Spring, it's finally here

I found the statement "spring arrived over night" to be true. I woke up this morning and low and behold, my cherry tree was in bloom. One day of heat and the buds have forgotten the dark of winter and shed their coats.
I'm holding hope that the same will happen to me. If I get a job, I can shed this coat of despair and leap into bloom. Maybe? I hope so.

Another HUH?

I had a crazy thought this morning. Thinking of areas that I could fit a new business into, which came while I watched the "drycleaning delivery" van pick up and drop off dry cleaning to peoples houses. Where might there be a niche to supply me with job opportunities? I thought of all the areas people utilize others to perform tasks they could, but don't, do for themselves. Well: cleaning ladies; dog walkers; poop picker uppers; handyman services; day care; nannies; personnel shoppers. You name it every area of our lives has someone who will do that chore for us. Even so far as hiring someone to have our babies. The only activity performed by someone else for us, that isn't legal, is sex. We cannot hire someone to have sex with without it being a prosecutable offense. Funny huh? I wonder what that says about our culture. History tells us that it used to be a common custom. Sarah hired a handmaiden for Abraham...in the bible for goodness sake. I'll bet she even had a personnel shopper.
Just something that crossed my mind.

Between recipies

I don't really want to be an insurance agent, but I also don't want to continue trying to recreate my day with no boundrys. I'm excited every morning and done by 9:30. I've checked the job sites, read the paper, had my tea and walked the dog. I've checked my library books, picked up poop and reviewed my employment options. I have 8 hours to go before dinner and I'm spent. I apply for the insurance job. I keep climbing.

Clinging to the wall of life

I must admit that the amount of energy I put into creating ideas that are "outside the box" has drained my energy over the last months. I know that people who are not in this predicament think I'm either not trying or in some way not doing enough. I know this because when a employee, from the same company I worked for, was fired while I worked there, he remained unemployed over 9 months after the firing. He was the CFO. I too felt he just wasn't trying hard enough, he must have been to picky. In the past when a person became unemployed there was a period of attempting to return to work of at the most two to three months. Then, the person either had a job or was deemed by those of us just observing that the person was in some way not sufficient, not trying hard enough. I am humbled by this experience and realize that while I am trying harder then I've ever tried at anything before, I just might not succeed. But, I can't not succeed. There really is no alternative. I have to work.
I've thought of business plans, none of which I have any experience or financing for of course. I've applied for ED jobs, which I never wanted to begin with, and of course didn't get. I've applied for jobs I am way over qualified for and never even gotten a call back. I'v applied for jobs I do qualify for and not gotten them. I am experiencing rejection at a much higher rate then I ever have before. I must be building character like never before too. I try to keep positive each new day and keep thankful each evening when I go to bed. It is now almost 7 months. I've grown very tired of keeping my spirits up but when compared to what some others are dealing with ie. disease, illness, death, etc. I am filled with gratitude and shame that I would allow myself to sink into self pity. I'm not by nature a pity person, I am self reliant and forward looking. I'm just going through a "bad patch" I guess. At least there are over a million going through the same bad patch. I'm not alone in this and with that I take some comfort.

I went through my “Mr. Mom” phase. Remember that movie where Michael Keaton plays a husband and father who loses his job and he and his wife, played by Terri Garr, change roles? She goes in to work and he stays home to watch the kids. At first he’s all pressed and polished and off to do his job search. After a few weeks of getting no response he sinks into depression and this is shown by his wearing the same flannel shirt for weeks on end. There’s more to that movie and it is Hollywood’s version of unemployment but they did get a few things right. I did, and so do most everyone else in this situation, go through a period of frantic activity. Everyday grinding out applications and phone calls and cold calls. If this doesn’t result in anything though, it is followed by a period of deep depression. I didn’t wear flannel every day, I just didn’t get up.
I haven’t started playing poker with the neighborhood wives yet, that happens to Michael in Mr. Mom. But, I have leveled off to a steady plod. I’ve thought about starting an over 50 unemployed support group. I’ve thought about a lot of things. I have thought about renting out rooms in my house. In the Disney movie of the same name Kit Kittredge’s family did that to get them through the great depression. I too am an American Girl. I’m just a tad long in the tooth.
Well, this is my part in this great depression, or recession, or whatever they are calling it these days. It’s been five months now. Between my savings, my unemployment and my daughter, I’m not yet homeless. But I have indeed learned a great deal about myself and the situation I find myself in. I know, I’m not alone. I hear this statement a lot. I am part of the great 10.5% unemployed nationally and the 9.2% in Washington State. That of course is the number for those who are currently eligible to receive unemployment. I just learned, on the nightly news that over 600,000 nationally have dropped off the roles. Not because they found work but because they have stopped looking. What happens to you when you stop looking? I have time; I’m going to research that.

Have I said that I’m 58 years old? Ok, I know. Don’t start throwing out those excuses. That’s all they are. Excuses. But really, a few years ago the job market was looking good for the “seniors” because we baby boomers had so much experience and there was a poor work ethic in the next generation down and also not so many of them. With the economy the way it is though, losing the older, therefore more expensive, middle and upper management and hiring the younger less experienced, therefore less expensive, worker has become a fact. Well, 58 isn’t an excuse. It’s a fact. I’m too old to be looking for work and not old enough to retire. I think I heard that somewhere, maybe in my head at 2 a.m.
I spent a good portion of the first couple of weeks wrestling with the process of signing up for Unemployment. The people who work there really are very good, and very patient. They answered all my questions but one. Who was going to hire me?
At least the process of applying kept me occupied. I was up and at the computer every morning by 6:30 a.m. checking each new listing for possible job opportunities. I sent out multiple applications that first month and called multiple companies to enquire about possible openings. I learned a lot that first four weeks.
I learned that I could not accept a job that paid less then my unemployment benefit. I learned that even those companies that worked at employment search for their clients didn’t respond to applications when they had jobs open. I’m glad I have to keep a list of job search activities for Unemployment of who I called and who I sent application in to because, with few exceptions, I never heard from the employers to whom I submitted applications. I assume they received so many that they would have had to hire someone just to send rejection notices out. I could do that job.
I learned that my friends were really my friends. They have stayed in contact and kept my spirits up as best they know how. They know, and I know, it is going to be a long haul. Everything in the news tells us so. Everyone I know who had lost their job had told me so. It’s all true. I learned that fear is not my friend.

As I walked out to my car, arms loaded down with my office paraphernalia, I suddenly remembered what one of my co-workers had said one day, many years back , over coffee, “You know, most of us are only 1-2 paychecks away from needing the support services we are providing our clients today.”
That day I felt a chill go up my spine. Could it be that precarious? Could I find myself in such disastrous circumstances? What would I do? I remember doing a quick mental check of my bank account, bills and such. I indeed could find myself there, but I didn’t think it would happen to me.
On this day, after sitting through the, “We have failed you, you haven’t failed us, but the reality is we are going to have to let you go” speech, I was remembering that long ago conversation. I was indeed going to have that opportunity to find out if I was one or two paychecks from being homeless
It’s not like I hadn’t been fired before. I had. From a waitress job that I took to help get my daughter through college. It happened like this. I wasn’t scheduled to work New Years so when I didn’t go in the owner called to ask where I was. I responded that I was at home. She said I should have come in like everyone else. I said I didn’t know that, I wasn’t scheduled and I wasn’t coming in I had family obligations planned. She said I didn’t need to ever come back in. She kept my tips from a previous evening when I had worked and the dinner party had paid a check for the whole thing and she was suppose to give me the tip. She didn’t.
I had felt weird about getting fired, but the waitress job was a second job anyway. I just tightened the old belt, made the college loan payments and went about my business. Only now I had no business. In fact when I woke up that next day I had no place to be for the first time ever that I could remember. For the first week I fought the depression on a daily basis. Day time was fine, nights were almost impossible. I wanted to sleep but I couldn’t. Oh, I fell asleep alright. Slept for about two or three hours then woke up with my heart pounding and my body bathed in sweat. I knew I had to get a grip or I wasn’t going to weather this thing at all well.