#151. Insurance (Friday, September 29, 2023)
What was your best day of…being insured from disaster?
You know I’m a fan of my triple-entendres (#88), so here are the three forms of insurance that were top of mind on this day:
- Insurance for the Blue Jays’ playoff hopes: They enter this day, the first of a three-game series at home versus the Rays, with a two-game cushion over the Mariners for the final postseason spot. They’ve got an over 95% chance to make it at this point, but a win today would give them the extra cushion they need to virtually guarantee October baseball. Naturally, I take the afternoon off and catch the first train I can to Toronto.
- Insurance for my continuation as a Principal Analyst: My current principal analyst position in foreign reserves is temporary, covering for Celdieu Perodin (#82) while he’s on secondment. If he returns next spring and I haven’t secured another permanent principal role by then, I’d drop back to senior analyst—a pretty painful outcome given how well the year had gone.
Luckily, a Principal position has opened in my old debt management function (#124), which I’d left as a senior analyst almost six years earlier. Much like a year earlier (#82), the director tells me I should be a top candidate. I apply, prepare intensely, and interview two days before this trip. I think it went well—even while I was dealing with… - Insurance for a recent accident: I’d never dealt with anything like this before, had no sense of what was normal, and was trying to manage the process—and my own stress—between all the interview preparation. I was still expecting an important phone call sometime that afternoon.
Needless to say, the combination of all three has me beyond tense on the VIA train to Toronto, even though I have virtually no control over any of them. This tension is not alleviated as the promised phone call does not arrive. And especially not when the train makes an unplanned hour-and-a-half stop for mechanical repairs.
I end up arriving at Rogers Centre in the bottom of the fourth, where the entire stadium is electric because Cavan Biggio has just hit an error-assisted inside-the-park home run to give the Jays a 7-0 lead. So that’s one part of the insurance equation (mostly) settled. The Jays don’t blow this, cruise to a win, and at the end of the day sit just one game away from clinching.
And in the seventh inning, I receive a phone call. The one I’ve been waiting for. I rush out into the Rogers Centre stairwell to take it, it goes well, and most of my worries are settled. A huge relief. The only problem is that I’m now locked in the stairwell, so I spend a good five minutes banging like an idiot on the glass for someone in the concourse to let me back in. At least five or six groups walk by and (justifiably) laugh before someone finally does.
The next day, Masato (my best friend from Waterloo, #122, #32, #4) joins me for the afternoon Jays game. They lose in extra innings and miss their chance to clinch. But that night at the Real Sports bar next to the stadium, I watch the Mariners lose, giving the Jays the final playoff spot. So that’s the second insurance matter settled. I celebrate by going to Toybox nightclub until three in the morning—one of my ten best club nights ever (#64, #26).
As for the final item of insurance, that would have to wait until Thursday, when I was back in Ottawa.
And just like in #82, the debt management director arranges a five-minute meeting with me. And just like then, I get the role.
What followed was a little more than an ordinary sigh of relief.1