It’s a pivotal day for Jobless Julies (plural)

Well, today’s the day.  My first job interview in 2 months.  The job I’ve really wanted since I learned about it months ago, but spent at least a month thinking the opportunity had evaporated.  Now, I find myself sitting in Charlotte at the wee hours of the morning awaiting my plane to go meet with the decision makers. 

Travel hasn’t been easy.  Blizzard 2009 that whipped up on the east coast over the weekend isn’t helping my cause.  Nonetheless, despite some altered travel plans, lots of stress and incessant checking of flight status’, I should be on my way shortly. 

Funny enough, my blogosphere pal, Julie, also 28, also unemployed, is ALSO in Baltimore today for an interview.  I’m telling you this can only mean good things for 28 year old, unemployed Julies.  I mean, really, what are the chances?  We land at BWI – hopefully – at about the same time.  Hopefully we’ll get to grab a cup of coffee and discuss how much we miss shoe shopping and take our minds off of the impending interview. 

That’s the thing about interviewing when you are completely unemployed – there is a whole new level of stress.  It isn’t just will I get the job, but it’s will I ever again buy a new pair of shoes?  Will I have to move in with my parents (gasp!).  Will I ever get to go on vacation?  Will my roots look atrocious forever? 

Send good vibes my way at about 1:00, I need them…  and remember to throw in some additional good vibes for JewliWeb too.

Bye Bye Jackson Hole…

A plane departed Cincinatti, OH en route to Jackson Hole, WY this morning at 6:10 AM.  Seat 10B had my name on it.   I wasn’t in seat 10B.  I was in my own bed.

I got the call.  The call that I’ve been waiting for all week.  All week I have sat by my phone willing it to ring – I was ready.  I had my resume pulled up on my computer screen, numerous research documents on the project and the company all keyed up and ready to review during this call if necessary.  When do I get the call?  As my friend M and I  are in the McDonald’s drive-thru on our way to J’s house to pick her up to go to Cincinatti.  No computer, no documents, barely any cell phone reception and a lady in the background asking if I wanted to super size anything. 

In spite of the less than stellar call, the guy on the other end of the phone asks if I can be in Baltimore on Monday for an interview.  I weasel around trying to find an alternative solution – ‘is Wednesday a possibility’ I ask.  He puts me on hold and comes back many minutes later to inform me that no, unfortunately, the executive is flying in from NYC and Monday is the only option.  He apologized profusely for the late notice and for the effect it was going to have on my plans.  It’s ok, I said.  This is my top priority.  I walk in J’s house.  “I can’t go.”  She looks at me with complete and total disbelief, a little smirk on her face that says “Julie, its really not funny to joke about these things” Then it sets in.  “Oh my god, you’re serious.”  Ideas were tossed around trying to figure out a way that I could have my cake and eat it too.  Ultimately, it came down to making the adult decision.  The adult decision was to stay home, get prepared, and ultimately, hopefully, get the job. 

Packed and ready to go is an understatement

So, in a matter of hours, M & J will land in the Tetons and spend the next 4 days crusing down the slopes at Grand Targhee with multiple feet of fresh powder under their feet.  I will be preparing for the interview, presssing my suit, and making last minute tweaks to my resume. 

Unless you’re a big skier, you may not totally understand the sacrifice that comes with bagging a trip to the Tetons.  I’m in this mood of excitement for the interview and total sadness over my missed trip. 

I will say this – I’m taking my A game on Monday.  I’m gonna rock that interview.  Because the only thing sadder than missing a trip to the Tetons is missing a trip to the Tetons for an interview for a job I don’t get.

I would like to apply for the position of “Housewife”

Seriously, I could spend all day just doing stuff around the house and running errands.  Right after my job ended on October 15th – I stayed pretty busy getting all sorts of little projects done.  I figured, at the time, that after a few weeks I would begin to find myself a little bored.  Well, here we are folks – almost 2 months into this ordeal and I STILL have a ton of stuff to do.  Clean the house, grocery shopping, walk the dog, feed the dog, run the dishwasher, christmas shopping, christmas wrapping, get the car cleaned, drop off the recycling…  The list goes on and on.  Throw a husband and a couple of kids into the mix and now I clearly see how people make this a more than full time job.

I’m on board though.  I think its kind of fun.  Of course, in the middle of it all, I’m also trying to find a job and work on my Master’s degree – thus keeping myself squarely in check that until further notice, the bills are paid by me and me only.  So, as much as I may enjoy running errands and keeping a tip-top shape house in order, those chores are going to have to take a backseat to job applications, networking and grad school paper writing.

But as I find myself occupying entire days getting these things done – it does make me wonder… how did I ever have time to work??

Ephiphany at a Party

I attended a friend’s lawfirm Christmas party this past Friday night.  It was a good time and its more than good for the soul of an unemployed person to actually go through the exercise of putting on pantyhose, putting in my contacts and wearing clothes that match.  At the party, I found myself noticing the differences among the women in attendance.  About half looked like they had come straight from work.  The other half looked like they had come straight from the spa.   How lovely it must be to spend the entire day getting ready rather than having to work.  Must be nice.  Silent little judgements passed through my thoughts.  But then it occured to me that I had gotten a pedicure at about 2:30 that afternoon.  Oops, I guess I better not judge those girls – since I technically was one of those girls that night.  I will venture a guess though that none of their jewlery came from Target.  There in lies the key difference: they don’t work ’cause they don’t have to.  I don’t work ’cause no one will take me.

I’m calling in sick

I woke up feeling like total crap this morning – you know the winter drill: headache, stuffy nose, sore throat.

I was going to call in sick, then realized – oh, right, no one needs me!  Excellent.  Back to bed.

Outplacement Services Lady

Awhile back, I posted about how my former company enlisted an outplacement services agency to assist all of the axed employees in looking for a job.  I hadn’t contacted her for a meeting yet since I had quite a few job leads that I was working on and felt something would come together and meeting with her would be a waste of my time.  Since pretty much every single last one of those leads has dissolved, I thought I might as well go see what she could do to help me out.

Funny thing about which outplacement services agency my company chose to use.  The whole reason I lost my job was because my company relocated to Pittsburgh.  So, if you were going to hire an agency to assist people who live in the state of West Virginia to find another job, one might assume you would choose an agency in West Virginia – you know, one that might actually have contacts here.  Well, if you assumed that, you would be incorrect my friends.  My former company chose an agency in Pittsbugh.  Man, they really must not like this state or any of the people in it. 

As you can imagine, my meeting was less than productive.  Essentially, she knows no one.  Which, for someone who’s sole job is to help generate leads for me and pass my resume on to companies which are hiring really makes her pretty useless.  She did, however let me know that she would get me a key to her local office and I could come in any time I wanted to use computers and that the fridge is stocked with water.  I guess if I find myself homeless then that could come in handy. 

Although it was a pretty unsuccessful meeting, I can now cross “ensure that you have explored every last possible opportunity” off of my job searching to-do list.

I’m in need of a new tank top… or at a minimum, a shower

I talked to my friend D yesterday afternoon and he said, “I still read your blog every day – its great.”  I responded, “well, I haven’t really been blogging lately, it seems like the anticipation of losing my job was way more interesting than my life after I lost it.”  Then I launched into this story about how I realized that afternoon that I had been wearing the same tank top for 3 days (which, in hindsight, I realized is technically false - it was 4 days) and how I decided yesterday morning not to take a shower because I was taking a class at the gym at 6:30 PM and thought “what’s the point?”  Anyway, I concluded to D that these details just didn’t seem worthy of a blog, I mean who wants to read about the demise of an otherwise successful, smart woman into the girl that wears the same tank top for 4 days and doesn’t shower?

Then, I thought… probably a lot of people – because that’s hilarious!  I mean, what other self respecting 28 year old woman wears the same tank top for 4 days (I’ll add that I also wore it to bed… so it was on a 24 hour cycle) and then decides that it is worthless to shower because 10 hours from now I’ll get sweaty.  I’ll add one more point  – yesterday morning, after I took the dog for a walk and settled into my job searching routine, I realized that beyond the not showering, beyond the same tank top circa 72 hours of wear, I also did not even come close to matching.   I had on, and continued to wear for the duration of the day, purple running pants, the iconic grey tank top, a green fleece and pink socks.  This, I thought, would be the day that I get a package delivered from some unbelievably hot UPS man.  That would be my luck.

You’ll be glad to know I showered upon returning from the gym last night, the grey tank top has been expired to the laundry basket and today my friends I am actually making an effort to match.  Hey, its the little things.

Unemployment Office – Round 2

On Saturday I received a letter from the unemployment office which contained my initial claim form with a few rather large red circles indicating errors that I must correct and return to the unemployment office “No later than November 2nd”.

In my 2.5 weeks of being unemployed my sense of what day of the week it is continues to decline - so you can imagine that if I don’t know if its Monday or Thursday it would be correct to also assume that I have absolutely no clue what calendar day it is.  Therefore, on Monday (November 2nd) as I was organizing which errands to run when – I decided the most efficient thing to do would be to stop by the unemployment office to drop off the corrected form on Tuesday when I would be in that part of town running other errands.

Tuesday morning, as I was brushing my teeth I had the ephiphany that Monday was November 2nd, not Tuesday as I had originally thought.  CRAP.

So, off to the unemployment office I went, calculating a formidable lie in my head on my way there.  My lie was that I was out of town and didn’t receive the letter until late Monday.  The guy bought it and changed the date in his little stamper to read “November 2nd” -  sweet.  That was easy enough.  

While the unemployment guy was busy changing his stamper date, I noticed the guy behind me flagrantly leaning over my shoulder to read my form.  Completely irritated, I started to swing around and give him my two cents on giving someone a little privacy when it occured to me that I was at the unemployment office – not necessarily a place known for the highest members of society and perhaps my 5’0″, 115 pound frame self ought to just keep her scrappy little mouth shut.

Hopefully this will be my last round with the unemployment folks.  I have wondered though, if the folks at the unemployment office who make this process so time consuming and difficult have ever thought to themselves – hey, maybe if we made this a little simpler these people could spend their time looking for jobs instead of standing around in here trying to get their money.  Yeah, probably not.

SWF Seeking JOB

Every job I have applied to, I had to disclose my gender, ethnicity and race.  Doesn’t this seem just a tad intrusive?  Not to mention, counter productive – if you’re “Equal Opportunity” then what does it matter what color I am? 

I recently thought I had a decent job of landing a PR job – only the day that I was supposed to hear about whether or not I got an interview, instead I got an Equal Opportunity form in the mail for me to complete and return.  I did so and soon thereafter learned I didn’t get an interview.  It leaves me without closure – did I not get the job because I’m not qualified?  Or did I not get the job because I’m white and female?  Or just because I’m white?  Or just because I’m female?  Too many variables.  How is a girl supposed to know what to improve upon if she can’t figure out why she’s not getting jobs.  It would be a shame to continue to waste time applying for PR jobs if I knew that everyone would view me as unqualified.  But perhaps, it wasn’t my qualifications at all – perhaps it was my gender, boring ethnicity or pale face?  See, if I knew those details it would help.  I could turn the tables and start calling people and saying “excuse me are you currently looking for any White Females for your staff?  Oh you are!  Great, I assume no need to forward my resume because qualifications are really sooo unimportant… right?”

Employed Julie vs. Unemployed Julie

Surprisingly I’ve been pretty busy since my last day of official work on October 15th.  I look back at last week and wonder where did it go?  It went to doing a lot of things I wouldn’t have done if I had been employed.  But I did notice quite an immediate behavioral change within myself last week. 

Here are a couple of examples:

Monday:  Chimney Sweep guy is scheduled for 9:00 AM.  At 8:45 he calls and says he’s going to have to wait until the frost burns off the rooftops and probably won’t be able to come until 10:00.

Old Julie would have said “WHAT!?  I anticipated you would be here for 1.5 hours and so I scheduled a meeting for myself at 11:00.  I am on a schedule you know!”

New Julie said “Whatever, I’ll be here”

On Tuesday I hosted book club with my girfriends.

Old Julie would have picked up some sort of ready-made throw on a platter dinner for 9

New Julie made lasagna from scratch

On Wednesday an organization I am involved with was having a seminar that evening.  They called and asked if  I wouldn’t mind to pick up the food.

Old Julie would have been frustrated.  How do I have the time!??!  But I probably still would have done it, but been late and frazzled.

New Julie was early, not frazzled and happy to have the time to help.

Thursday: A friend is 1 day past her due date and more than a  little uncomfortable.

Old Julie would have called her about a week after she had her baby and said ” So how’s being pregnant, remind me again when your due date is?”

New Julie drove an hour to her house  and spent the morning hanging out with her in a futile attempt to get her mind off of her impending labor (and simulataneously preparing for an interview… just ’cause I’m unemployed doesn’t mean I’ve lost my multi-tasking skills)

Friday: I drove 2.5 hours to go to an interview.

Old Julie would have said “WHAT!  You want me to drive 2.5 hours to make life convenient for you?  Don’t you realize how busy I am?”

New Julie said “If it means there is a remote chance I will find employment I am happy to go anywhere, anytime.  Besides, what else do I have to do?”

Hopefully after finding gainful employment some of these changes will stick.  Its been nice to have the time to do things a little more calmly.  It has certainly made me feel like a better friend and overall a more balanced person.  I guess sometimes it takes losing your job to make you realize how much of yourself you lost when you had one.