Applications

Tonight I applied for two more positions -- both of them, shockingly enough, in Omaha.

I know, right?

There has been a dearth of actual positions I'm qualified for and/or could do in the Omaha area, save for positions involving the words "sales," "insurance," or "retail," of course.

One is yet another English instructor position, this time for a small college there that appears to operate on the quarter system, and one that apparently has close associations with one of the hospitals in the city (for some strange reason, anyway). Because of this, that particular application took for-fucking-ever to fill out, and it was one of the excruciatingly-detailed ones they give you when they need to do extensive background checks and credit checks. You probably know the kind I'm talking about -- they ask for your last seven years of addresses, your last seven years of employment, your driver's license number, etc etc. I had to do all of that shit for another place as well...the place that offered me four hours a day at $8 per hour.

I guess if you're applying for teaching work in an institution that's closely connected with the medical system in the city, they want to make sure your record is spotlessly clean and you're who you say you are. Aside from a speeding ticket a year and a half ago on the way home from work (a ticket that was complete bullshit anyway), I am one of those people who has never had a blemish on the public record -- and my credit score is in the high 600s, last I had it checked.

Anyway, that one took forever. It also required me to cut-and-paste a cover letter, resume, and any other documents I wanted them to have, instead of being able to just upload the actual PDF files. I really dislike applications like that...especially after you've already filled all of the fields of where you've worked and what you've done and where you went to school, what degrees you have, etc. What's worse is that they all said a statement akin to "if you write 'see resume' in any of these fields in lieu of filling them out, it will affect your chances of employment," etc. Look, employment sites, especially higher education employment sites...do one or the other, seriously. It's a waste of my time as well as yours to have to see/do everything twice, especially in the exact same order.

"It's a test of your ability to follow directions," Daisy told me. "And it also hopefully discourages or weeds out the people who aren't serious or who don't have the patience to fill everything out."

Okay, I get that to a certain extent, yes. It's just a huge pain in the ass. And coming from a guy who gets the occasional hemorrhoid, I know what a pain in the ass is both figuratively and literally.

I don't know what the pay scale is for the teaching position. For something so intricate and detailed to apply for, and for a position that's somehow connected to the local hospital, I'd expect it to be fairly high. The main reason I applied for it, however, is because it is a teaching position in Omaha, and even though it would be extremely hectic and crazied to do so, it is at least very feasible that if I were hired for it, I could start teaching there in less than a month. It would take much longer than that to get everything moved out of this house and into a new place in Omaha, of course, but as I mentioned before, that can be done in chunks on weekends and days off, even if it costs me a lot of sleep, time, and money to do so. Also, if this school operates on the quarter system (which it may) instead of the semester system, it might not even start until September, giving me a bit more time.

In all of my applications to numerous higher learning institutions, I never considered that some of them, especially the smaller ones, may operate on the quarter system. I've been so frenzied with actually finding places to apply to that the thought never even crossed my mind. That's how frazzled I've been, folks.

I do know the pay scale, however, for the other position in Omaha I applied for, and I do know that the second position is an institution of higher learning that does operate on the quarter system.

I also know that the job is a union job and that the starting pay is $38k a year. Starting pay. It's an academic advisor position at one of the community colleges that, ironically, Daisy's mother first told me about when I was visiting after graduation. They don't have any teaching positions open that I can do, but they do have some pretty lucrative work in administration, such as this job. I wrote a brilliant cover letter and filled out the (again, very long) application, sending off my professional references, transcript, and CV, and crossed my fingers. Daisy applied for the same job also, as she has a lot of experience that would allow her to do it pretty well (dealing with people, accounts, and communication skills) and I have the experience dealing with students and privacy and academia. If either one of us at least gets a call for an interview for a position that cushy, I'll consider it a small victory at the very least. It would be a huge raise in pay for Daisy, and an amazing job for someone like me to land fresh out of the gate of graduate school. And, again, quarter system, which means I'd more than likely have a little more time to get everything packed up and moved out of here if I were to get it -- especially since it's not a teaching position.

I've got a little more hope tonight, at least, which is good compared to before. Am I still stressed? Yes, of course. But I'm also a little relieved as well. Just a little. I don't know; applying for more positions seems to make me feel like I'm not completely wasting all of my time waiting on balls in the air to come back down and land me a gig. All I can do is keep trying for whatever I find, though, whether or not any of it pans out. Even with as much of a pessimist or fatalist as I can be on some fronts, I have to be at least a bit optimistic on others -- otherwise there's not really a whole lot to live for, is there?

Daisy, at least, is proud of me and has been incredibly supportive and understanding all summer long about my hunt for work -- more so, I think, than anyone else ever has been for anything involving me and my life's goals. Daisy is my number one fan. She believes I can do anything. She has been in my situation before and understands all of my thoughts and feelings all too well, much better than I can probably articulate in a simple blog post. It is that love and support I get from her on a daily basis (a Daisy basis?) that keeps me going, that keeps me getting up every day and working to do whatever I can to better myself and better my station in the world, even when I'm feeling particularly strung out and frazzled. As depressed or hopeless as I get at times, I still know in the back of my mind that all of this is temporary, that obviously I'm not going to be unemployed or frustrated/angered at the world forever, and that less than a year from now, good times or bad, I will have a wonderful wife to share my life with. Occasionally I forget about some of these good things when I am so overwhelmed with defeats, setbacks, and other frustrations stressing me out.

I have decided to make it a point to casually ask Daisy "Marry me?" on a regular basis. Not to actually propose over and over, but to remind her that I love her, very very much, and that even when we're both strung out and sleep-deprived on a frequent basis (she much more so than me, usually) I still want, and will always want, her to be my wife. Yeah, we have our differences. No, we don't always completely agree on things. Yeah, we do occasionally have little spats about stupid shit. So does everyone else. But we love each other. And I am very, very lucky to have her. I will never take that, or her, for granted.

It is 5:41 AM on a Sunday morning, and it's still pouring rain. I have just showered, rinsing all of the sweat and ick off me in order to sleep more peacefully. My plans for the day are simple -- I shall go to bed soon, get up when I get up, and take care of my tasks in an orderly fashion. I need to take the garbage down to the road, I need to clean the cat room, run the dishwasher, and keep working on a long letter to my ailing grandmother. I also need to see if one of my interview subjects has answered my questions so that I can put together and finish one of my news stories to send it away to my editor, and I'll need to eat something eventually too. I need to talk to Daisy before she goes to work, as that isn't a simple want but a true need these days when we see each other so little. Finally, before I go to bed once more, I need to keep looking for and applying for, if possible, more jobs in the Omaha area.

Metering out my tasks this way makes everything seem so simple, as if there's a time and a place for each little action, each thought, each movement. There's a certain kind of peace in that, honestly. It's a relative peace, a peace I don't feel very often, but I'll take it.

I'll take it.