Worst case scenario...

I have been going to school at Utah State for 5 years now. The whole time that I have been going to school the professors have all said that there was never a better time to become an engineer. There were guys graduating with seven or eight job offers!!! Their only problem was which to pick. It was similar to sports where the players get courted by several teams, wages go up and include large sign-on bonuses. They said that we were in such a good position and that only in the worst case scenario would things change. Things continued that way until last summer. Then the worst case scenario happened. You guys all know about the bad economy, so I don't need to go into it.

Last year I started working for a really great engineering company as an intern. When I started they told me that there was a 90% chance that they would give me a job as an engineer. As the economy got worse and worse I would periodically check in with them and slowly the chances were getting worse and worse, but at Christmas time they were saying that it was closer to 50/50. By the time that the end of February rolled around my boss said that there would be no way that they could bring me on this year. That was really hard to hear. Since getting the 50/50 news I had been applying all over with no luck. Every company is in the same boat.

This is when we started to panic. We started applying all over the country and didn't even get a second look. All this time though I had a good friend who got out of school at USU when the gettin' was good and got a job with a company in Woods Cross. The work that they do is not the most sexy type of structural engineering, but they are a good company and they are bringing on as many guys as they think they can train successfully. I always kind of had them as one of my options. So the whole time that the economy and the job market were headed South I tried to keep in touch with them. The only problem is that everyone started to hear that they had jobs and applied to them too. A year ago they would have likely taken me as quickly as they could. Now this year they had over 300 applicants for four jobs!!!!! They whittled down the applicants to only canidates with masters degrees, which was 30, and started interviewing. I was able to get a good interview with them. After interviewing they selected 4 guys for positions with thier company and I wasn't one of them. But it turns out that one of the four guys is a friend of mine at school and he had another job lined up. I was the 5th guy.

I am not trying to brag that I got a job when so many others didn't. I just feel incredibly blessed. not only is it a really good job, but it is here in Utah in Davis County. We have always wanted to be here by our families. We were so worried that we would have to move out of state away from our families and friends. We would have accepted it, but it was not what we wanted. We have fasted and prayed for so long for this to happen. It is really a huge blessing for our little family.

Sorry to write a novel. Just a little update on the rest of my little family. Lorie is now 9 months pregnant and we are expecting this little boy (will be Eli Nicholas Newbold) any day now. Lorie isn't actually due until April 20th, but all signs point to him being early. Claire is will be 2 in July and is already being a terrible 2. I can't complain too much because she is just to funny and cute that it makes it hard to get upset with her. She is very smart too. I must say that I am already having joy in my posterity. We are looking for houses right now. We are basically looking in Layton, Syracuse, Clinton areas. We may have a house in mind so stay tuned. We are busy trying to get graduated, have a baby, find a house, start a new job and move out of Logan. It is all happening at once, but it is all good. Congratulations if you made it this far in this long post and thanks for listening.

Nick