Polishing Brass on the Titanic
Days unemployed: -3; Jobs applied for: 12; Job search websites joined: 3; Responses: 0
Last Tuesday, the one day out of the week I work in the office, I received the courtesy of being informed that I was to be laid off by the end of the month. I stayed a few minutes late that night, putting extra care into the task I was finishing up.
I weighed my options on the train home. Worst-case scenario, I could try to get on a deployment soon. It wouldn’t be a silver bullet: paperwork tends to have a schedule of its own in the National Guard, but the thought manifested as a solid fall-back. I was free to think more objectively until Cat Stevens broke into my heart with the refrain “There’s a way and I know I have to go away.” I thought about having to physically leave my family again to support them. I’ve already spent more than half my 5 year marriage away because of the Guard. I missed both children’s first steps. My oldest son’s only three. I’ve already missed too many birthdays and anniversaries for that short amount of time. There are three big reasons I didn’t choose active duty and they all have the same last name as I do.
I had a good cry on the train, and on the way back from the station. When I got home I took my time bringing the trash cans back from the curb and focused on the father in those responsibility commercials I’ve been seeing lately where the father loses his job and keeps an honest but optimistic front with his family. When I wished I could be more like Jack Marlowe, I didn’t mean this much.
Thursday night I was asked to come in Friday morning to finalize my departure. The HR manager called in sick. Now I have to go back in on Monday to get laid off. Regardless, I honestly consider the heads up to be a courtesy, as The Company has a history of offering no advanced warning.
Since my first week on the job almost a year and a half ago, the company has been letting employees go in much the same vein as blood let by a medieval barber; a dubious treatment for a clearly troublesome but poorly understood ailment. Although this continual downsizing has been primarily dictated by the slowing economy, I can’t help but believe many of the staffing decisions I’ve seen were based on assumptions and habit, much in the way blood letting was practiced as a cure-all for any manner of disease.
Before I get much farther, lest The Company be identified by particularly astute readers, or those close to me (readers both astute and close should naturally recognize their personal exception to the grammatical implications that if you are close to me, you are not astute), I must express my respect for my former colleagues and my separate consideration of them from the entity that is herein referred to as The Company. Any discussion of them or it should not be misconstrued as sour grapes or intent to slander, rather as specifically relevant to the particular point or revelation I am attempting to share.
Although unpleasant, I can’t honestly say these events are entirely surprising or even that I don’t expect to be better off after things settle down. In retrospect, I maybe should have taken more advantage of the permission to work remotely for the last two months and hopped into a lifeboat before The Company saw this iceberg. I certainly should have taken more steps to work with my wife to reign in our budget and spending habits which, while I don’t think anyone would consider to be extravagant, probably couldn’t be classified as perfectly frugal, either. I’m not going to lie, we were already on the edge financially, sprinting to catch up to our bills after each paycheck, only to burn out and crawl the near two weeks remaining until the next deposit. For various reasons, some chosen, some not, we haven’t been able to maintain a savings for times like these.
At least I have The Company’s laptop for the weekend to begin my blog. Will the admission of this then make it their intellectual property? Will I have to pay them for any job I get using this computer to search? From my grandiose state of denial, I imagine just such a case might well be sensational enough for some opportunistic lawyer to take… and everyone knows any publicity is good publicity scandal sells. Look what it did for the Ebola in the Box chain.
Lesson learned: Keep a disciplined pace. I’ve squandered some prime job searching time these last few months. I’ve known I wanted a new job for a while, but made very minimal effort to actually find one. 12 jobs in 3 days doesn’t sound like a lot, but as a writer and an applicant who has done hiring of his own, I put a lot of effort and thought into crafting my cover letter and application, and I’m not even being as thorough as I know I should be. Not just the cover letter, but the resume should be tailored specifically to the job description. I’ve learned this both in my writing courses and from my experience in the hiring process. A hiring manager can usually tell pretty quickly if an applicant is really interested in the job he’s trying to fill job or if they’re just looking for any job. Hiring is a pain in the ass. A good hiring manager knows that a candidate who is excited about that specific position is less likely to continue looking for something more interesting or lucrative
A generic cover letter and resume reflect a generic applicant. Maybe that’s fine for a barista, but at this point in my career I should be targeting specific positions that will draw from my experiences and interests to take the next step toward my ultimate goal.
Of course, that’s part of the problem. My goal is to make a living as a creative writer but I’ve been too afraid of never getting there that I haven’t broken down the steps and made strategic career choices to get there that goal. As a result, I’ve always settled and latched onto “day jobs” and kidded myself that I’d write before or after work. I don’t look for jobs until I no longer have a choice. Then, it’s under the extremely stressful conditions of not knowing where the next source of income is coming from which makes latching and settling more likely.
Tomorrow’s Goals: Exercise. Shave. Drop interview suits off for dry cleaning. Apply for a minimum of 5 jobs. Spend quality time with the family (it’s freaking Saturday). Research unemployment. Work on a personal creative writing project. Update blog.
