Beating the Pavement

The job search continues apace, though I am yet to have any luck. My dear friend Key thinks my pool of potential employers is slow to respond because I am, in general, applying for the kinds of jobs I've usually supervised in the past - secretarial, administrative, reception - and that potential employers take one look at my resumé and assume that I want too much money. I don't, though - I want to redirect my professional life away from the ambitious, and I understand that this comes with a commensurate cut in pay. I don't want a managerial position anymore, and I don't want to go back to the road-warrior grind of consultancy. I don't want the responsibility. I want to answer the phone, order office supplies, greet visitors, file, create forms, type letters, etc. - administrative work, all of which I am well qualified to do. I'm not burying my head in the sand, here - administrative work is no sinecure and I know it - just ask those who have done it. I do, though, want the kind of job that I don't have to take home with me at night. I want to be a decent mother to my children - and when I'm worried about whether or not my organization will make payroll every month, I'm distracted, perfunctory, and grouchier than the little angels (ahem) deserve.

All my wants aside, I need a job, any job, just to keep a little money in my coffers. While Mister MacFarland's salary takes care of all our immediate needs (the roof over our heads, the utilities, the groceries, the car-payments and the like), my salary has always provided things like car insurance, a cushion of savings for catastrophic car-issues or bereavement travel, vacations, new clothes, tech-toys, manicures, restaurants, liquor, and the like. We do like our luxuries at the MacFarland house, and a few of the necessary items I pay for (like the abovementioned car insurance) are coming due pretty soon; The Almighty Dollar calls, an irresistible song.

So - as an alternative to wiping asses at the local daycare center for next-to-nothing an hour, I went down to the local outlet of the Great Coffee Overlord today and submitted an application. I wouldn't mind being a barista, not a bit. Or a cashier. Or whatever. I also dropped by a local dentist's office, just to introduce myself. My daughter's teacher told me that they were looking for a receptionist, so I stopped in with a resumé; turns out that they had just hired the girl at the front desk who initially took my curriculum vitae from me, but the office manager was right there and snatched my resumé away from the girl for her own perusal. I think the office manager watched me leave with a measure of regret, as it was obvious that I'd caught them in the middle of an accounting problem in the computer, and with my recent and extensive experience with both computers and accounting systems and practices, the buck-toothed high-schooler she had manning the phones wasn't looking too helpful. I could be wrong, though.

I have always believed that if you are flexible and reasonable and really want to work, it is impossible, in this day and time, to remain unemployed in the United States of America. I mean, as long as you ain't crazy or anything, or a thief with a record or something, somebody out there needs you to man a post doing something. I still believe that; I am not weird-looking, I don't suffer from halitosis, I conduct myself - I behave, and dress, and speak (in person) - in a professional manner, I am not covered with tattoos, nor do I have a ring in every flap of skin in my head, just one in each lobe - pretty standard. I smell nice, too. I know I will find a damn job, and soon. It's just...harder than it was the last time I was unemployed, five or six years ago.

A few more weeks of this and I'm resorting to voudou. No shit. I'm calling Maman Angelique down in the bayou and getting some chicken fat and graveyard dirt goin' on. I need a job, man. Either that, or I'll be joining my eldest son, bagging groceries down at the Piggly Wiggly.