Okay, so fine, I was sucking it up and job hunting again. More than my usual that I can stand to do.

This is how job hunting goes for me.

1. Start with looking on the job boards for my megaorg that I work for. As usual this year, find no jobs that I qualify for because they want someone who can do finances and the payroll and the event planning and the travel arrangements, 3 out of 4 of which I do not do in my job. Also, try finding a job where they don't want "excellent customer service" and "first point of contact," because no jobs that don't involve you being Front Counter Person exist.

2. Look on the job boards for similar megaorgs in other cities. Find a few jobs that aren't 100% ruled out because they don't blatantly ask for all of the stuff above, but seem a bit above my level and odds are, will probably ask for the usual stuff if you make it to the interview. Save and print out (while at your volunteer job) these job listings but have no enthusiasm for them.

3. Look for county jobs per the suggestion of therapist which was actually a good idea, find next to nothing listed that isn't a librarian position. Wonder what's up with that.

4. Suck it up and look at indeed.com, the only job board in the world any more really and dear fucking god it is horrible. You hate indeed.com so much. It can't filter for shit and it's avalanches of jobs you don't want and don't qualify to wade through. Seriously, you know darned well you don't qualify to be an FBI agent or an astronomer and yet somehow you can find job listings for that while trying to look for "assistant" jobs. Realize ONCE AGAIN that you are vastly overpaid because all you can find for typing jobs are front counter person jobs for $11 an hour. Realize once again that no matter how much people shovel hope at you about how you should keep hunting, this is all you ever find. This is why you can't stomach job hunting, it only magnifies your usual "I hate my life and can't escape, no REALLY I CAN'T" feelings.

5. Look at state jobs because everyone tells you to look at state jobs. See nothing listed but typing jobs that you might qualify for, which are extremely vague as to what they do in the job, but lots of them are at prisons. Debate once again if you really want to figure out how the hell one applies for and takes exams for state jobs. You really don't actually want to do this level of work with the exams (which really doesn't make much sense) for something that's about the same level of crap that you are already dealing with so it's hard to get motivated to give any kind of shit about jumping through those hoops.

6. End up finding some personality test link on the state jobs site somewhere that figures out what kind of jobs you are suited for. Take said test. Shockingly, it proves that you like artistic jobs, which uh, you already knew. Sadly, these things never come out with "oh, btw, you have a secret aptitude to become an accountant." Continue to read on about the potential for artistic jobs, i.e. not much. Read about your awesome former profession and its career potential, i.e. none. Which you already knew because you were "fortunate" enough to get laid off from it when one could still get jobs in something else--and also you try to apply in it again once in a while and get nowhere. Can't say you blame them when there are still people in the profession and your clips are from 2001. You also saw a job listing on indeed.com where you could work at one for $11 an hour.

7. After you give up on reading about artistic jobs you don't qualify for or won't survive, you read about technical writing and think, "heeeeeeeey, I could do that!" You write documentation a lot at work! Heck, one of your friends used to do it and she said "you just do it!" And it pays more even if you're a noob. Start reading on how to get these jobs, and once you can somehow actually find something on indeed.com for these things, start reading.

They are in other towns, though, which is kind of an issue--no jobs for this in your neck of the woods, unless you wanna move to the Bay Area (which you don't really wanna) or elsewhere. Find a few jobs you think you could apply for, then wonder if you actually qualify for this.

Yes, you've heard the whole thing about how men will apply for any job if they are only 50% qualified or whatever, and women won't unless they are 100% qualified, but since men inherently have to do less to get what they want and women have to be perfect perfect perfect beyond perfect, you consider that very legitimate. Also because in your experience you get job interviews for jobs that you are 95% qualified for but never get the job because you're not 100%.

Sure, you could do a job like that pretty easily, but if you haven't done it before, can you? How the hell does anyone get a job in another field these days anyway? You don't seem to know anyone who's managed to do that since oh, you in 2002. And things are different now. And as far as you can tell from all your career counseling, does "transferable skills" exist in reality now? Doesn't seem to. Also you start reading about someone saying you need a master's degree for that sort of job (BS) and someone else saying you can't really get other jobs in that field (oh, like your current position, so what's the diff?) and just... yeah, the negative starts kicking in.

Your volunteer job is winding down for the night, as is access to a private printer, but you somehow don't print out the fun jobs you were looking at to apply for.

So in short, your brain is talking you out of this and you're not at all sure if it's legit reasoning (which it probably is) or some kind of job hunting stage fright (ditto), and you wonder why you are so freaked out at the idea of changing anything. You hate how your life is now but deeply feel like you'll make it worse if you do anything different, somehow. Or that you can't handle moving. Or that you can't handle going back to very little vacation time, having to switch health insurance, or whatever else. Or you just can't handle anything else at all in life whatsoever.

This is why you don't like to job hunt, somehow it can always make you feel worse than just enduring the usual.

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