have never faced job rejection before. If i was any younger or any newer to the dental field, it probably would have made me question myself. Those of you fellow dental hygienists out there, you know how beaten and broken the schooling leaves you. At the beginning of your career, job rejection could just be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
In my career, I have always operated in an environment that had such a desperate need for dental hygienists.
There was no such thing as not getting the job I wanted. I mean that in the kindest and least self-centered way possible, but its true. If I wanted a certain job, I was confident I would get it. I am good at what I do, and I was confident that it would always be enough whenever it came to applying for jobs.
In this season of my life, and probably for the first time ever, a job I applied for had multiple applicants. I knew that for the first time in a long time, I may have just been the least qualified applicant in the pool. In addition, I was the only out of state applicant, which definitely did not bode well for me and the convenience (or lack thereof) that it allotted the facility.
I have a bad habit of getting my hopes up.
I don’t even know if i would really call it getting my hopes up, i just get attached to ideas because it creates some semblance of a direction in the ever changing landscape of my life.
This time last year, we were potentially facing a move to Alaska for my partner’s job. After the initial reaction of “holy sh*t”, I started the process of getting a dental hygiene license in the state of Alaska (which is not easy or cheap btw), just to find out a few weeks later that we were moving somewhere completely different!
I love change and I love new opportunities, but oh boy, do I have a hard time with change sometimes. I get itchy when I am in one place too long, but I think that is because nowhere I have been so far feels quite right. You always hear people say “do it scared” and I feel like I’ve done a lot of that over the last few years, but I think what might just scare me more is never finding a place that feels “quite right”.
Free will can be an overwhelming thing.
Being in full control of your life can simultaneously be the most thrilling and terrifying gift a person can be given. I struggle with decision fatigue AND analysis paralysis constantly, sometimes I just want to be told what to do.
At this point, my partner and I are just faced with one question. We have no children, no mortgage, no debt, no ties. Do we stay or do we go?
I will close out this blog entry with a little anecdote. When my partner got home from work, I told him that I didn’t get the job. You know what he said? “How exciting is it to have the opportunity to do whatever you want to do next.”
I really needed to hear that.
– Hay
