I hate this out of control feeling; this feeling that my life is totally in the hands of others; and those people don’t even know me. I want to have something that I can grab onto and say it is mine. I’ve created the resume and made the contacts but the next step is completely out of my hands; the moving my resume from the middle of the stack to the top of the stack and being called for an interview part of the process.
What I’m learning is to resist the urge to grab onto something, anything in order to cover up deeper feelings lingering below the surface. I haven’t been completely successful at this yet; I’m trying to learn to feel comfortable in the out of control; learning to feel comfortable or at least OK being in the hands of others; learning to stay with the uncomfortable feelings until I understand them.
At the beginning of this journey, I was clinging on to my surprise and my indignation at being given a warn notice and I have clung to the idea of keeping a job at Boeing. When I use this clinging as a way to avoid examining what was really going on, progress slowed.
When I could move this avoidance clinging out of the way and start examining the deeper fears I am feeling, I progressed. These fears included: being 22 years out of the job market; being in the 50+ crowd; having responsibilities for college expenses for my kids; having concerned about my worth to other employers; and a great one to get lost in is the pondering of my own self worth. When I worked through examining these, then I could start making real progress and moving forward. These fears still exist and I’m still working through them, but they are not as poignant as they were.
Working through these is hard when you have bills to pay, mouths to feed, resumes to write, and jobs you should be applying for but the reward is learning about a part of yourself you couldn’t find otherwise; learning about a part of yourself that has strength and is not affected by the current situation or environment.
While our experience is nothing like his, maybe Victor Frankl’s words can help guide us; give us a path to move forward on:
In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way—an honorable way—in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, "The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory…
Man's Search for Meaning, Part One, "Experiences in a Concentration Camp", Viktor Frankl, pages 56-57 in the Pocket Books edition; ISBN: 978-0-671-02337-9
Even though I can’t make much sense out of the actions that brought me here, maybe there is a greater learning that I can capture. Maybe I can learn to understand myself better and with this new understanding continue on from a place of heightened inner strength.
Today, I was able to find a job and put in my application, even though I’m not sure that anyone would be able to reply to them before the layoff date. Yesterday, I learned that all of the jobs we applied to inside the company change their status to no longer under consideration once we go outside the company. We would then have to wait for them to not be filled inside the company and then re-advertised outside the company before we can apply for them again (bummer).
I also found a position that I would love to have at Microsoft. And while I was working on this I got an IM from a friend, as we were talking she asked if there was anything she could do. I said I would send her my resume and maybe she could pass it on. I hadn’t told her about the MS job, and she said, “I have a friend at Microsoft I will send it to.” I told about he job I was working on and then gave her the job number.
And then, if that wasn’t enough. I got a call from a manager in Boeing that has a position. I’m talking to him on Friday; I’m hoping that this could be something that would be effective quickly, like before next Friday. I’m keeping my fingers cross and just in case plan to write the cover letter for the MS job tomorrow.
Tomorrow – MS cover letter and find other positions.
inSite Group 56
April 23rd LinkedIn group 21
Jobs applied for: 40
Rejections: 17
Interviews: 1
Lost 2 people in the inSite group. I hope this means that they are finding other positions.
No reason for adding this video other than seeing/learning if it would work:
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