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I can’t believe that this is day 200. This journey continues with little or no end in site. Today I learned that 13,000 people will lose extended unemployment benefits in just King County later this month. That is a lot of people being affected and that is just one county in the state (though most populous).
Over the last week and a half I got my hopes way up high and had them crashed to the ground. A job I interviewed for, seemed like they were going to extend an offer, but in the end they did not. I really thought this was going to be the one. I was a fool.
Today I had the privilege to a keynote presenter at a local community college staff workshop. It was nice to do some work in my field, something I that I really enjoy doing, as opposed to searching and filling out job requisitions. I did an 1 1/2 hour session called Leading from the inside out. This was a series of exercises designed to help people find the passions that they can use to drive their personal leadership.
I enjoyed designed the interaction over the past couple of weeks, and then finalizing it and really internalizing the presentation over the last couple of days. Then today it was executing the plan and adjusting in real time to the group. I enjoyed the reaction of the people going through the exercises; seeing them learn things about themselves they hadn’t realized, things that would be pretty hard to pick up on their own. I loved it, I love this helping people expand their thinking and I love that in the process I end up learning a lot myself.
Last night, as I was wrapping up the final package and making sure that I had everything ready in the morning, I received a form email stating the position I was excited about had been filled. I have a hard time understanding why they could couldn’t give a call. I thought this was just rude. This is not contacting a large group od people; this was the final set of people that had made it through jumping every gate.
I spent the night thinking about what I had done to lose the position. I when I got to a point where I could put that out of mind, I would toss and turn on the presentation for the next day. As best I can tell I ended up with 45 minutes of sleep that started when my alarm went off. Instead of getting up like my plan, I slept for 45 minutes and had to rush to make it on time.
After mulling it in my head for hours on end, I have decided my biggest mistake was to get my hopes up in the first place. I got excited and believed that I knew what was happening, when actually I must have brought alone in case the person in the first place for the position turned it down, then my application would have been process and ready to be put in. I plan to confirm this tomorrow by trying to contact the person I interviewed with.
I am lucky that the timing of my lay off means that I will be able to receive 26 more weeks of unemployment. If I would have been laid off two or three weeks later, I would not have been eligible for extensions myself. Given the inertia in the economy it is looking like I may need the whole extension. Boeing stops hiring for the year around about the third week of November. Instead of paying for a person to come on and then spend to the days on holiday vacation they wait until the first of the year. I wonder if all companies do this.
I wondering if I should apply for a holiday job, like sales or warehouse work in order to get some money coming in.
I am constantly wondering how long this journey is going to take. What the universe has in store. I continue to do my part, now I need help from the outside. And I need to continue to refine and learn how to improve what I’m doing.
I also have to work harder at keeping my spirits up. This is becoming more and more of a task.
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Chris, you might consider teaching at a community college. They like but don't always require a masters degree, and you may find you like it.
ReplyDeleteJoe Meboe