I think the subtitle of this post should be “do-over…do-over…do-over…”, because guess what? I’ve started, deleted, re-started, re-done and otherwise messed around with this post approximately 62,000 times since Saturday morning.
It’s been that kind of week.
We got some awesome news (for a change): After a full year of intense searching, interviewing by phone, fax and even occasionally live in person, after sending my resume to about 400,000 companies and discussing how I was ever-so-perfect for this job…I’ve still got nothing.
My rotten husband, on the other hand, knew a guy who knew a guy who wanted to know if he knew anybody who could bring some mad T-SQL development skilz to bear on a twelve to eighteen month project at mad T-SQL Developer pay rates.
To which Himself replies, “Do I know anybody? DUDE! I am Anybody! Here, have a resume!”
Badda-bing, badda-boom, two weeks later…he starts next week.
Envy green, it looks good on me, does it not?
Never have I had such a bizarre combination of relief, happiness, anger and seething resentment. I feel thoroughly dissed, you know? I’ve been working so hard at even getting an interview, for carp’s sake, and he just waltzes in and they’re all, “Dude! You’re AWWWWWWWWESOME! When can you start?!”
I could about spit nails. I mean, what, am I chopped liver over here? Do I smell bad? Did I have boogers on my shirt or something? WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?!?!
But I’ll get over it, because the net result is a good 40% bump to our income. Nothing gets me over job-search-related angst like having our bacon saved like that.
At the same time, well. Talk about having the rug pulled out from under you. I’ve spent a lot of time and energy trying to get a “real” job, and suddenly I’m basically hamstrung. I’m now the work-at-home parent, whether I’ve got paying work to do or not. We can’t have two commutes, which limits my potential job search badly…there’s just nothing within a thirty minute radius of the house.
Well, you know, shoot.
But at the same time, who knows? There are a wide variety of possibilities out there, really; none of them are necessarily huge money makers, but frankly they don’t have to be. Our shortfall is actually fairly small, and could be closed with even a modest second income.
All I need to do is figure out what I can do work-wise with a day that starts at around 8:30 in the morning and ends at 2:00 in the afternoon, can’t be more than thirty minutes from the Den and doesn’t involve having to carry on cohesive thinking or phone conversations after said 2:00 end of day.
Hmmmmmm…Thank goodness I love a challenge, huh?
In some ways, this really is one of the up-sides to the economic downturn. We’re being forced to rethink a lot of things – what we spend, what we earn, how we earn what we earn and whether or not it actually fits in with what we really want to be doing.
Sometimes, we do things simply because, well, that’s what we do. It’s not necessarily the best possible thing, but it’s just what we know.
Having to figure out a new way to get an oar in the water has the potential to lead to great innovations. Who knows what might crawl out of my brain in response to this combination of need and limitation?
It could be something awesome.
Which is the hope I’m going to stick with, because frankly continuing on with the slow motion train wreck we’ve been enduring for the last year is enough to make me scream!
Recipe Tuesday - Mung Bean Curry
3 weeks ago
4 comments:
Don't know how to tell you this, but I think your set of opportunities includes school bus driver, cafeteria lady, and crossing guard. None require your intelligence, but all fit your schedule. Just sayin'.
Ow.
And good luck.
Can do it between 8:30 and 2:00 from within 30 minutes of home? Dude, have you ever considered trying to sell your blog as a column? Seriously, you have one of a very few "syndicated" columns I search out and read regularly. I even stalked you to hear from TMF LBYM because I noticed your posting rate had cratered.
Your "ethos" is absolutely sweet modern post-bubble Silicon Valley. And you write voluminously and regularly.
Wassup with your book?
BTW I realize there is nothig trivial about turning writing into money. But you are the best writer writing for free in the world, and way better than most people writing for money. I'd start with SJ Mercury just because your so Si-valley, and I'd certainly be checking with The Reader (seems to me every CA city I have lived in has had something called that for free with great feature articles).
Good luck!
I've been mulling over this for a couple of weeks and come up with two ideas:-
1) This down-rates your considerable IT skills but how about resurrecting the "very fast typist" and doing medical or legal transcription? I believe you can do it from home on a part-time basis. (Hell, the accounting firm where I used to work now emails its voice files to India for transcription. The typists email back the files for printing out.)
2) How about writing Apps? Everywhere I go, I see advertisements for the Apple Apps Store and various applications that you can buy/download for iPhones. However, it seems as if nobody is writing them for other phone types: Nokias, Blackberries, etc. I can't afford the sky-high price tag of an iPhone, but I'd love some of their applications. And I don't think I'm alone.
HTH.
- Pam
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