Iiiiimmmmm baaaaaaaaaaack

Barely 7 months and I return to the land of the unemployed.

Sigh.

Not even here 24 hours and I've updated my resume, revisited all my job web-sites, checked out the classifieds, made sure everything is up-to-date, informed some people, and I Hate IT.

But I have lots of experience. If looking for a job was a job, I could put it on my resume.

Buck up, little buckeroo!

Just in case you thought you did well....

I had another interview. It was for a pretty good job, not the greatest pay, but you can't have everything.

I aced that interview. Three women firing questions and I had all the right answers. I amazed them with my knowledge of Microsoft Word and my suggestions about their newsletter publishing problems. It was good.

I was smiling my way down the steps, wondering when they would want me to start when I realized I left my purse in the conference room.

What a maroon.

But everything happens for a reason, so it must not have been the right job at the right time for me. I mean, seriously, I'm sure they'll have other good candidates, smart, young, ambitious people, so how do you eliminate? Kick out the dummy that can't remember to take her purse with her. She probably had a tape recorder in it.

Ya gotta laugh.

Learning is not child's play....

...we cannot learn without pain.   -Aristotle

Welcome me back! Yay!!!

I've been approved for a grant from AEP to attend classes at Wayne College, part of the University of Akron. I will be earning a Small Business Accounting Certificate.

Most of what they are teaching is review for me, it is the work I have been doing for thirty years. But since I never went to school to learn it, I am at a disadvantage in the job market. So now I will be able to add formal education to my resume, as well as the part I will be truly learning - QuickBooks software. This will all be very helpful.

Plus I like school. Now. Too bad I didn't like it when I was a teenager.

This issue of education and having initials behind your name has long been a sore spot for me. With what I know about accounting I can do the job of most CFOs, but because it's been all on-the-job training, I cannot convince employers to take a chance on me. They would rather hire the person with the diploma. Either that or they checked my references. (insert smile here)

But I am feeling more hopeful.

Step by step....

Inch by inch....

My first job interview. I was very prepared, thanks to my friend at Job and Family Services. She assigned me the task of writing answers to the fifty questions you should expect at a job interview. I think they might have asked three of them.

But it did go very well, and I expect to be asked back for the second interview. They are doing three interviews. Wow. Never been through 3 interviews before, especially for a receptionist/customer service position, but I guess they want to get it right.

Okay, you've got one minute to convince me why I should hire you. Go.

It is such a nerve-wracking and demoralizing process. I sometimes want to ask them if they'd like to check my teeth before I sing and dance. I think there should be a law that all people should be hired based on their resume, sight unseen, no interview.

Life is so happy in my rose-colored world.

Moving Forward

Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare. -Proverb


We have the above quote posted on our refrigerator (the repository of favorite sayings and cartoons). For a long time I've harbored the misconception that it referred to the deeper side of life - the big issues like war and hunger and ending disease.

But I've come to understand that it is a perfect mantra for every action and goal, especially now while I am looking for work. At my age, I want a job that I can keep until I retire, not one like the last three that have downsized me to the street.

To make this happen I see now that I need vision, I need to create a plan of action that will put me in the right place, instead of flooding employers with my resume in hopes of landing the same type of job, in the same type of place, which would more than likely create the same result.

John Dryden said insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

So it's time to create a new vision before I take action, time to turn my daydream into a reality so I avoid another nightmare.

A life unexamined is a life not worth living. Where in my resume and history can I find room for expansion and improvement? These are the questions with which I wrestle in order to trample this new path.

My "vision without action" mantra has worked its way into my head and I know that my job-hunt is not the simple thing it was years ago when I could mail out resumes and wait for a phone call. Our unbrave new world has changed that. Looking for a job has become my job. It requires organization, tools, goals, plans, and strategy. I have to make schedules, financial plans and keep records. It's a family buiness with my husband as the other team member. He works with me to develop our vision for the future and keep our mission and values statements on track.

Despite all of these challenges, I am not fearful. I have good skills and I'm a fast and willing learner. Possibly my biggest obstacle is convincing someone else of that. But it will happen eventually. That's part of my vision.

Ramblings

I am not inspired to write today. My mind wanders, searching for that gem of truth that will spark a fire of wit to fill this block. Sigh.

Maybe I am bored. Or tired. I worry that you are not sufficiently interested in all of the things I want to tell you. I want to write about truth and tolerance and love, and in the writing perhaps make a difference in the world. Hah!

I wanted most of all today to write about vision, and somehow couldn't find any.

So if you are not a writer, you don't know what writer's block is like. If you are a writer, you know what I'm going through. It's painful and frustrating, and to lay it out in front of all of you is embarrassing, but I'm doing it to myself to work through it and move past it.

Forgive my meanderings and look for better stuff coming soon.

Forgiveness - a Hot Topic

"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned." -Buddha.
I watched Oprah yesterday. Yes, my unemployment has already reached that point, at least until it gets warmer outside. It was a horrific story of abuse I won't share, but there was a profound moment. Oprah spoke a definition of forgiveness she was given on a previous show.

"Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different."

I thought about this a lot overnight, and then Frank and I talked about it this morning at length. What an interesting way to describe what we have been trying to teach our grandchildren.

Most of us go through the world thinking that forgiveness is a two-way street. If I have been betrayed or wronged, then to forgive is to let the other person off the hook. Since we are flesh-and-blood human beings with egos, this is a nearly-impossible task for most of us, even when we realize that there is nothing we can do to punish the evildoer.

So we are doomed to let the resentment fester, pretending to the world and ourselves that we have reached some sort of peace, which is usually nothing more than an acceptance of our powerlessness over the situation. And only late at night, in the dark, we allow ourselves to play the "if-only" game, and then we put it away for the daytime.

So imagine how it would feel to truly drop the hot coal and let go of the anger. Give up the hope that the past could have been any different because the truth is this: You cannot change the past. Take a breath now and think about this: You cannot change the past. Give up the hope that the past could have been any different.

If you have done what you can to rectify the wrong, if you have done what you know is right, then what else can you do? It is no longer within your power to punish the other person. It is your choice whether to punish yourself.

The Buddha also said, "we are not punished for our anger, we are punished by our anger."

Forgiveness doesn't have to be about letting the other person off the hook. It's about setting yourself free. It's about not giving your power away. It's about not picking up the coal to begin with.

Choose for yourself. Forgive because you are worth it.