Five months in and I'm still looking for work. Not that I'm surprised. There are people who have been doing this for years. It's becoming demoralizing, though, now that I've filled out at least several hundred applications and the two calls I've received have been less than inviting. They obviously haven't led to interviews or I would have been so dazzling as to be currently employed now.
I just found out that my comrades at Pearson have been hit by another series of cuts. The company has literally decided to
decimate it's work force. That means world-wide they are eliminating every 10th employee. The Roman army would do that when soldiers committed certain infractions - they'd go through and kill every 10th soldier, whether he was guilty or not. Bad for the guys designated to be decimated, but what do you imagine that does for the people remaining? I know I felt relieved when I was left to carry on, but also very resentful.
So where does that leave me now? Resentful toward my former corporate masters, certainly; angry on behalf of my old comrades who have just recently found themselves adrift without a job and without a plan; happy for those friends who still have a work to go to every day, though I know they're walking around today looking like the piano missed dropping on their heads by mere inches.
It isn't all misery, though. I have to say that I have enjoyed my time off. I had a brief stint as a temp for another corporate giant. (Good people to work for, though customer service has got to be the single most thankless part of working for any corporation.) I sleep later than I should and I feel guilty when I don't spend as much time in front of the computer looking for work. One part of me thinks I'll miss something but the other part of me knows that the opportunities, such as they are, will still be there tomorrow.
I get to spend more time at the gym. I probably spend way more money than I should on Wawa coffee. I have all the time in the world to work on my hobbies and go to the library. If I was independently wealthy, I'd add a couple of vacations in there, too. But I'm not, so I have to settle for the rare day-trip into NYC to explore with friends who have never been or who haven't spent nearly as much time there as I have.
I spent too much time on social media and I have spent entirely too much time contemplating the pending Presidential election. I need to find a job and I'm even thinking that I don't care so much what that job is. I'm even to the point where I think someone out there somewhere might actually give a crap about what I write here.
The money worries are getting to me, but the boredom is going to kill me first.
