Directionless

I wish that I knew where to go from here,

Which way to turn to find another post.

I'm searching, but I just don't find it clear.

My resume's redone, or pretty near;

Though writing it, I find it hard to boast. 

But boasting's key to moving on from here.

On paper, yes, I've had a long career.

I should be more experienced than most.

But does it help? Well, that part's not so clear.

If I'm too old, folks worry I'll cost dear,

Or won't adapt. Of course I quick riposte,

But it means fewer ways to go from here.

What industry is hiring big this year?

With what new topics should I be engrossed?

The trend of business fashion's rarely clear.

I sit and stare, and -- idling -- start to fear

My working days have fled and I'm a ghost.

I wish that I knew where to go from here.

But even my desires are all unclear.

    

Detangling threads

What do I want in a job? Do I even want a job? And what are all the pieces that go into an answer?

I want to have some occupation -- I mean, some kind of obligation that makes me get up and do something. Without some obligation, I won't. I mean, I've got plenty of interesting books I haven't read yet; in a sense it would be fun just to sit home and read them all. But without some kind of external obligation, I'll just browse Twitter and drink. Or something else equally useless. So I need to have some kind of work to structure my day.

Also having an income would be nice.

My mom is getting old and I'd like to live within driving distance of her. I wouldn't even (necessarily) mind living in her home, if it could help her out. (I could never have said this while my father was still alive, because I couldn't have lived with him.) 

I want to travel. The idea of living abroad is still enticing, though less so as I get older. Yes, this contradicts what I just said about staying near my mom.

While we're listing geographical contradictions, I'd also like to live closer to Marie. Maybe not actually with her in the same apartment, or at least not yet. But it would be nice to be a lot closer than the thousand-plus miles that separate us today.

I'd like work that involves figuring things out.

I'd like work that trades on my half-baked skill in working with people, finding ways through bureaucracy, talking and talking until I can get what I want.

I'd also like work that is occasionally dull and plodding, when I just have to crank through the routine work of compiling graphs or reports. Some days I'm really not firing on all cylinders. I'm hungover, or I stayed up too late reading, or I'm just in "Mood 2" for whatever reason. And on those days it helps if I can just sit at my desk and talk to nobody and spend all day cranking out some insanely complex report by hand. 

Most of the jobs I've held in the last twenty or thirty years (or more) have included at least some tasks that meet this last description. Occasionally people ask me why I don't automate them, and I (truthfully) say I don't know how. Also they are so boring that nobody else ever automates them for me. Technically this is called a "win-win."

I'd like it if someone would compel me to write up a few ideas I've had that I've had over the years and never heard from anyone else: some of them related to the professional work I've done in the last twenty years, some of them related to speculations about the natural human Good (see, e.g., this post and a few that followed in the next couple of months), and some about all kinds of different topics. I don't expect to get paid for any of this last category of work, but I wish somebody would make me do it anyway.

Is there more? Probably. Is any of it consistent with what I've already written? Probably not.

Maybe later.

    

Consulting??

When I was laid off, my company paid for three months of a job-search consulting service, to help each of us land on our feet. They've helped me rewrite my resume (for the first time in 16 years), and they host a lot of the training videos and live webinars I alluded to briefly here. And they assign to each of us a personal coach to help us through the process of finding work.

As I think I've mentioned, I've been slacking at this whole effort pretty badly. At this point I've got a little over a month before they shut off the service, more or less. And today I had a 30-minute check-in phone call with my coach.

My first question was, "Do I still get access to any benefits from this service after my time runs out?" (Answer: no more webinars, and no more live coaching sessions with her; but I can still access the research databases, and I can still shoot her an email with a quick question if I have to.)

My second question was, "Back when we started I said I was writing a book last year about the stuff I do." [I allude to this briefly in a sideways fashion here and here.] "You said you were going to see if anyone in your firm has some advice on publishing your own book. What did you find out?" (Answer: nobody seems to have any expertise in that subject, because the focus here is all on job-hunting. Sorry.)

Then she asked, "So what have you actually been doing, anyway?" And I told her that I had just gotten off another webinar all about how to start a consulting business.

"Oh, really," she asked. "How was that?"

Terrifying. I never wanted to start my own consulting business, and this webinar just convinced me of that opinion. The only reason I registered for it at all in the first place is that other people have told me, "Gosh, Hosea, with all the stuff you know about the work you do, maybe you should hang out a shingle as a consultant."

"What part is terrifying?"

Having to sell myself every day. Having to be always on the search for the next client. Having to be able to stand up and say, "Here's a list of all my competitors in this space, but I'm better than all of them because …." Then I paused long enough to admit that of course the whole job-hunting process is actually the exact same thing! It's all about pitching why you are the best one to handle this or that challenge. And I conceded that it won't do me any good to be terrified of that, because I have to find a job. So it's a problem.

But she asked a different question: "When you say it's terrifying, that might mean it's really not for you. Or it might just be the jitters anybody gets before doing something exciting. Which is it for you, this time?"

Huh. Interesting question.

And the short answer is, I don't know. I have always told myself that I didn't want to be a freelance consultant, that I didn't want to have to sell myself, that I just wanted to do the work without all that other bullshit. But to some extent the very fact that I have made this such a well-defined story should make me at least a little suspicious of it. To some extent, I'm well aware that this story is a reaction against my father's determination to be his own boss no matter how bad he was at it. To some extent, I understand that I watched how poorly his business career went, and decided, "If being your own boss means pissing away your time and talent like this, then I always want to have somebody else as my boss so I can avoid this."

But of course I'm not my dad. My strengths (and weaknesses) are different from his. I'm not nearly so extroverted, I have a lot more social anxiety, but I'm also better organized and more realistic. So -- for better and for worse -- his experience doesn't have to be mine.

And I thought about a guy named Buddy that I used to work with (until the recent layoffs). Buddy is currently working as a consultant for some small company an hour or two away from here. Years ago he was fairly critical of the kind of work I do, thinking it got in the way of more productive activity. (And, if you do it wrong, he's absolutely right.) But a couple of months ago I ran into him at a social event and he started describing the work he is doing. He said, "Hosea, you can't believe it. These people have nothing. I've tried to tell them the need to have some kind of system to handle [the things I do]. So far they aren't listening, but they really need it!"

The last time I talked to Buddy, the status was the same: he was still pushing that they need some system for the things I do, and they still couldn't hear him. But I wondered aloud to my consultant, What if I got a job through Buddy? What if he sold them on me, so all I had to do was the work and not the sale? What then?

And my immediate answer was, That would be great! The work itself sounds pretty interesting, especially because I'd have to tailor it all to fit a hostile audience. 😀 As long as the actual sale is handled by someone else, I could be all in. And all of a sudden I realized that the question of whether or not to try consulting is more complicated than I had realized.

My coach left me with the task to sit with this for a while, to think about it, and maybe to find people who are already in the consulting business to ask how they like it. And we'll talk again next week. Hmm.    

      

Yet another six-word memoir

I realized a couple days ago that if I wanted a six-word memoir to describe where I find myself right now, unemployed and trying to figure out which way to turn, it would come out as: "So what do I do now?"

As you can see I've pasted that up on my blog header. Once I know my direction, I can take it down again.

My other six-word memoir posts are here and here.

   

A week with Marie

I spent last week visiting Marie. Air travel is possible again, and I've been vaccinated against COVID-19, so I flew there on Monday (a week ago yesterday) and flew home on Saturday. A week.

Of that time, we had Tuesday and Wednesday completely to ourselves. She works in retail, and those days are her "weekend." Thursday and Friday she had to work; but I brought her lunch from nearby shops (instead of her having to pack a sandwich), ate with her in the employee break room, and then we had the evenings together when she was done. Her boss let her sign out early both days so we could have more of the evening together.

What did we do for entertainment? Let's see. Tuesday evening we visited some friends of hers for dinner. It was a pleasant evening, even if their son did start monopolizing the conversation towards the end with his views on world politics. Wednesday we drove out of town to see some of the natural scenery nearby, had a picnic, and then came back in time to catch a showing of "Here Today" -- only the second movie I have seen in a movie theater since the pandemic started early last year. And of course we fucked.

A couple of observations about the week.

We fucked mostly in the mornings. (By evening, I at least was generally too tired.) The first morning went very agreeably for Marie, and I got hard a couple of times. I was able to slide inside her for a while but -- in a way that is more and more common these days -- didn't come. The second morning was better. I started the morning asleep, dreaming that I was hard and trying to fuck Marie. About the time I succeeded, I woke up to find I was hard but had only been dreaming; so again I maneuvered around to enter her. And then I woke up again, to discover that even that had been a dream! Seriously frustrated, I decided that this time she wasn't going to dissolve in my arms. She wasn't really awake, but she started to wake up as I rolled myself on top of her; and she was very agreeable to my sliding inside. I was harder than usual, and more determined; and so in the end I was able to come, after which I lay there dazed for long enough that she finally got up, kissed me, and made coffee. That was the only time that I actually came during the week, but it was definitely worth it. Also I think it's a good sign that it's still possible.

Wednesday we did a little hiking. Ever since my work ended at the end of March I've been trying to get in some regular hiking at home, just in case Debbie is serious about tackling the West Highland Way at the end of the summer. (For practical reasons that now looks unlikely, but we might go backpacking for a day or two somewhere closer to home. Marie does not appear to have a problem with it.) The result is that my wind and general energy levels were better than they were when Marie visited me back in January. She commented at that time about the weight I had put on during the pandemic, and I'm still fatter than I used to be. But my improved wind looked (to me, at least) like a positive sign.

Marie reported no sleep apnea from me all week.

I also tried to watch how much I drank and how I felt about it. Monday night I drank nothing: my plane got in late, Marie picked me up from the airport, we went back to her place and went to bed. No big deal. Tuesday night we visited her friends, and they certainly served wine with dinner … also beer beforehand, come to that. Wednesday we had dinner out, in a rush before the movie; then after the movie we went home and to bed. No alcohol, and no interest in it. Thursday we ate dinner at home and at leisure, with wine. Friday we ate dinner at home and at leisure, and Marie wasn't interested in having any wine so I didn't either. But I was very aware that I wasn't having any. That level of awareness caught my attention, and not in a good way. 

But all in all it was a delightful visit. Now I'm back home and baffled by the job-hunting process. Marie has suggested that maybe I need to figure out what I really want, and maybe (in order to achieve that) it would help if I wrote something every day. This might end up like 2014, when I was trying to channel Ella Price for a while.

But not tonight.

    

So little, part 2

I spent part of my time today in an online meditation workshop, partly because Debbie mentioned it but maybe also a little bit as another way to avoid working on finding a job. One of our exercises was to free-write about some small irritation in our lives, and I chose my serious procrastination on the job-hunting front. My first remarks were about not wanting to compete, like I wrote here a couple of days ago -- about thinking that all the other candidates are so much brighter and shinier than I am. But it rapidly shifted to something else, and I made a connection that I don't remember whether I ever made before. (Maybe I have -- maybe it's even buried in here somewhere -- but I don't have the patience to look for it.) 

You've heard me whine plenty of times about not liking the kind of work I do … not that there's anything wrong with it, really, but just that it's not as interesting as my current fantasie du jour. And suddenly I remembered hearing the exact same complaint from my dad. When my father owned his own business, he became -- of necessity -- a real expert on the kind of service that he offered. He once said, with a dry chuckle, that he was the only person he knew who could talk about this very commonplace topic for an hour without repeating himself. But in his mind he was never a businessman. (That part was true enough!) He was an actor. He didn't really care about providing this [actually useful but] unromantic service to all of his [actually grateful but] dull and commonplace customers. He wanted to perform on Broadway; he wanted to star in Shakespearean drama at the Old Vic. He didn't want to be stuck in Suburbia, pissing away his talents in community theater and in entertaining the local Rotary Club. I remember him bemoaning this fate one evening, when he segued casually into remarking that …

There is a tide in the affairs of men, 
Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

And he went on to say that he feared his tide had passed him by, so that shallows and miseries were all that was left him. 

All of which is just to say, I guess, that I come by my ambivalence for my paying work honestly. Of course I also don't think much of the way my dad handled his professional life. Maybe I should get my ass back in gear and find a job, huh?

     

So little

I have accomplished more or less fuck-all in my job search in the last week. Yesterday Marie sent me an email asking how it's going, since I haven't said much about it. I don't really want to admit to her how useless I've been, but this evening I sat down in front of an open text file just to type out the first things that came to my head on the subject. It ended up as a conversation that went like this.

==========

Why have you accomplished so little in job hunting?

Well it's not like I've done nothing. I've watched recorded videos about how to brand yourself. I've attended live webinars on important topics like how to get medical insurance when you are unemployed. I spent a lot of time formatting my resume for the state unemployment department, which was a requirement for getting Unemployment Insurance. And I've attended professional webinars put on by my professional association.

You've also squandered hours and hours of time. And all this stuff -- maybe it matters but it's all getting in your way. Why aren't you looking for work?

Because I don't want to!

You don't want work?

I wouldn't mind working. I don't want to have to look for work!

Bad news, dude, but jobs don't grow on trees.

I know that.

Fine. What do you dislike about it so much?

I don't like that it's all a competition I don't like having to think about what I'm especially good at. And all my accomplishments seem so specious. When I go online and read the requirements for this or that real job, I think there's no way I can match those. What a joke! They are looking for people who are polished and accomplished. I sit at my desk and fill out forms, after somebody else explains them all to me.

Is that all you can do?

Well -- OK, maybe not. But I don't see any way that I can pretend to meet all the bright, shiny requirements in these ads.

Are you looking at the wrong ads?

I guess I must be.

Where would you find the right ones?

Shit, I don't know! I'm googling jobs with titles similar to the ones I used to have, or that use keywords that look right.

But you don't fit most of what you find?

Let's say that when I see a new ad, the first thing I do is scan it for some requirement that would eliminate me. I usually find one.

Because you don't want to work?

Because I don't want to have to fight for it in the arena. So if there's some reason I'm going to be disqualified anyway, I figure let's get it over with. There usually is.

And you assume they are going to find someone with 100% of what they want.

Maybe not. Look, if the part I don't have is listed as "preferred" or "nice to have" then I don't worry so much. But if they absolutely require some familiarity that I don't have, why should I waste their time and mine applying?

If that's true it seems like you should spend more time at the search, not less, because you need time to weed out all the inappropriate ones. 

I know, I know. It's just depressing.

Do you need to target your search a little better? Who is it that you can really help?

Small start-ups that have just been acquired by huge global firms and need help integrating into the systems of their new parent. At least, that's where my last two jobs have been.

Is that who you are targeting?

I don't know how to find them.

Are you asking anybody?

No. Where would I even start?

Your existing network? Or that consultant that your last employer hired for you until June?

Oh. Yeah. I guess that would be a good idea. I didn't think of that. Also I don't want to move out of this general region.

Nice to know your requirements are so simple!

Well, you know, my mom ….

Yes, yes. I know. Nice to know your requirements are so simple. Are you sure you're not just adding more requirements to make a big heap so the whole effort becomes impossible?

I'm not sure, no.

So you might be?

I might.

Is that OK with you?

Fuck, I don't know. What does it matter?

Are you planning to get another job?

Oh, I'm sure it will happen sooner or later.

Which? When?

I don't know.

Do you care?

It's hard for me to care.

Because you don't want to?

Not a lot, I guess.

Do you want to retire?

I don't know if I can afford to retire.

If you could afford it, would you want to?

It would be tempting. On the other hand I look at how I piss away my days right now, and I remember how much my dad pissed away his time once he sold his business, and I'm not sure it would make me any happier. What it would make me, after a little while, is unemployable -- because I would have forgotten the dance that you have to do at work to get things done.

Are there things you still want to get done?

Sure. I want to write up all the philosophy that I keep promising out on the Patio, and maybe a couple of things I've never mentioned there. I'd like to publish a book I started writing last year about some of the stuff I do professionally.

Could you do those things if you weren't working?

You'd think so, huh? But I don't know if I'd ever get the motivation to sit down and do it.

Will you do those things if you do get a job?

I haven't yet, and I'm nearly 60.

So are you saying they'll never happen?

I'm saying I need some kind of outside compulsion.

And what about job hunting?

Look, tomorrow morning I've got an appointment with my main consultant, and also with a resume specialist. Those meetings will push me back on track.

Really?

No, not really.

==========

Fun, huh? Maybe I need to admit that one of my consultants is Sister Failure. Or maybe I just need to get my ass in gear. That's another way to read the data.

     

Blackmail

 Wife has discovered a new way to blackmail the children. Or at least (for the moment) Son 1.

You know that I'm out of a job. I have severance through the end of August and a little bit into September. And I have applied for Unemployment Insurance, for whatever that adds up to. (Not much.) According to my Separation Agreement with Wife, the alimony I pay is partly dependent on my income: if my income drops too far, the alimony goes to zero. (It never turns negative, though.) So if I don't get a new job by September -- or at any rate October, just to be certain -- Wife's alimony stops.

She explained all this to Son 1 over the phone one evening, in a dead panic -- the kind of panic she gets in where there is no way to placate her or to reason with her. And she kept it up until he told her, "It's going to be fine, Mom. If your alimony runs out you can move in with me." (Son 1, remember, has a job and his own apartment now.) Apparently that let her calm down.

And that's great and all, except … God in heaven, who ever thought this was a good idea? In the first place Wife is crazy and emotionally abusive. Beyond that, how is Son 1 supposed to live a normal life as a young man if he shares an apartment with his mother? 

• What happens when she starts telling him not to spend so much time playing video games? Properly, at that point he should throw her out. But if his whole motivation is that he doesn't want her to be homeless, will he be able to do that? 
• What happens if he wants to bring a young woman home for the night? Does he tell her, "It's fine, my mom won't mind?"
• One point I mentioned directly to him on the phone is that when you are responsible for paying somebody else's bills, you cannot help but judge their spending. So it is a foregone conclusion that if she moves in with him, one day he'll find himself screaming at her, "For God's sake, woman, why did you go spend money on that, of all things?"

But of course he doesn't want her to be homeless. That speaks well of him. But it really bothers me. I see it as the opening wedge, as her putting her nose in the tent in such a way that Son 1 will never get her out again. She would love that, but it's wrong.

I also can't help wondering what she has been doing for the last eight years since we've each lived alone? Did she never understand that one day the alimony would run out? It runs out when I die, for example. If my income ends when I retire, it runs out then. And there was always the possibility that I might be laid off. Did she really take no steps in all that time to secure some kind of income on her own? Of course she often says that she can't get a job, because of her various illnesses. But surely there are ways to secure an income of some kind without working a regular 8:00 to 5:00 job, or without having to type 150 words a minute in a legal office. Flannery O'Connor suffered from lupus just as Wife does, but it didn't stop her from writing. Has Wife really been willing to be simply dependent for the rest of her life, and to leave it at that?

Apparently so. And it's very sad.