Travel Job Wanted!

Motivation is lacking. My goal was to blog about my unemployment and job search. No wonder I don’t have any readers. Who wants to read about my tragic issue? And if you are living it, and since unemployment is still looming at 10 percent and not getting any better, you defiantly not reading about what you are currently going through. I know, I get that.


You’ve heard it a hundred times, do what you love and the rest will follow. Not always so practical if you love yourself and just want to showcase that however thanks to reality TV you can. In fact, you can even graduate from a Utah College with a Bachelors degree in reality TV. I can’t make this stuff up folks. Well…. I can but why when the truth is always stranger than fiction (thanks Mark Twain for that quote.)

Embarking on my job hunt, I’ve listed my skills…they are:

• Drinking coffee. Hanging out in Coffee shops.

• Drinking Beer. And the good stuff. Not the cheap stuff that comes in a can.

• Eating chocolate. Darker the better.

• Bacon! Need I say more?

Oh Wait; those are the things I like to eat. I didn’t even add donuts to the list. Okay, let me try this again. My skills:

• Adventurous. Like to Travel and explore the world.

• Physically fit. Can ride a bike for 7 days in a row across countries, like Hungary.

• Stamina. Lots of it. Walked up a mountainside in Dubrovnik Croatia that had 27 switch backs.

Oh, not marketable skills you say. Hummm. Now I’m at an impasse.

Ideally, I’d like to combine those two skill sets. Eat, drink and travel. I don’t see myself as Anthony Bourdain. After all, he’s a chef with a witty sarcastic attitude who smokes and drinks. (I don’t smoke.) And I’ve watched Samantha Brown. I think she is a bit, dry. My sense of humor and adventure is greater than hers. And I don’t want to be Rick Steves and education people on traveling across Europe. Although Rick is my hero and I take his travel advice to heart.

Maybe, just maybe there is a niche for me. Maybe somebody needs a (gasp) a middle-aged woman who is sassy, witty and a bit zany with wild red hair and the personality to match.

Job Search takes a holiday

Is it shameful to take a day off when you are going to be unemployed in 30 days? Do you want to hear that I took the whole weekend? At what point do we (you, me, the general population) expect people to look for work?
Don't turn your head to see if I'm gone or looking for work. I don't think it's shameful for me to take the weekend, the long holiday weekend off. The point it becomes tangled is when I collect my first unemployment check.
I know plenty of job seekers who treat unemployment as a break, as a vacation without the travel. It's an entitlement. I'm entitled to take off week, at least 24 of them before I start looking for work because I"ve worked my whole life and I'm entitled to it. Besides, the employer is paying for it, why not??? Okay, those may not be my sentiments but a large handful people I've meet.
Unemployment is still only 26 weeks, half the year; six months. After that, it's extensions. Some people have been successfully collecting unemployment for 99 weeks. Two years. In two years, I'll be two years older, hopefully two years closer to retirement if I have money in a 401k.
What will I be like? Will I be a 99 weeker? Will I wait until I'm actually collecting my first unemployment check to start looking or will be successful start today? I would like to think I will be looking for work and gaining employment before I actually leave my job in 30 days.
Perhaps if that is my goal I should get off my butt, er rather stop blogging and start typing out those applications.
In the meanwhile, I don't believe it's shameful to have job search take a holiday.

Irony

For the past 13 years I have been working as an Employment Social Worker. What exactly is that? Well, simply put, I help people find employment. For the majority of my employment life, I worked with those hard-to-serve clients, the ones collecting welfare. Don't get me wrong; just because someone is on welfare doesn't make them hard to serve. The population base is called that because: 1- Welfare. Hello. If you are on welfare, it's mandatory to sit in my job search class for 4 hours a day. 2- Welfare. And they know all your business, and if they don't, they will. 3- Child Welfare. Yeap, if you indicate at all you are not Martha Stewart I can walk across the building and talk to a case manager. 4- Multi-barriers. Not all people on welfare have barriers such as felonies, poor work history, poor credit, mental health issues, drug & alcohol issues but most people lack money to have some of the basics of life such as a car or car insurance or even a bra. (I suppose that's another story for another day.) And finally, 5-most people didn't want to work with a resistant population rather, they prefer to work with people who seek out employment services. I did learn plenty in the years I worked at DHS (Department of Human Services) and found this population a pleasure to work with.

For the past three years, I've been working serving people in our community who got downsized, layoff, the boot because the company closed or sold. I would present our services on site, and then would set up a computer lab and help people get ready for Unemployment. I had plenty of work in my local area to keep me busy.

And then last week, the irony. The notice came. Yes, I received my layoff notice. I understand, I do that the Federal Government has a budget to balance but now who is going to serve those and help those looking for work. Unemployment remains at 10%. No small figure. And July 1st, I will be one of those fish swimming up stream against the current looking for employment.

I wonder, who will be my coach? I am hoping this blog will serve as my mentor along the way and help me navigate the rolls of unemployment.