Well today was a pretty good day for me.  In the span of a few hours I found out that I’d be receiving about $4,000 total that I never expected to receive.  The first windfall came when I went out to lunch with a local IT recruiter who I had worked with during my job hunt, but actually ended up turning down the job offers I got through her.  What I did do though was email her the names of a couple guys I worked with who might be interested in the jobs I turned down.  Well turns out that they both took jobs through her company.  They do offer a $1000 referral bonus for employees of their company who refer new candidates that take jobs, but seeing as how I am not an employee with them I am not eligible…..or so I thought.  Turns out she went ahead and asked the owner if she could give me some kind of referral bonus for the candidates I referred as I have been so helpful to their company.  Turns out he said I could get $500 for each of the guys I referred.  Might help that they are trying to place more people at my “new employer” and well I have a very heavy say in who gets in and who does not.
Unexpected money total: $1000

Immediately after lunch I went to my current employer to finalize me leaving (exit interview) because today was my last day.  Seeing as how the year had just started I had not used much of my vacation up, but I had already asked around and sounded like the company did not pay out vacation, and even if they did I figured they would pro-rate it like most companies do which means 1 month into the year and the fact that I burned one for interviewing I expected that there was no way I would get any vacation pay out.  Well regardless about an hour before my exit interview I emailed the HR lady to ask about me getting my vacation paid out, she said she would check on it and let me know at my exit interview.  Well turns out for whatever reason they decided to pay out my full vacation for the rest of this year which means by my rough estimates I am going to get about another $3100 I never dreamed of getting.  Might help that they too are also trying to get more consultants into my “new employer” and I have a very big say in who gets in there 😉

Unexpected money total $4,100

Then to make matters even better, I find out that even though I’m leaving the company I will get my matching funds for the previous year when they get distributed in June of this year, which again I never though I’d see.  Which really is another $1500-$2000 I never expected.

Total potential unexpected money total ~$5600+

Needless to say its been a pretty good day. 🙂