Being Out of Work is Work

When a friend was laid off a few years ago, I remember her saying she was so busy she didn’t know how she ever had time for a job. Now I know what she meant. The days are just flying by and no sooner do I get up than it’s bedtime again. And no, that’s not because I’m sleeping in. I wake up around 6 or 6:30 most mornings, even though I don’t set my alarm. It’s just that there’s so much I’m involved in.

A typical day means waking up and wandering to the computer in search of work. I cycle through all the job sites looking for new postings. There aren’t lots of them, but they do appear. When they do, I apply. This takes 2-4 hours each morning, depending on what I find. At first it took more time, but now it takes less, because I already have multiple versions of my resume, and plenty of cover letters that I can just tweak a little for re-use.

I also spend some of that time emailing with former co-workers. It’s good to stay in touch, both for company, and because we can help each other land jobs. At some point, some of us will become employed and will help the others find jobs as they open up with our new employers. I worked with some excellent people who I’d love to work with again.

And then I have the rest of the day for living life, so I’ve been doing just that. I sure wouldn’t have chosen unemployment, and certainly not in such a dismal job market. But if I’m going to be caught up in this mess, sitting around moping that there isn’t anything else to apply for on a particular day just isn’t going to do me any good.

I’ve been walking and exercising, because I need to strengthen my body anyway, but it’s hard to find the energy to work out when you’re working, you know? I’ve also been getting together with friends and former co-workers and socializing. This is fun, but it’s also networking for all of us. And then there’s stuff around the house, although I’m not doing as much of that as I thought I would. I’ve also been reading and quilting. In fact, I just finished a quilt top this evening:

Hexagon Quilt

I created this as a sort of sampler to quilt before I start working on my bigger quilt that I posted about a few weeks ago. I need to learn how to stitch in the ditch, as well as how to do bindings.

Anyway, in spite of having found and applied for sixteen jobs since February 28th, I have not had one single call from an employer. I know it’s not me. Two years ago when I was thinking about leaving my last employer, I sent out a bunch of resumes and had about five or six interviews out of about ten or eleven applications. So yes, the job market really is as tight as the news says. Actually, I’m surprised there have been sixteen positions to apply for at all. The catch is that most of them do not actually exist. I’ll get an email hours or days later for some of them, telling me that they have an internal candidate they’ll be hiring, or that they have so many applicants they aren’t considering any more.

It is eerie, because the very employers that had pages and pages of jobs on their websites two years ago now have only a few postings. So things are bad. However, I have severance, and when that runs out I’ll have unemployment. And I can get by for a good long while on those things. I just keep the faith that I *will* find a job if I keep trying. I am a good employee, and I will do good work for my next employer. They might not have the resouces to hire me right now, but things *will* turn around again, and the second they do, they will find they already have my resume in hand.

In the meantime, I’m not spending a lot of time on the net. I didn’t choose to be without work. I would rather have a job. But if I am to go through a stretch of time without work, then I am going to cram a bunch of living in to this time. It would be a shame to waste it. So I still think of all of you, but that’s why I’m not around much. I’m doing well–I’m just not spending much time on the computer except for what I must do to find work. Hope all of you are doing well too!