Working girl

I still don’t know what I want to do with this blog, or what purpose I want it to serve, but I just paid $9 to renew the domain name, so I figured I’d just write until a plan revealed itself.

I started working at a temp agency in January. Like most jobs, there are benefits and downsides. The novelty of working by the day has been offset by the complete lack of agency I have at the jobs. It’s bizarre to never be given the password to the computer where you’re working, for instance. I’m generally not a fan of temporary arrangements, so this has taken  period of mental adjustment. I say this like I’m an old hand at the temping thing. Me, with my one job under my belt. I was replaced after I answered a question asked by the executive director truthfully. Apparently one should not reveal that making phone calls for six hours a day, asking newspapers whether or not they received an unsolicited op-ed and if they’re going to use it, is not fun.  Who knew? I’ve never been a great liar, and the combination of that and not liking to be lied to myself, has made me generally avoid it when I can. I guess learning when to lie is one of those grown-up skills, though.

There’s been a lot written about how much searching for a job sucks. I’ve been thinking that maybe I should start taking the phrase “job hunting” more literally. I’ll crouch in my nest, eagle-eyed and waiting. When the right job comes wandering over the horizon, I’ll examine its movements, study its style and the employees with which it chooses to surround itself. Then I’ll pounce. Of course, the hunting analogy falls apart after that, because I can’t think of any animals that pounce and then have to wait for weeks in order to find out if their prey approves enough of them to grant them an interview.

Of course, all this would be much easier if I had goals other than “getting a job” at this point. Life was so much easier when I wanted to be a reporter. With that end goal in mind, I had predetermined steps that were recommended and that would likely make that coveted daily newspaper reporter gig mine. Unfortunately, life plans tend to come unraveled, and now mine is sitting at the bottom of a bag in the back of my closet, and me completely unable to knit. Once someone has released one dream, how do you capture another? I’ve been trying on different career ideas, but I’m not sure if I’m limiting myself by self-imposed restrictions. I’m bad at math, so I couldn’t be a programmer; I’d love to go to med school but I’m not smart enough, etc.

Hunting, knitting — apparently I’m feeling very analogy-driven today. I wonder if that’s a function of my having not updated this in a really long time, or if my journalism training has finally been subsumed by all the fiction I’ve been reading?