Adventures in Unemployment

I'm going to be honest - the job I just applied for, I'm not sure I'm eligible for it. Oh, I'm perfectly qualified, but it is 100% remote, available at "multiple locations" in the US, but the salary listed says it depends on if you're in the San Francisco or NYC metro areas. Oh well, I guess we'll let them tell me no. Or, more likely, for them to never get back to me. Otherwise, today was a perfectly pleasant day. I took my dogs for a walk, I did some laundry and dishes, I made soup (rather, I'm in the process of making soup). Wildly uneventful. It is probably for the best that it stays that way since I'm over "excitement" for a while. Mundane. Routine. That could be nice. Well, probably time for another "life inventory" question. I'm still working my way through this list from Tim Ferris. The third question is "What would I do/have/be if I had $10 million? What’s my real TMI?" I can answer half of that. If I ...

And she rested on Day 8. Ok, not entirely true. I've actually been pretty busy over the past 2 days with errands, appointments, and friends. Changing topics completely, I said in my first post that I knew this blog could be a liability for me while trying to find a job - being too real, too honest, too me. I am not neutral. Ask anyone, I am opinionated. But honestly, I'm not a different person with my friends than I am with my coworkers than I am with my family. I only know how to cope with dark humor. I can have an entire conversation at work in just gifs. In a big family, if you're not witty, you're not talking. I felt the need to preface with that because of my next take. On Tuesday, I went to share my post on my socials and then ALL OF A SUDDEN TAYLOR SWIFT WAS ENGAGED (to some football guy???). I kid, I know who Travis Kelce is. And I was like "ahhh no one is going to see this blog." Which is fine, no one needs to see it. I started this as a way to figure...

IT'S BEEN ONE WEEK 🎵🎶 Now that that song is properly stuck in your head, I feel like I can move on. I can't believe it's already been a week since I was laid off. When you think about having only 4 weeks of severance, that went too fast. This isn't a pity post, but I'm being realistic here. I'll be able to claim unemployment once the severance ends, but I'm not going to pretend that will fund the lavish lifestyle I've become accustomed to... by which I mean brunch once a month, my membership in BOTM, and my dogs' grooming schedule. Yes, when I say, "my lavish lifestyle," I really mean theirs. They have spa days way more often than I do. Luckily, I picked myself up off the ground yesterday and made some progress. I found some mistakes in my resume (oops) and applied to a couple of jobs. I've reached out to friends for both connection and networking, and I've had success in both. Today I baked my third baked good since being laid of...

Don't worry, I'll get to another life inventory question today, but first, a rant about part of the job search process. This has been a pet peeve of mine for some time now. I was only at my last job for 18 months before I was unceremoniously called into a mass meeting to be laid off, so that job search process is also fresh in my brain. I am finding that we have not fixed something that drove me nuts then: no salaries in the job listing. Listen, I know what I'm worth. I may have temporarily forgotten last week when my worth to a company was called into question based solely on my tenure, but it's back. I know what I'm looking for in my next job - the location (remote), the salary, and what I'm hoping the company atmosphere will be like. I unfortunately can't come up with all of that from a job posting if the salary isn't listed. I have no desire to waste my time on a job application for a company that seems great only to find out they value me at half of...

I found a  post for Tim Ferris  with 17 questions that changed his life. This is the first question in his list. What if I did the opposite for 48 hours? The opposite of what I'm doing now? I'm not working, so should I work? Seems like what I'm trying to do. Ok, I'll drop the sarcasm (short term, anyway). What if I did the opposite for 48 hours? In Tim's example, he made sales calls when others weren't, and seemed to make an earnest effort at being more genuine. I suspect I could give that a shot when I write cover letters. If other job seekers are feeding companies what they think they want to hear, maybe I can be the person who is true to myself and see which companies bite. I should probably still tone down my sarcasm and dark humor, but if a company calls me back after reading a cover letter where I've been myself, it stands to reason I will find companies where I like their environment. Something else I could do for 48 hours/in the short term is avoid m...

It is my first weekend being laid off, and I have to say, I can't see a difference from during the week. I assume this is what retirement is like. I'll come back to you all in 80-100 years and let you know. I am putting off figuring out what I want to do with my life. When I was a kid, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. By the time I was in second grade, I knew I was going to be a meteorologist. When I was in seventh grade, I knew I was going to work at an airport doing flight planning. In 10th grade, I knew what college I was going to go to. As a Senior, I got accepted to that college with a full ride. By the time I was a Senior in college, I was flailing. I could do the work, although the further along I got in my major the harder it was because I was less invested, but I did it. I majored in the hard sciences with a dual minor, was an RA and worked two other on-campus jobs, and still finished with a 3.39 GPA. I still feel proud of that. But now I had to figure out what I wa...

It might be time to bust out some arts and crafts today. As I look through all of the "what to do when you get laid off" help articles, there are lists and lists of questions to help you decide what you want to do next. To find the job that best suits you. To picture your life this time next year, or in five years, or in 10 years. I don't even know what I'm doing next week! But I think the point stands. I am going to have to do some kind of "life inventory" because of how indecisive I'm feeling after all of this. Luckily, my husband is supportive in my journey to find myself and my next job (ie: not panicking about our lack of health insurance), so I can spend some time next week (look, I have plans!) to figure out what this looks like. So arts and crafts? Maybe I'm going old school to create a vision board. I bought some supplies to make myself inspirational quotes to go around my office. Once I know what my life looks like in 1-5-10 years, maybe I ...

I've never been very good at journaling. I'm not consistent enough. In my early years, I hated writing. Don't ask me why, but the difference between there/their/they're and were/we're (and others) took me longer to grasp than I'd like to admit. If you asked me to breakdown a sentence or identify parts of speech, I still couldn't do it. But a while ago (ok, a long time ago now...), when I was in grad school, I took a class about writing to learn. Having just come out of the hard sciences in my undergraduate degree, I thought this class was nonsense. The professor was some hippie writer and educator who wanted to understand his students, to use writing as a method to help students learn the material, and to figure out where students were struggling with the material. I read along. I wrote my journal entries. I attended the class and participated. But it remained nonsense to me. It remained nonsense to me until the day my professor used my journal entry as an e...