Chaos Attraction

Career Chat

2018-11-08, 9:08 p.m.

I had been wondering why a card hadn’t gone around for my boss--someone asked me about it--and I found out it was just sitting around on someone’s desk barely signed at about 4 p.m. I attempted to get some signatures on it before some people left and ah...well, a few people apparently don’t like him. I don’t know what the deal there was but it was a bit sad.

I didn’t see him much that day but I did sneak in privately (after he finished his one on ones with everyone else so my soon-to-be-former group doesn’t get cheesed off at me for giving him something) and gave him my own card and the Lego man. “Oh, the head came off!” he said, rather delightedly. He loved it. “Oh, Han Solo!” He hugged me and said me he’d miss me.


I also went to see the career counselor (we get 2 free appointments a year) today. I used to have a favorite career counselor that I really hit it off with, but she moved to Palm Springs around three years ago. The remaining career counselor is nice enough, but I was not impressed with her advice when I last went. I don’t think she knew how to advise me in the situation--I was stumped as to how to get more experience in the areas I don’t have experience in--and when she said I should just retake the same classes over again, I left a half hour in. But I’m desperate enough, it’s free, I can still sneak out to do this without repercussions this week, so I went.

This time went better--she briefly went over the resume to “freshen” it up, gave some cover letter tips, told me about staffing agencies (basically, recruiters for clerical temp jobs when I looked at them, probably won’t actually use these until I get canned) and where to look for jobs. She looked at the job listings I have printed out and didn’t seem to think I qualified for any of them and I should probably only stick to clerical work because I don’t have transferable skills unless I get more schooling. She suggested going through a rather expensive program or two at the continuing education office, which I might consider because their website programs look pretty good, though I dunno if taking four classes gets you a job these days. She seemed to think I should stick to applying for jobs here even though she admitted that you have to have 100% of the qualifications to get in these days.

I spent three hours during my CC shift looking for jobs and signing up for notifications from the various job sites, and hopefully setting up filters so they don’t show up obviously in the front of my inbox when I am skimming my personal account at work. I hope they bleeping work.

I also looked at Captain Awkward today and freaking loved this post about how to job hunt.

Look widely at jobs that are available and that match your interests and categorizing them, like:
* Jobs you would be great at (and an obvious fit for),
* Jobs you would be great at (but you’d need to make a really strong case or acquire additional experiences or training),
* Dream jobs – what you might do down the road with a little more training or experience,
* Career-switcher/entry level jobs that are in a field that excites you, where you would be willing to start at the bottom, and jobs with larger employers where you could start with something basic but there’s room to move up and around within the company,
* Jobs with employers that provide excellent training & educational benefits that you could use to build your skills, again, where you could start with something basic and then work your way into a career,
* Companies where you know people, especially people who are successful and happy in their careers,
* Finally: “Better than nothing!” Jobs you could do, where they’d be likely to hire you, and that would pay the bills right now while you look for something else. Maybe you really need a Right Now Job to pay the bills while you keep applying to things that you want to do. That doesn’t mean you’re giving up on longer-term goals, it just means you apply to at least some of those and see what happens.

This is something I am going to try to make myself do. It also explains why I am not super psyched to apply for anything so far because:

Look widely at jobs that are available and that match your interests and categorizing them, like:

Jobs you would be great at (and an obvious fit for), I have seen none of these so far, though I have seen the occasional job that is similar to mine, but at say, Fresno or Salinas. Umm....no.

Jobs you would be great at (but you’d need to make a really strong case or acquire additional experiences or training), That would be technical writing, copy editing, any writing job really since I haven’t officially done that for money since 2001.

Dream jobs – what you might do down the road with a little more training or experience, Uh, do I even have a dream job any more that isn’t essentially being David Sedaris for a living? Not really.

Career-switcher/entry level jobs that are in a field that excites you, where you would be willing to start at the bottom, and jobs with larger employers where you could start with something basic but there’s room to move up and around within the company, Uh...I dunno on this one, other than maybe technical writing. Maybe.

Jobs with employers that provide excellent training & educational benefits that you could use to build your skills, again, where you could start with something basic and then work your way into a career, I don’t think that is going on these days.

Companies where you know people, especially people who are successful and happy in their careers, Um... the place my boss is going to has risen higher in the “looking at” factor for this--he said people there seemed pretty happy--but other than that, I don’t know too many people who are happy at their jobs. Dawn is semi-happy in that she likes her job but hates the bureaucracy and I already applied there anyway.

Finally: “Better than nothing!” Jobs you could do, where they’d be likely to hire you, and that would pay the bills right now while you look for something else. Maybe you really need a Right Now Job to pay the bills while you keep applying to things that you want to do. That doesn’t mean you’re giving up on longer-term goals, it just means you apply to at least some of those and see what happens.

I think what it is for me is something like “Better than nothing!” that are jobs I could do but I might not be that likely to be hired.

No wonder I’m not enthused to get down to work on this.


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