Category Archives: job search

employment, job search

I am job (rather than Job)

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I still don’t know what I’m doing for the rest of my life, but I do know what I’ll be doing starting in June. I will be paid money to work with artsy, lefty Jewish intellectuals in a non-profit on the top floor of a midtown office building.

~

Chris: How did I know it would be Jewish or Feminist?
Me: Well, all the gay male snarky jobs were taken.

~

For the third time in five years, I will begin a job on 6/15. Eerie, huh? The vernal equinox loves me like Barney, like Jesus, like a dog that’s just been fed. The autumnal equinox is another story, of course. An R-rated horror story like Saw IV: The Sawiest Yet, So Sawy You Won’t Have Any Fingers Left By The Time We’re Done With You. Somehow I have offended the autumnal equinox and I have to figure out a way to make amends. Is it because I make fun of Christmas?

This job gives me all the Jewish holidays off!

~

Adam: So nice for you to have a chance to get in touch with your jewish heritage.

~

Meanwhile I will enjoy my last precious and increasingly warm hours of freedom, knowing, to my great relief, that there is some stability around the corner.

brokers can bite me, houzin, job search, mr. ben

Pro-PRO-active

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There’s a line between being active and proactive (good) and trying to control things you can’t control (bad) and trying to make things happen just to shift the weight off your goddamn shoulders already (crazy). I’m straddling that line and it feels like a permanent wedgie. Help me, lord.

Actually this is one of those moments I wish I did believe in a higher, guiding, benevolent force in the universe. Then maybe I could lay back and think:

– the fact that I have not yet secured us an April 1 rental, despite spending every day shuttling from one middling apartment to another is all part of the plan

– the fact that, after a month, the bank has still not rubber-stamped our pre-approval so that we could forward with our potential purchase is all part of the plan

– the fact that brokers keep chipping away at my self-esteem and self-confidence is all part of the plan. Viz:

ME: My husband and I …
BROKER: No. No! You’re a BABY!

ME: I’m not sure this is quite right for us.
BROKER 2: Well, what is it you want, anyway? How many apartments have you seen? Shouldn’t you know by now? Shouldn’t you just commit?

ME, DIFFERENT APARTMENT: I’m not sure this is what we’re looking for.
BROKER 2: (Shouts in Hebrew on her cell phone for a long time)

ME: I’d like an application, please.
BROKER 3: Mm, sorry. I really don’t like giving wives applications without their husbands present.

ME: Well, for $2000, we’d like a large one-bedroom in a building with laundry and an elevator.
BROKER 4: You’ll never find it.

– the fact that Mr. Ben doesn’t know what he wants to / will be able to do once he leaves his clerkship in September is all part of the plan

– the fact that I keep applying fruitlessly to the sprinkling of available jobs is all part of the plan

– the fact that my father is sick and spends his days calculating the value of his library is all part of the plan

That would have to be one serious plan, that’s for sure. And it could be. I just wish I had the faith.

job search, unemployment

Day 1 of Unemployment: Part 2

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12:30: Friend calls, asks if it’d be okay to drop by. Pause Harry Potter to put on a bra. Remain in pajamas.

1:30 – 3:00: General misery & ill fortune.

3:05: Decide to go to the Coop. Get dressed.

3:10: Doorbell rings! It’s the landlord dropping by to tell us that the people who bought our building may indeed want to take our apartment when our lease runs out at the end of March. We could take the 3rd floor apartment, though! Luckily it’s astronomically expensive, or I’d have to feel like maybe my luck is turning.

3:30: At the Coop playing bumper carts with the thousands of other shoppers. Who are all these people at liberty on a Monday afternoon?

3:35: Rebecca!

4:30: Rebecca and I walk back to my apartment with our groceries. I rant about my general misery and ill fortune and their potential alleviations, leading to the following exchange:

ME: Wouldn’t it be great if I never had to go back to work because I had to go on book tour? Be on the “Today” show? Of course, I wouldn’t actually want to go on the “Today” show. They’d probably make me lose weight.

REBECCA: No, I think everyone’s more tolerant of writers being weird looking.

ME: Are you calling me WEIRD LOOKING?

REBECCA: What? No! No! You’re beautiful! You’re the one who said you’d need to lose weight!

ME: And you’re the one who called me WEIRD LOOKING!

I can only hope that at some point this day will end.

job search, unemployment

Unemployment Log: Day 1, Morning

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8:30: Wake up after a solid five hours sleep. No point lollygagging about — must get going! If 2009 is to be a Year of Wow despite this recent setback, there’s work to be done.

8:45: Breakfast. Read more condolence emails. Scoped out red carpet dresses from the Golden Globes, which I more or less forgot to watch last night. Kate Winslet looks fantastic double-fisting golden statues.

9:00: Job search begins.

9:10: God this is depressing.

9:15: Why am I even bothering? There’s nothing here and anyway I have no idea what I want to do.

9:30: Try to apply for unemployment. Log in rejected because the site insists I don’t know my mother’s maiden name. This reminds when of when my father said “Bastard” once when I was a kid, and I asked him what it meant. An honest man, he replied, “Someone who doesn’t know who their father is.” For a while thereafter I assumed a bastard must be someone very, very dumb.

9:35: Craigslist should come with a warning that says “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” Mediabistro, Bookjobs, Monster are no better. Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, guess I’ll go eat worms.

10:00: Abandon pathetic efforts in favor of watching the first Harry Potter movie. Will try being responsible again after lunch.