BerthaBlog

Despite having a couple of interviews in the last month, I remain jobless. I called Kelly Friday to check for temp jobs, which apparently bumped me to the top of the “live” queue, but I still haven’t heard back. I’ll call them again tomorrow, though it may be difficult to dial with my fingers crossed.

Alpha Geek tries to keep me from getting discouraged. He pointed out that much of the job hiring process depends on random factors that are entirely out of my control. Even once I get to the interview stage, the employer’s decision will rest largely on their own personal likes and dislikes. Assuming all candidates arrive well-groomed and present themselves professionally, the choice will come down to which candidate the interviewer took a personal fancy to.

“It’s a numbers game,” he advised. “You just have to get as many interviews as you can, until sooner or later you land in the right place at the right time.”

As usual, he’s right. At least I have the advantage that when I apply to a job posting, there is likely to be a job. It was a much tougher sell when I was working minimum-wage jobs as “unskilled labor” (a misnomer if I ever heard one—any job requires a skill set of some sort). The turnover for such jobs is quite high, and employers tend to keep job postings up more or less constantly in order to have an unending flow of applicants available. Obtaining the job is largely a matter of whether you applied at just the time they happen to have an open position to be filled.

For a while I was considering looking for one of those minimum-wage jobs, just as a temporary measure until I find one in my field. But when I mentioned this to Alpha Geek, he pointed out that such a job will not pay enough to offset the loss of the tax deduction he can take when claiming me as a dependent. So I reluctantly abandoned that plan.

The Artist is rooting for me, too. Now that he’s an adult, he’s much more interested and involved in family finances. He has also talked about getting a job to help pay for his college expenses, but I told him to focus on his schoolwork. Perhaps he can manage an internship over the summer, but during the semester it’s more important that he work on his curriculum. So he reluctantly abandoned that plan, but he remains interested in the results of any interviews I manage to obtain.

Unemployment sucks.