April Fools Day

I love making jokes and laughing with people. I also love practical jokes. This April Fools Day I was at a loss for a prank to pull because usually, I play jokes on my family and we are all in different cities this year. So I decided that my coworkers were going to be my victims. The targets were my 2 fellow servers. The plan was to go into work and tell them that I was offered a new job, working as a wine rep for a distributing company in Austin. I was going to tell them that this job paid me extremely well, with great hours and benefits, and I would be leaving our restaurant asap. I talked to a few other coworkers and told them my plan so that they would be in on the joke as well to make my story believable. I intended to go along with this joke for the whole night at work and then before leaving that night, tell them APRIL FOOLS! I was very excited about this plan.

While driving into work that day, I received a phone call. After listening to the voicemail, I was shocked to hear that Southwest Airlines was calling me about an application that I had submitted back in January. They told me that they would love to fly me to Dallas for an interview that week. Wow! Whos the April Fools joke on now? I was so taken back and surprised (You could almost say that I had forgotten about applying for the job, because it had been months already). I immediately decided that I could not go through with this April Fools joke, because it is actually becoming real. I had a prospective new [awesome] job. I went into work and told the coworkers that were helping me with the April Fools joke that I was not going to go through with it because I ACTUALLY had a job interview in Dallas. Nobody believed me! They all just assumed that I was trying to play a joke on them as well.

After returning the phone call, I decided to take a night to think about the position before agreeing to the interview. Taking this job would mean moving to Dallas from Austin, and giving up the awesome loft apartment that I had spent months searching for. I also would have to leave Hyatt, where I have been happily employed for 6 years. After just a few hours I knew that I wanted to go to this interview, and I WANTED this job. Later that next week I flew to Dallas in the morning, and had a great interview. I flew back to Austin that night, unsure of what my fate would be.

April Fools Day was on a Thursday. That Saturday I was supposed to sign a lease on my new (wonderful!) dream apartment. I was able to postpone the signing of the lease until after my job interview. When the interview was over and I was confident that I did well, I made a tough decision to give up the apartment I was supposed to move into, taking the risk of losing this place without actually knowing if I had the job or not. I packed my stuff up and put it in a storage unit. I have been staying with friends in their guest bedrooms for the last month. All while keeping this job a secret from my friends at work.

Fast forward to April 29th, 2010. My beautiful sister is in labor with the first baby among the 4 of us girls. Shes been in the hospital for a few days, waiting for baby Obie to arrive. His due date was April 25th, so he was already fashionably late. While at work, I receive a text message around 3:30 pm telling me that she finally had the baby. Just one hour later, Southwest Airlines called me to give me an official job offer! What an amazing day :)

I will move to Dallas in one week, and start a new job, New life. I will have a hard time leaving my new found friends in Austin, but I promise to visit often!! I had one of the best years of my life living in Austin, Texas.


I am very grateful for this new opportunity, and would like to say Thank you to everyone who has been supportive of me, It is much appreciated!!!!

With Love,
Katie :)

P.S.
I absolutely cannot wait to meet my handsome nephew!!!!!!!!