Okay, sure

So I walk into work someday to find that one of the closest people within the organization I currently work for had decided to leave the company and move to Jeddah with her husband. She had worked for the company for five years. She had been a support analyst/ technical consultant for the company for four years. Four years into her job, she had been promoted to a customer manager leaving a vacancy for newly graduated Weam to happily accept!

About a month ago, she had her last day at the company and left to ‘discover herself’ as I kept on telling her, which again, left another vacancy within the company that, surprise, surprise, yes, I applied for.

I was approached by both my current and prospective bosses urging me to apply for the post. The interview came about three weeks later and, to my surprise, it went well. Want proof that it went well? Well:
1. I did not kick myself afterwards for saying anything stupid.
2. I did not see anyone come into the office to be interviewed.

A couple of weeks passed and my fingers started hurting from being crossed all the time. My prospective boss calls me aside and whispers
-“We will have to speak about the job tomorrow”
- Me: gulp “Okay, sure”

So tomorrow comes, and I don’t hear a word, so I go for it. I asked him if he still wanted to meet today
- “yes, 15:00”
- Me: gulp, “Okay, sure”

15:00 dings on the big bad clock in my head and nothing, I walk to his office and he asks for 5 minutes, 2 minutes later my current boss(es) walk into a conference room, close the door and a moment later the three men walk out with very serious yet plastic faces.

Another 10 minutes pass with nothing, my stomach twists and turns and I walk back to the big, scary office, to find my prospective boss sitting on his desk with the phone glued to his ear. He asks me to sit down while he finishes his phone call.

Very painful 6 minutes pass and he finally hangs up, looks me in the eye and say
“Weam, we will need privacy for this, why don’t we go to the conference room next door”
- Me: (Guess what I say, yup, you got it right) “Okay, sure”

The door is closed, he looks extremely serious and concerned and I think to myself “oh, shit, this was a loyalty test and they are now so pissed off at me I am not only not getting the job, I am also getting sacked”. He looks down, shakes his head, gives me the look a father would give to a little boy that just got his football throw a hand painted window and said:
- “I wanted to sit down today because….”
- Me: heart racing, sweating, in the verge of tears
- HUGE Grin “I wanted to have a chat with my future customer manager, if she’ll have me”

And this is when I realized that it is possible to want to hug someone but also kick them in the gut at the exact same time. I GOT THE JOB. To my surprise (and let me tell you, a lot of my colleagues’), I nailed it!

It felt great! Achieving a goal you had not thought possible in your wildest dreams, and to have had all the people that supported me before, during and after it (and I aint gonna let all those ‘who thought you would’ve made it’ emails let me down). Let me tell you, and no matter how beautiful you tell me my hair is (or how thin I look), it can’t beat the compliment I have been paid by being offered to be the youngest ever (in the history of ACI) customer manager.

I start December the 12th, wish me luck!