I never imagined in January right after being laid off that I'd still be unemployed five months later. But I am. Even more upsetting is the fact that I pretty much have no prospects right now. I thought I had good skills and I got two jobs before, certainly I could handle an interview fine, right? But apparently my snag seems to be getting the interview.
My skills from my college education and six years in the newspaper should have been transferrable to any number of positions. Journalists have a very broad knowledge base and the time and project management, among other skills, should translate somewhere else, I would think. But apparently in this economy they're not transferrable. I'm going to be in debt for the rest of my life for a degree I will likely never use again.
This week was hard. I had a phone interview for a clerical position at the university. It lasted a whole eight minutes. I suppose it went well enough, but I knew this job was over my head when I applied for it. How I passed a screening to get the phone interview is beyond me. I'm not expecting a call back.
Still haven't heard back on the job I interviewed for at the beginning of the month. I don't even think they called my references. I'd like to think maybe they're still deciding. It did take a long time for them to call me after I applied. I haven't called them because I think at this point if they haven't called, either they haven't made the decision or they didn't choose me. It would be nice if they would just call though so I don't need to hold on to the hope that maybe the hiring process is just slow.
Tonight is Rhythm & Booms night in Madision. At least it would have been, but it was canceled because of rain and storms in the weather forecast. This is the kind of night I loved at the Wisconsin State Journal. I had nights like this practically down to a science to get the paper sent to the press on time. Get everything ready except the late story and the plug it all in when it gets in later than it should have. Early deadline I'd work quickly to get it all ready to go. I did good work. I hardly ever missed deadline. But that wasn't good enough to compete with this economy.
The worst part of being unemployed is the psychological aspect. I still can't help wondering if I had taken my job more seriously if I'd still have it. If I'd done a better job? Not written a bad headline in December? Been on probation after a rough first year? And worse is the impact this has had on our financial situation. The unemployment system is not user friendly at all.
In reality, I know there's nothing I could have done differently that would have prevented this. It wasn't my fault. But its hard to remember. And I feel terrible about the stress this has caused.
I'm about halfway through the classroom portion of my nursing assistant course. Clinicals start in a month and after passing the class I can take the state certification test. But I'm not even sure I can get a job after that because I'll be nearly seven months pregnant by then, and nursing assistant work is physical work.
I'm not going to lie. This has been a rough year. And I'm not sure when it will improve. But knowing we get to welcome our little Ally toward the end of this year is making everything worth it. We will survive. And we'll come out stronger. God will provide, he's just never made us wait this long before.
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