Summer Jobs

While still at college, Madeleine applied to two camps - one in MS/TN and the other in Alabama. She received a written offer from the first and a verbal offer from the latter. The first camp was for more weeks but it's nearly to Memphis; while the second camp only offered three weeks of work (with the possibility of more at another camp) but was only an hour from our home. She declined the first offer and called to accept the second. That's when things began to fall apart - the second was no longer an offer (or rather it sounds like the person offered the job before she was authorized to do so) but they did want to schedule an interview. Unfortunately it was now finals week and Madeleine didn't have time to drive to Birmingham so she delayed it until after she got home - 10 May.

The interview seemed to go well and she was told she would hear by the end of the following week. Madeleine waited one week and then applied to 11 places that said they were hiring (Publix, ChikFilA, Papa Murphys, Family Christian Bookstore, BedBath&Beyond, Outback Steakhouse,Books-A-Million, Kohls, Gap,Dominos and Victoria Secret). She checked back on a few during the next week and none even nibbled. The summer was looking bleak.

Since no jobs were materializing, Madeleine began studying for a CLEP exam, advertised for babysitting/petsitting and signed on as a VBS teacher for 4 year olds. Then on Thursday 27 May she got an email offering her a job at the camp in Alabama - turns out they had sent it nearly 2 weeks earlier but had a typo in her email address (why it took them 2 wks to figure out is still a mystery) but Madeleine chose to decline the offer as she had other plans and they weren't worth changing for only 3 wks of guaranteed work.

Then on Monday (Memorial Day) at about 9pm, Madeleine got a phone call from Victoria's Secret asking her to interview the next day at 3pm. It was a group interview of 3 (one gal had canceled) and they were interviewing four more at 4pm (not sure how many others they already interviewed). She was told they would be making decisions by the end of the week. So is Friday or Saturday the end of the week for the world of retail?  Madeleine did step down as lead teacher for VBS 4 yr olds and that was a good decision because......

Late this afternoon the phone rang, it was Victoria's Secret. They were having trouble getting in touch with Madeleine's references since school was out for summer. I gave them a friend/neighbor's number and within minutes they called back and offered Madeleine a job. She will be starting at Victoria's Secret on Monday for training.