The Ten-Point-Four Percent

I probably technically don't belong to it, seeing as my permanent residence is still in New York. But tonight it feels like I do.


A word on the job search: ugh. Not that all days are like that, but some days feel productive and hopeful, and then some days you realize that even the national retail and food chains to which you've applied don't want you. Some such days, you find yourself trying to convince a staffing-agency employee to give you a job for which you'd have to drive about an hour each way just to do what sounds like basic receptionist work (phones, greeting, filing), for a four-to-six-month period, which would kill your getting a permanent job anytime before spring unless this place hired you on for good, but if they did, even splitting your apartment location equally between job and boyfriend would put you too far from both. So, all things considered, it's probably not a job you should take, but out of impatience and temporary despair you jump at it, even though you've still got one temp agency to follow up with today and another to go meet with tomorrow. The job came up on the employees' mailing list, and you call for it less than thirty minutes after the e-mail's been sent, possibly in time to be the first to volunteer for it, which should give you the edge.

For the record, since she's openly concerned about the long commute for so little money, the staffing-agency employee won't give you the job. She puts you off, not saying no, but presumably waiting for someone more suitable to volunteer. This is without your even having bothered to alarm her with the news that, in addition to living an hour away, you're also overqualified, a possessor of a Master's degree.

Not that you can really blame her. You'd be skeptical in her place - can this girl really get there on time every day? Is she really not going to bag it after two weeks, after she gets sick of the commute? Is she really going to do that for four to six months and not ditch out for some other job? After all, presumably a certain percentage of people doing temp work are doing temp work for a reason, because they can't get a job on their own, maybe because they've got something to hide.

And so you do, in most job-application contexts these days, but it isn't alcoholism or a past forcible termination: it's a Master's degree and a failed first career.

Quick, Before it Flickers Out

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A Little News

Well, I've moved out of Binghamton. Technically speaking, so far I've only moved to my parents' house, which is in Onondaga County in New York; theirs is my new permanent address. But the idea, of course, is ultimately to move to Rhode Island or Massachusetts. I do have a potential job interview coming over the horizon; we'll see if that comes to anything.

In the meantime, I've started a public blog. Now, don't worry, the beginning of that one is definitely not the end of this one. After all, there are just some stories and opinions that are for one's close friends, not for one's acquaintances (or for any random person with a friend who links to a friend who links to a friend who links to my new blog). Besides, after ten years here, it'd be lame to shut this down.

So if you'd like my new URL, great - you can get it through Facebook, starting tonight, or I'm happy to e-mail it to you or something. But if you'd sooner not, that's fine. I'll do my level best to keep a better posting pace, and probably you'll get some deleted scenes as well.

Now it is my intention to either apply for a job (might as well, whatever happens with the position mentioned above) or clean the bathroom or some other room. Cheerio!