4 Weeks of Unemployment, a Data Review
Four weeks ago today, I was called into a meeting at work. I wasn’t told what the meeting was about, but there had been talk of a possible promotion/role shift and some time-specific questions about upcoming travel as part of the company’s Leadership Academy, but also I’m the kind of person who for the last 20 years has assumed I’m about to lose my job every day, so I figured it was one of those things.
Well. So, it was that last one. Budget-related layoffs are hitting all over, I know, and this one hit me squarely in the jumblies. I wasn’t the only lay-off, which in some ways makes it better and in some ways makes it worse.
It happens. I still believe in the books I was working on as an editor/developer/aquirer. I believe deeply in the brilliant humans I worked with there.
Four weeks later, and definitely one of those time frames that has felt both 3 years and also 20 seconds long, I’ve not yet landed. I seem to be most interested in jobs in Communications, but need a company who sees my decade of informal experience and my applicable skillset that aren’t fully reflected on my resume.
I keep tweaking my resume and cover letters, and wrote one really just to make myself feel better about how weird I am and how that’s a good thing, really.
And I’ve been keeping data. I have a spreadsheet for jobs (applied for, followed up, etc.), and a spreadsheet for health (exercise, getting outside, fiber, helping someone).
I’ve crunched those numbers, and here we are:
FOUR WEEKS OF UNEMPLOYMENT BY THE NUMBERS
¹Applications Submitted: 34
²Interviews Offered: 0
³Books Read: 3
⁴Video Essays Watched: ∞
⁵Carpet Cleaners Rented: 1
⁶Freelance Training Gigs Booked: 2
⁷Community/Friend Support Opportunities I Would Have Otherwise Missed: 7
⁸Types of Projects I Have Helped to Write/Polish/Edit: 11 (this full list (in footnotes) is kinda impressive)
⁹Days Unemployed: 28
¹⁰Days “off”: 0
FOOTNOTES
1: Are all the applications pretty much the same? Yes. Do you still have to do each one individually answering the same questions and re-entering information that is already on your resume? Yes.
2: I know, I know, it’s normal. This is what this looks like, and plenty of those positions I applied for haven’t even gotten to this stage yet. Also, 3am me says “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
3: Best non-fiction book so far: Imagination, A Manifesto by Ruha Benjamin. Best fiction so far: Artificial Condition, by Martha Wells
4: I could talk about this media form for hours. If you are at all worried that people (especially young people) have lost their attention span and ability to consume complex ideas, look at the views and run-times on video essayists like, F.D Signifier, Dan Olson, Jenny Nicholson, and Hbomberguy.
5: This is as close as I could get to the pure high of power-washing while it was -10 degrees outside.
6: Excited to be working directly with teachers again, with some trainings/keynotes developed for a wider audience. Need a trainer for writing your own story (even if you don’t write), using data to do real stuff, supporting new teachers, teacher retention, and increasing student engagement/discussion/connection? I do that.
7. Best part of some extra time right now is being able to show up for people who need me.
8. Ok, in four weeks, I have helped on all these kinds of words: Short fiction, a business profile, a legal toolkit for name-changes, a poem, a public statement by an elected official, an immigration rights document, a PhD program application, templates for legal filings regarding gender markers, and training slides for teachers and for transgender advocacy. I do words and I word good.
9. Fwoof.
10. I know, I know, I’m going to burn out, I need to take real time off… and it’s not like I’m working constantly, but I’ve tried to take a few days and then emails come in or I look at my to-do list of things or I realize I could just quick look through new job postings and then I find one and then I realize I should put together a decent portfolio for it and then I realize my portfolio links to my website and then…
