I don't feel bad about letting you go, I just feel sad about letting you know.

Is it me or is searching for a job in this profession when you already have one the hardest thing ever?

Somehow, I was able to navigate the teacher job market sea and come out intact and will teach at another high school in the same county where I'm living, cutting my daily commute from 1 hour, 15 minutes each way to 15 minutes each way. With an infant and high gas prices in my life, this was a necessity and I'm glad I did pull it off.

But if you've ever had to look for a job while you had a job you know that there's a certain amount of finesse required to do so. Because this isn't like looking around for some corporate, office job; you can't just search, interview, accept, give two weeks notice and go. It's a carefully calculated navigation of a gauntlet that requires perfect timing and manipulation of circumstances.

Mine started in January. I saw an open position at a local high school, which I was surprised to see considering that most of the open positions I've seen in the past come after April when declarations have been made and budgets are being argued over. I applied and went back to work, although I had violated the intent form I had signed a few weeks earlier.

I'm not a big fan of those intent forms--you know, the sheets of paper you get in December/January that say "will you return? Check one: yes, no, maybe." They say they're non-binding, but I'm pretty sure that when something says it's non-binding and that works in your direction, it's actually binding (whereas a non-binding letter of intent works in their direction and that is non-binding). Call me paranoid but if I had said that if I was "maybe" coming back instead of saying "yes" I was coming back, I would have had my job hired out from under me.

Anyway, I've done clandestine job searching before and know plenty of people who have gone for "doctor's appointments" that were really job interviews. The difference, though, is that in other working situations, you get your job offer, give your two weeks, and those in charge don't get thrown completely into a tizzy because they have a position to fill. Also a little trickier was how I went about getting face time. UVA holds a job fair every year and the HR people for my applied job were going to be there, so I decided to talk to them, as well as some other counties and cities that I was applying to. My county had a rep there as well, but I'm pretty good at making myself invisible when I have to.

This was crucial considering the rep from my county was my assistant principal, who the very next day gave me my summative evaluation. Thankfully, if he spotted me at the job fair, he didn't say anything about it.

The face time worked--I got an interview, and the interview went well. I was asked about my yearbook experience, although the position wasn't advertised as a yearbook adviser's position. I waited for a few weeks and found out right before Spring Break.

Unfortunately, my cover was blown in the interim. County to county, HR talked to HR and my principal caught wind that I was "leaving." I got called into the principal's office (something that never happened when I was in school, btw, so it was really weird) and had to explain myself and why, if I was looking, I signed "yes" on a (non-binding) intent form. I guess I deflected it well--I said something about always looking and keeping my eyes open but at the time didn't think I was going elsewhere. A few weeks later, when my leaving was official, my principal was happy for me (especially considering my commute situation) and began officially searching for my replacement.

Why timing has to be everything in things like this does honestly astound me. I am glad this worked out but I was definitely nervous that I would wind up leaving the year without a contract anywhere because I said that I didn't know and got furloughed and couldn't find work elsewhere. I know my car and wallet are thanking me already, though.