mscleanslate

A week and a half ago, I was laid off.  It feels, quite frankly, like much, much longer than that.  I keep applying, talking to people on the phone, hoping that I am doing everything that needs to be done. I keep wondering if I am EVER going to find a job or just keep on interviewing and interviewing.  It seems that there is always someone out there who is just a LITTLE BIT better than I am and they get the job.

Tomorrow I have some projects to get done.I think Thursday will be the day I run my post office errands. And then it will be Friday again.  It seems like just yesterday I was toasting my new job with friends and now I am worrying anew about whether I’m going to find new employment soon.

I have not yet interviewed for a job that’s made me feel that really enthusiastic.  I’ve not even found anything to apply for that makes me feel enthusiastic.  Maybe that’s a side effect of having wanted this last job so much and having had it turn out to be somewhat a nightmare.

I need to think of ways to do something that will give my life some purpose while still bringing in money.

As I had feared, I got a call from bossdude today, letting me know I was being laid-off.  I am not surprised, but I am disappointed.  Especially since I do not think this is what bosslady wants.

I am upset that he handled it. I’m HER assistant and she should get to say when things end. But, alas, I fear that my feeling that he was just humoring her and that he wants to force her onto the mommy track are true.  Woe betide any child that comes into this world under those circumstances.

And so… I march resolutely back to Square One… to start over again.

I’ve not heard from bosslady in over a week. I was contacted last week by the Unemployment Office about my “recent unemployment”…  I am assuming, at this point, that the Unemployment Office knows what they are talking about and that I likely don’t have a job anymore.  To say I am deeply disappointed if this is how this ends is an understatement.

As it is, I’ve gotten virtually no hour the past couple of weeks but I can’t quit because then I will be ineligible for Unemployment, which is a tiny sum, but it’s something.

Meanwhile, I HAVE been proactively seeking work. It’s slow going, though, and I’m starting to panic.

So… I am getting ready to reset the clock and march back to Square One.

Can I get a ‘do over’ on this year so far?

I am still getting nowhere near enough hours with my present job. In fact, I have now been waiting seven days for some information to complete a project.  I have sent emails (as this is currently my only way to reach my employer) and have been told that the request will be attended to and then… it is not.

I can’t wait around hoping that things will change.  I’m not going to let someone tell me that I am the problem because I’ve been very communicative and available and it’s done not one bit of good.

I think the issue is that bosslady wanted an assistant and bossdude did not feel it necessary, but hired someone to make bosslady happy.  Bossdude has been consistently rude and dismissive.  Also, if they wanted someone to perform manual/physical labour, they should have specified that in their advert, which they did not.  I don’t do heavy lifting, I never said that I would and have no intention of doing so… and if that is what costs me my job, so be it… at least I won’t have a herniated disc in my back.

Also, there were several tasks at the S office that needed to be done.  I spent a couple of hours on a Saturday taking pages of notes of instructions.  Part of it involved going back to the S office to pack things up, etc. Well… I found out that Dragon Lady Office Manager was told to do all of the tasks I had been instructed to do.  I offered to share the bosslady’s explicit instructions with Dragon Lady and she was totally uninterested.  So, yeah…  I think it’s time to admit to myself that this really isn’t working and do what I need to do.

It’s really too bad, too. This really had a lot of potential.  I’m not quitting, I am just going to look for another job and if this one comes up with some hours, great… if not, I won’t be looking to sell my kidney on the black market to pay the bills.

I have an interview scheduled for this afternoon (Monday). I am a little freaked out by that.  It’s not that I am not happy with my current job, it’s more a matter of the current job not providing enough hours and my being a workaholic.  And current job not understanding quite where my skills lie. But I am learning a metric fuckton (it’s a legal term… the attorney I worked for used it all the time) of new things.  Anyhoo, it’s just up the road from current bosslady’s house and I think it would be a nice, solid, stable income to rely upon that I could supplement my current income with and still not work more than 65 hours a week. Which I know sounds horrible if you work a 40 hour week on the regular and want nothing to do with working more hours but for me, at this point, I NEED that income.

Why, you ask? Well, I am getting ready to sign yet another year’s lease at the place I am currently living. Which is, for lack of a more politically correct terminology, the ghetto.  I need to get out of here. I would like to be able to, at some point, afford my own car.  I need to start digging myself out of debt.  Annnnd, I thought I had an expense ending in November that ends up will be dragging out until July.  Sigh.  So, working 2 jobs is sortve necessary and having something with a reliable paycheck will be nice. Plus, it’s hedging my bets on what the current bosslady’s real plans are.  I know that sounds pessimistic, but it is actually just realistic.

So, there you have it… I’m interviewing. It’s a little scary.  We’ll see what happens.

I am not one who lives by my horoscope.  I think that horoscopes are interesting and entertaining but I don’t plan my life according to my horoscope… However… today’s horoscope says:

“Your current interactions with others are the source of both good news and bad news now. The good news is that opportunity comes knocking at your door. The bad news, however, is that you might be so entrenched with what you are doing that you don’t stop to let it in. Opportunity won’t just stand there waiting forever, so jump up and embrace it joyfully while you have the chance.”

And, well… here’s the thing. I do like (most of) my new job.  But it isn’t providing nearly the hours I would like and then today I got a call from an agency who has a contract job for, well, LOTS OF MONEY.  And I told them to go ahead and submit my resume.

Now, I am not someone who is totally governed by the Almighty Dollar.  That being said, I DO have bills to pay and things have been really, really tight since I lost my job in July so the opportunity to (FINALLY) make some good money is very attractive.  Plus, it’s another MAJOR corporation name for my resume and it will help me when I need to do salary negotiations next.

What will it mean for my current job? Well, to be honest, I am not sure. *I* happen to think I could do both because I am not pulling anywhere near full-time hours with my current job.  Plus, to be honest, I am having a great deal of doubt about whether the boss looks at it as a long-term relationship or if I am disposable and there are reasons I am feeling that I am, perhaps, disposable.

So, I had already determined that I was going to allow myself to be open to the possibilities that are out there and then this big money opportunity comes along… And maybe horoscopes are a bunch of hooey, but it does make me wonder what’s in the stars…

Yes, folks… the clock has reset and switched from “Jobless Since” to “Workin’ Since”… HUZZAH!

And, no, I did not end up with one of the temp agency jobs.

I am working at slowly shifting my schedule to get back in sync with the working world.  While I am not having to be to work super-early in the morning, I am shifting things so I have time to more gradually wake up and get my head together in the morning.

And, I am working on having myself together to be able to be organized and get things done.

It’s good to be working again… I just wish I’d had a couple of transition days to be able to tie up loose ends. Maybe over the Thanksgiving weekend, I can work on that.

So, I had three interviews late last week. I had a phone screen today and have an interview set up for Thursday.  I am finally scraping the bottom of the barrel and heading off to a temp agency tomorrow. Oh… and I got submitted for a job that will be a substantial pay cut but I honestly think it’s another one of those things I will not hear another peep about.

The job I REALLY want contacted me again tonight asking me how my job search is going. This is madness and there is a part of me that wants to tell them to either offer me a job or take a flying leap. I do NOT have time to play games. This is my career and livelihood on the line here, people.  The sad thing is that I really, really like the person and I really, really want to work for/with the person but if this person cannot make up their mind, I have no choice but to cut my losses and move on.  And honestly, maybe that’s what I should do.

I am SO over all of this. And being with a temp agency is only going to prolong the agony. Because they’ll send me on all these short-term assignments and then I’ll be without a job (and income) until something else comes along.

The first part of this week was slow. I got a call and there was a brief phone screen type interview and then a couple of days later I got a rejection email. No real surprise given the interviewer’s line of questioning during the phone screen (if they choose to dwell on the negative whilst questioning, they are usually not interested but are fulfilling a quota or something).

I had three interviews this week. Two with agencies and another that was to be a direct hire. I was supposed to hear something by the end of the day about the direct hire position. I didn’t hear anything.  Even though I felt I presented as a strong candidate, I overheard the applicant ahead of me being offered the job. I am not really sure what the point of interviewing me was, but I suppose she didn’t want to say she’d offered the person just before me the job and I could leave after making me fill out several essay-style question filled pages of questions pre-interview.

I don’t suspect I will hear anything from either of the agencies, either.  Call it a gut feeling or intuition but there was just a “vibe” that shook my confidence in each situation.  However, I scored well on the testing that they’d made me take pre-interview, so I feel marginally happy about that.  Marginally happy because if it doesn’t help me to get a job, what’s the point?

So… another week down. The clock ticks on.  Back to Square One on Monday.

Yet another week has passed and I am still not going to be in a new office on Monday morning.  We’ve passed the 100 day mark now and I have to admit I am perplexed.  I can’t seem to “close the deal” and it is frustrating.  A job I’d interviewed for in early October is still in limbo. A job I’d interviewed for and was told to “alert” my references to receive a call still has not contacted any of my references.

Friday ended up being a horrifically unproductive day that started early and is ending late.  I have a long task list for this weekend.

I need to do something fun/relaxing this weekend.  Let’s hope I can accomplish that.