Things I Have Learned Being Unemployed
Let’s list it up:
Shh, she is asleep.
- People pretty much don’t want to talk about it with you because they don’t know what to say. I understand that completely although it’s sometimes frustrating. I have sought out the company of strangers, bartender therapy (well not much as I’m broke as a cabbage), and Mabel, who looks at me with wariness.
- People are mainly about the free. I have been asked to do more free things which goes into “help” or “while you are off, could you ***whatever the thing is*** while you aren’t doing anything. Umm, unemployed, people, this isn’t social time for me. I’m not having tea on the veranda. (It sort of makes me laugh though.) I don’t mind volunteering but there has to be a balance.
- Emotions are pretty raw, so I have to keep it in balance. I will tell you some of the inner demons but not all of them. You would melt like the witch who messed with Dorothy.
- Bartering still exists.
- I cooked and although it wasn’t great, no one died. I feel that Homer and the family feel that ‘Coma going back to work and out of her beloved kitchen is a good idea indeed.
- My resume is still paralyzing me.
- Considered begging Sig Hansen for a job, until I realized that crabs have spider-like looks about them. I am phobic about spiders. And Sig scares the hell out of me. I’m partial to Johnathon, however.
- The highlight of my day yesterday was buying toilet paper.
- My phone has gone dead twice and I didn’t panic.
- Have added Shark Week to my calendar. (I do this every year but it just seemed like I needed to mention it in regards to being at home and very, very, very bored.)
I’m still pretty light-hearted as one can be about this sort of thing and I’m trying very hard.
Psychotic will come later.
I’ve been out of work twice before – once in ‘83 or 4 and once in ‘88 (that decade sucked badly) and both times I was so bad at selling myself that it took me too long to find something else but I did learn some things.
Barter is the solution to issue #2. You need to start telling these nice people that you are now fully employed and your job is finding one. If they want or need help, GIMMIE – a free meal, a six-pack, five gallons of gas, whatever. Price yourself at an hourly rate comparable to what you were making – or just pick a dollar number.
The first time I finally scored by physically networking – literally knocking someone down in the Cordell Hull Building – they came around a corner just as I was also doing it, and being bigger, I floored her. She new someone who needed help.
The next time, it was harder but I signed up with every temp agency in Nashville and worked at all sorts of temp stuff to help pay bills — down to doing inventory at Sears.
Resumes are a pain. It’s a selling thing. Try to tell not just what you did but things you did that improved processes or cut costs or made life better for you or the people who worked with you or something else like that (Numbers help, if there are any. Even really boring crap like making a form easier to use saves dinero. My old resume was full of that sort of stuff and I actually had an HR person say they wished they had a job so they could offer it to me. Both positive and negative at the same time – it’s like that.)
How is your resume paralyzing you?
Resume: Write yourself as a commercial press release intended to be a news story. Then edit it mercilessly. You might start with the funny version just for entertainment.
Caveat: If I could take my own advice, I’d be better off. I’d also be keeping my New Year’s resolution.
A good resume exercise is to write down adjectives that describe you(personally, values and attributes) then make a list with verbs and action words that come to mind about your job and skills. Start cross referencing the two lists and build into sentences and descriptions from there. You will get a lot of information out of yourself that you might not otherwise. Don’t overthink the lists, just free associate and do over a couple of days and things pop into your brain. This works best for creative people and someone with a more service and skill based background rather than a strict regimen of dates and jobs. I got my current job with a skill based resume rather than a date based one.
People used to invite me to visit and travel all the time when I was unemployed. Hello! I’ve got time but no money, I couldn’t afford to go anywhere and now I have no time. Catch 22.