I was laid off two months ago. The company I was working for was purchased and the buyer saw my position as redundant. My first reaction was anger and disbelief. After three and a half years in a place, devoting my time, energy, knowledge, and every part of me that I could to a job that I hoped would repay in kind and have it not pan out hit me like a cinder block in the chest. I took a few days to process it, pulled myself up by my metaphorical bootstraps, and got on with it.
Part of getting on with it was reminding myself that even though I was tossed out the door, I did have almost four years of experience being an admin. assistant. That job gave me a variety of experiences that I’m glad to tout on my resume, or an interview if I should be so lucky. I’m an excited and devoted employee, any company would be lucky to have me… if I could just get that far.
My goal in the past two months has been to apply to a new job, or do something for my job hunt every weekday. For the most part I have been successful, but often times I get disheartened by the feeling that I’m continually sending resumes into a vast abyss and getting nothing back.
I have had the good fortune of getting to interview with four companies in the last two months, and as of this post have been told “thanks but no thanks” by three of them. The thing that frustrates me most is not not getting any responses to the resumes I send out, but the length of time between the interview, the day they say they’ll tell you their decision, and the day that you actually hear back from them. I would prefer they tell me as soon as they know so I can get on with my search rather than continue to delay the inevitable and keeping my hopes up. No one likes to be the bearer of bad news; no on benefits from delaying. As a mature and professional candidate I will accept your decision, maybe I will be disappointed, but life goes on. That’s the beauty of the modern age and the invention of email. Most if not all job seekers will have an email address, and what a perfectly painless way for the company to deliver the news?
Showing posts with label unemployment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label unemployment. Show all posts
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Friday, October 16, 2009
You Can’t Transition-Proof Your Life
I’m beginning to learn more and more each day that life is about transitions, and how I deal with the transitions is what shapes me as a person… as a functioning adult in today’s world. I still think that it’s strange to refer to myself as an adult. I know I am of that age group and actively functioning as one, but part of me still feels fresh out of college barely prepared for the responsibility handed to me. At what point does someone transition from a “punk college kid” to a “makin’ it in the world adult”? Does the Mary Tyler Moore theme suddenly erupt as you’re walking in to your office one Monday morning? Does it become really truly adulthood when you buy your first new car? Make your first mortgage payment? When you have your first child?
Like a lot of things being an adult is a state of mind, one that needs to be transitioned in to. Here in the U.S. you can drive at 16, help decide who runs our government and be sent to war at 18, and drink legally at 21. The rates on car insurance go down at 25 and you can join AARP at 55, retire and collect social security at 65 and then what?
In the past two weeks the reality of the working during a recession hit my company, and for the first time I experienced companywide layoffs, gracefully masked as a “reorganizing”. Fortunately for me I was spared the pink slip but returned to the office missing the 15 people that had been let go. Talking to one of my coworkers who works at another office in Arizona that lost 27 people, a large majority of their office staff, he compared it to grieving the loss of someone to death. Suddenly they’re gone and the reminders of them are everywhere but you have to pick up the pieces and move on. It is a horrible thing, but you learn from it and hopefully your company is better for it, and you all transition together to making it work.
Like a lot of things being an adult is a state of mind, one that needs to be transitioned in to. Here in the U.S. you can drive at 16, help decide who runs our government and be sent to war at 18, and drink legally at 21. The rates on car insurance go down at 25 and you can join AARP at 55, retire and collect social security at 65 and then what?
In the past two weeks the reality of the working during a recession hit my company, and for the first time I experienced companywide layoffs, gracefully masked as a “reorganizing”. Fortunately for me I was spared the pink slip but returned to the office missing the 15 people that had been let go. Talking to one of my coworkers who works at another office in Arizona that lost 27 people, a large majority of their office staff, he compared it to grieving the loss of someone to death. Suddenly they’re gone and the reminders of them are everywhere but you have to pick up the pieces and move on. It is a horrible thing, but you learn from it and hopefully your company is better for it, and you all transition together to making it work.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
27 Years, and All I Got Was This T-shirt
One of my coworkers pointed out today that now that I am at the ripe old age of 27, my age is a cubed number. He’s in the accounting department, and has a love for numbers, that’s all I need to say to explain that.
It’s strange to think that at 12:35am this morning I changed from being 26 to 27. You always hear people say things like “You’re only as old as you feel,” or “Age is just a number,” and even “Act your age, not your shoe size.” All are relative truisms, but I think I have come to mark my life more by events than by my age. A quote from the character Leonard in the show Big Bang Theory rings true to me: “My parents focused on celebrating achievements, and being expelled from a birth canal was not considered one of them.” It couldn’t have felt truer than it did a few weeks ago when I found out that a job I was hoping would be created was not opened due to budget constraints. This event sent me into a swirl of self doubt and to revisit my quarter-life-crisis stage. My first, and returning, thought was “I’m going to be 27, and a receptionist. I thought I would be doing more than that by now.” The thought that I should be doing something else haunts me frequently. It has haunted me since six months after I graduated from college.
All those thoughts disappeared though after I took a minute to reflect on my current position. There are literally hundreds of thousands of people in this country alone that have found themselves without a job because of the recession. So, first I count my blessings that I have a job. Second, I have a good paying job with benefits. Third, and not the least of all, I actually enjoy my job. Yeah it’s not the most thrilling thing and not what I thought I would be doing but there’s something to be said for enjoying your job. I have always told myself to get a job doing work I enjoy and everything else will follow. I’d have to so that the only bad part about this job is the commute.
Here’s to another year, and more achievements to come.
It’s strange to think that at 12:35am this morning I changed from being 26 to 27. You always hear people say things like “You’re only as old as you feel,” or “Age is just a number,” and even “Act your age, not your shoe size.” All are relative truisms, but I think I have come to mark my life more by events than by my age. A quote from the character Leonard in the show Big Bang Theory rings true to me: “My parents focused on celebrating achievements, and being expelled from a birth canal was not considered one of them.” It couldn’t have felt truer than it did a few weeks ago when I found out that a job I was hoping would be created was not opened due to budget constraints. This event sent me into a swirl of self doubt and to revisit my quarter-life-crisis stage. My first, and returning, thought was “I’m going to be 27, and a receptionist. I thought I would be doing more than that by now.” The thought that I should be doing something else haunts me frequently. It has haunted me since six months after I graduated from college.
All those thoughts disappeared though after I took a minute to reflect on my current position. There are literally hundreds of thousands of people in this country alone that have found themselves without a job because of the recession. So, first I count my blessings that I have a job. Second, I have a good paying job with benefits. Third, and not the least of all, I actually enjoy my job. Yeah it’s not the most thrilling thing and not what I thought I would be doing but there’s something to be said for enjoying your job. I have always told myself to get a job doing work I enjoy and everything else will follow. I’d have to so that the only bad part about this job is the commute.
Here’s to another year, and more achievements to come.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
The Ballad of the Unemployeed
I find myself once again in the realm of unemployment. I have always thought of myself as a diligent, hard working employee, some one that an employer would be proud to have on staff. But in the past year I have discovered myself to be ... lacking. Now, I don't quite know for sure if the jobs that I've had while in this area just don't suit me and my skill set but nothing has lasted. Is it really too much to ask for a little stability? I suppose it is probably my own fault for jumping headlong in to things that really aren't my forte and end up being unhappy and not putting my best effort in to things.
Today I went back to a temp agency that I had done some work for last year and got a brief assignment to watch the phones at University of Phoenix for five hours this evening, purely by chance. I answered the phone all of four times this evening and spent the rest of the evening going through anything remotely interesting to me in the Oregonian from Friday and today. My other success was drawing a beautiful picture on a post it note as well as getting hit on by two of the male students. Oh yeah, get a little padding for the bank account and get an ego boost to go ;-)
Today I went back to a temp agency that I had done some work for last year and got a brief assignment to watch the phones at University of Phoenix for five hours this evening, purely by chance. I answered the phone all of four times this evening and spent the rest of the evening going through anything remotely interesting to me in the Oregonian from Friday and today. My other success was drawing a beautiful picture on a post it note as well as getting hit on by two of the male students. Oh yeah, get a little padding for the bank account and get an ego boost to go ;-)
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