So I ended up being a consultant at OldJob. Twice a month on Saturdays. Not ideal, but hey, extra money is extra money. That went on until May, when my old co-workers had a meeting with my OldBoss and convinced her that they knew what they were doing enough to do it without me. Good for them (I remember how awesome it felt to have OldBoss tell us we were not “trained” enough, despite having the old consultant come in for a year) and good for me.

They still owe me a day’s pay, though. 1 month late and counting (9 days since my last reminder and confirmation). Skippy. My next reminder is going to be an invoice in the mail, instead of an email.
I was also promised a letter of reference that never materialized, but I have a funny feeling that OldBoss doesn’t understand the concept of a generic letter of reference, as opposed to one written specifically for a potential employer, and wants me to just call her up if I’m job hunting in the future to ask for one. :/

Same ol’ same ol’, eh?
So glad to be out of there.

My new job, however, is awesome. I’m even allowed (encouraged!) to tell the interwebs where I work: CanWest DHI. We test milk for dairy farmers (as opposed to testing milk for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency). They use our data to help improve the care of their herds, and thus improve milk quality for consumers. You know those ads on TV? “Great cheese comes from happy cows”? Well it’s true. The better the cows are taken care of, the happier they are, and they produce more milk of better quality than unhappy cows.
I use real-time PCR to test the milk samples for bacteria that indicates mastitis.

That’s right, I’m actually doing real science! I have a job doing what I loved doing in school! Even my boss is awesome and nice and fun to talk to.
Sure, some days are a little bit annoying, but that’s the same as any job. For the vast majority, it’s been super great here. I am so happy with my job.
I’m going to repeat that: my job makes me happy.
The cynical side of me says that some of that is a bit of leftover wide-eyed euphoria from being out from under the boot heel of OldJob, but I don’t care. I’ll take it!
Things are better now than they have been in a long, long time.