I HAVE A JOB!!!!

It's official. I have been hired by a University in Idaho to do a job I am very excited about. I'm moving to Spudland. I could not be more thrilled.

MANY thanks to all my pals who have been so incredibly supportive over the last 8 months. I applied for 130 jobs, had about 20 interviews and more up and down rollercoster of hopes and disappointment than I could count.

Yep, I'm definitely doing a Happy Dance now!

Unemployment is like Pregnancy because...

No I am NOT pregnant! (Although my shape may suggest otherwise.) For heaven's sake at 52 yrs old at least that is one thing I do NOT have to worry about. The photo is of my beautiful niece Jodi who has since given birth to an absolutely ravishing little girl. But I posted the picture to make a point.

When I was pregnant over 30 yrs ago one of my biggest sources of frustration was that as soon as my tummy started poking out it seemed to make people believe I'd utterly lost my brains. No one ever asked me what sort of books I had read recently or inquired about my opinion on current events. They stopped discussing plays or astronomy or the state of the nation. It seemed that the only kinds of conversation people had with me during those months focused on "how are you feeling?" and "when is your baby due?" Women wanted to touch my belly and/or regale me with stories of their own childbirth experiences. Men got either condescending or uncomfortable. Either way, it was like I was no longer the smart, interesting person I had been before with a multitude of interests. During that time of gestation I socially became a pod person, a vessel for making a new life. Nothing else. Or at least that was how it seemed at the time. I used to get down right cranky about it.

What does that have to do with now? It seems that lately nearly every person I know keeps asking me "How's the job search going?" TRUST ME on this, if I get a job I'll be shouting so loudly it will shake the earth. You will know. But I just can't handle the constant scrutiny about the process. After having applied for 120 different jobs across six states, having had over a dozen serious interviews and all too many very near misses I've had my hopes up and had them dashed too many times to count.

Sometimes I'm very zen about the whole process and truly believe that the universe is unfolding around me exactly as it is meant to. There are days when I feel all the way to my bones that God has a plan for me through all this that I just can't see.

Other times I sink down into a serious funk, feeling very discouraged, disappointed, and concerned about my continued lack of getting a job. I worry. I fret. I wonder what is going to become of my poor pathetic professional career. Especially since I seem to be doing all the right things that professionals tell job seekers they should do and still not getting results it gets frustrating.

But honestly, we are fine. Fortunately for us, my sweet husband has a good job with full benefits. We are essentially out of debt. We have savings in the bank. We've certainly had to cut way back on our discretionary spending since I'm no longer bringing in the big bucks I was when I was working. But we have never once had to go without a single thing we really needed. We do not have to fear the wolf at the door (yet). So I can truly say we have been incredibly fortunate during these many months of uncertainty. Far too many good, honest, hard working people have lost homes, lost confidence, lost so very much through no fault of their own as a result of the shifting economy. I'm very blessed to not be in that boat.

I continue to apply for jobs. I continue to go meet with "experts" and "specialists" who are helping me to refine my approach. I'm still seeking a professional position and not even close to needing to settle for any old survival job. Because we are ok.

Don't get me wrong, I DO appreciate the supportive concern. It's just that when I'm trying to minimize my stress over this prolonged job search by focusing on the OTHER areas of my life that truly are running along smoothly (or at things that I have some power to do something about) to have people keep asking me about the job search just takes me back to the one area in my life where I'm feeling pretty powerless, and that's not fun.

One of the great things about having been poor in the past is I absolutely have the skill sets for living on a very slim budget. I know how to make do. And because we have no major life expenses right now we really can manage living on my husband's income and the meager pittance I earn from teaching a couple online classes.

Still - I do want a job. We work for many reasons besides a pay check. When I reflect back over the track record of all the different jobs I have had over the years it's very evident that I took positions that I could believe made a positive difference. Rather than try to get rich or work my way to the top where I could be all important I tried to DO important things. Being executive director of two different non profits was far less about the fancy title and far more about believing in the missions of those organizations. So that is a part I really miss.

Besides, eventually my husband will retire and then it will be up to me to take on the role of primary bread winner. So hopefully sometime in the not too distant future, I'll find a suitable position in a place we will both feel good about. Clearly the search is on with all the determination I can muster. But until I do land that elusive job that surely is out there somewhere in the universe waiting for me to find it, please give it a rest from asking me what I've applied for lately or how my last interview went. Having to fess up to the growing pile of rejection letters just feels too demoralizing.

The last near miss job that I interviewed for required me to put together a professional portfolio showcasing some of my past accomplishments. I got beat out of the job by someone with more experience, but that process was really good for me. Now when I get discouraged about the search I can flip through the pages of that binder and see solid proof of my talent and skills and be reminded of what I do have to offer. It's a whole lot better that perusing the mountain of "we don't want you" letters.

So if you want a conversation with me, let's talk about the plans for my garden. Let's talk about the high school producton of Les Miserables that I went to see. Let's discuss educational issues. Or we can talk about something that is interesting to you. I'm a pretty good listener. But if you ask me again "How's the job search going?" I'm likely to get a bit prickly. It is a sensitive subject for me right now. So can we just skip it for a while?

There is one BIG exception to all this. If you know of any job leads I could follow up on or even just think of someone who it might be helpful for me to talk to I would very much appreciate the referral. I suspect that networking with others who may have key contacts will be far more useful to my search than constantly reviewing ads. So if you have an idea of something I could follow up on, by all means PLEASE do make the suggestion. It will be most welcome.

Otherwise, if you are simply showing supportive interest or are curious, could we please talk about something else?

Work / Home Balance

I've been giving some thought to the whole issue of Work / Home balance. It seems the primary reason I did not get my job in Alaska was because I was not willing to be a corporate drone. Everything looked great, and I had indeed been told that I was the person hand picked for the job. But then I started asking questions about what sort of schedule would be expected. I spoke to the person who performed the same job in Pasco, WA. Apparently that guy routinely put in 70 hrs per week. I attributed this to him being a crazy work-a-holic. Then I met the person with the same job in Anchorage. He worked even longer hours. When do these guys sleep?

As I kept inquiring and exploring the same theme kept coming up. Throughout the company the expectation seemed to be for people to put in LONG days, often taking work home over the weekends and having precious few holidays and very little vacation. They lived to work. After talking to numorous people it became clear this was endemic with that company NOT because the individuals involved had no sense of balance in their lives, but rather because it was a corporate expectation. This is the dark side of far too many companies...expecting people to give up their lives for a paycheck and that is something I simply will not do.

So I balked.

I talked to the head CEO and told him point blank "I am a very good employee because I am passionate about what I do and I give 100%. However, one of the reasons I can be such a good employee is that my life WORKS. I have a great marriage. I am a member of a faith community. I have hobbies and interests. I enjoy a rich and rewarding personal life. So while I work very hard at my job, I need to be able to consistently go home and have time to fully rejuvenate in that personal life so then I have the energy to go back to work and give 100% all over again. I will work hard and as a professional I certainly understand that there will be occassional projects that require extra long hours or even the occassional weekend. But I would expect that as matter of routine I would not typically work more than 45-50 hrs in a week. I think anything more than that would mean that either the job was ill defined, efficient systems were not in place or the expectations were unreasonable. Any job that expects more than that on an ongoing basis would not be the right match for me."

Based on that, it seems, they decided that I was no longer the right match.

In all honesty I am VERY relieved we found out this basic mis-match BEFORE I took a job and moved rather than after.

As disappointed as I was to not get my dream of moving off to moose land, I am very clear that was NOT a good match for my values and needs.

So my job search continues. I have two interviews this week and another one the first week of March. I am gathering no moss.

Through it all I have had lots of opportunities to think about what kinds of jobs would be a fit for me and what would not. So many people I know are locked into jobs they hate, or at best jobs they merely endure. I really don't want to end up in that boat. I understand that EVERY job has things that will be annoying, tedious or uncomfortable. (That's why we consider it work instead of play, right?) Still, I believe it is possible to build a work life that is rewarding on personal levels and well as economic ones.

When looking for a place to live I've carefully considered what characteristics I want from a community - things like climate, size, and types of resources available. I think it makes sense to do the same sort of analysis for what sort of work life would be the best fit and reaching specifically in that direction rather than merely grabbing on to whatever might become available.

There is a lot I'm still not clear on. But these are the things I know for sure.

1.) I would rather work inside than outside. While I do like the chance to get a change of scenery now and again, I'm not likely to enjoy working outdoors in all sorts of weather.

2) I would rather work with ideas than machines. I worked in a factory once, long time ago. I could never do that sort of employment again. It was truly miserable.

3) I need to be able to support the overall mission of the company or organization that I work for. This means that even the very best job in a company that makes bombs or produces pornography would not be a fit. I have to know that the overall goal of my employer is to meet a legitimate need or improve quality of life somehow.

4) I need contact with other people. I'm good at statistical analysis and I have skills in data management. But if I'm stuck in a room by myself crunching numbers all day I'm going to go Postal. Whatever job I get needs to allow me some amount of contact with other people on a regular basis to keep me energized.

5) I can be a Chief or an Indian, but do not mircomanage me~!
I had a job in a medical research facility once where my supervisor wanted to approve every document before I was allowed to FAX it to the vendor we worked with. Every move I made had to be discussed and signed off on by higher ups. It was excruciating. I have a brain. Let me use it to do my job.

6) The flip side of not liking micromanagment is I don't really want to be totally left on my own. I am capable of making decisions and I work well independently. Still, I like to have someone else I can bounce ideas off of and it helps if I feel like there is a leader who is aware of what I'm doing. I tend to get highly motivated when working out of loyalty to a specific person, far more so than for individual success of any given project. While I don't need much hand-holding sort of supervision, I do like having some support and/or sense of being part of a team.

Ok - those are some basic generic things I know about what I want from a job. Now all I have to do is find a position in one of the geographic regions my husband and I have identified as desirable that meets (or at least comes close to meeting) most, if not all, of those criteria.

Don't know what I'm going to be when I grow up, but the journey of exploration to find it has certainly been interesting.

Life can turn on a dime...

Earlier today I found out that I did NOT get the job I had been expecting in Alaska.
Oddly enough, despite how much I had been looking forward to heading north to Moose Land, I have felt a complete calm and peace about this.

I posted the news on my Facebook page earlier. As a result, I have had several people writing me messages giving me condolences for having missed out on the job I was so sure I had.

But you know, I just don't feel badly about it. YES, I wanted to move to Alaska and am a little baffled because the President of the college essentially had told me I had it. But apparently she got trumped by the corporate CEO. For whatever reason, things have shifted.

But here is the interesting part. The same day I found out I did not get the job, I also got a call from my son in Michigan telling me my 13 yr old grandson was needing emergency surgery on his heart. (He has had heart problems for some time so it is not totally unexpected, however complications arose just in the last week requiring the doctors to act FAST.) He came through the surgery just fine and by all accounts he will be ok. Still, I'm feeling a STRONG prompting that we need to be more available to our family.

Then tonight I opened up my scriptures at random as I often do. The first passage I turned to in the Doctrine and Covenants was this:

"And now, verily I say unto you, that it is not expedient that you should go until your children are provided for, and sent up kindly unto the bishop of Zion. And after a few years, if thou desirest of me, thou mayest go up also unto the goodly land, to possess thine inheritance." (D & C 99:6-7)

Uh, yeah. It seems really, REALLY clear to me that Heavenly Father is not saying NO, he is saying "Not Yet". I trust His timetable.

I do not know if this means we will head back to Michigan to be close to the grand kids or if it means we will stay here or if it means back to Boise or what. But clearly, it seems Alaska is on hold.

Living in Limbo like this is sorta discombobulating. I really want to know where we will land. But I am learning more every single day to "Trust in the Lord with they heart and lean not unto thine own understanding." (Proverbs 3:5)

Pins & Needles..

I've been up most the night not able to sleep. My nerves are all a jangle with anticipation about whether or not I'll get the job....

However, as skittish as I may be at present, I've been learning a whole lot from this whole process. As much as I want this move north, I honestly believe I'm ready to fully accept the outcome no matter what it is. If I do not get hired I will of course be disappointed. I have so many reasons why a move to Alaska just now would be a lovely fit. But ya know what? I am finding myself very aware these days of how richly blessed I am.

I am healthy.
I have a great marriage.
I have a strong spiritual life.
I have some great friends.
I have a great dog.
I live in a place with lots of freedom.
I have a supportive family.

The list goes on and on.

So if I DON'T get to move of to the Land of Bears & Moose, it really will be ok.
But if I DO....oh holy cow, what an adventure that would be.

Trust in the Lord...Part 2

Over on one of my other blogs I had written some thoughts about Probverbs 3:5 which says: "Trust in the Lord with all of thy heart and lean not unto thy own understanding."

Like it or not, it seems the Lord is going to just KEEP giving me lessons in this area until I buckle down and LEARN.

As my friends and family all know, this past week I flew to Alaska to interview for the job that I'm hoping for, Dean of Instruction at a private proprietary college. There are many pros and many cons about this particular job. But after six months of unemployment I am ready to get back to work. Also, as much as I would miss people I love here and leaving behind all my cozy sense of familiarity, I really do believe I would be happy living in Alaska. I can't explain it. Every time I go to the Mat-Su valley I just feel like I am COMING HOME.

So I have done all that I can do to snag this job. Now all I can do is wait and see how it plays out.

I hate the vulnerable out of control feeling of having my destiny in the hands of others. Even though I believe I am a good match for this job, and my meetings up there all seemed to go well, I am very aware that the corporate powers that be may decide they just don't want to pay to move me up there.

I can't rush it. All I can do now is wait.

Will I get it? Don't know. But EITHER WAY, I know that the Lord knows my needs. Things will work out. I need to trust. I've prepared well. I've put forth all I could put forth. Now I wait.

Sigh.

Wasilla, AK

The job hunt continues. I am now in the final running (out of over 150 candidates) for a position in Wasilla, AK. I've appled for over 100 jobs in six states over the past year, and interviewd about 9 times, so I've learned a thing or two about NOT counting my chickens before they hatch. But somehow this one feels more real than a lot of the others I looked at. Either way, it will be interesting to see how it will all unfold.

Photo Credit: Photo of mountains from Wasilla found at http://www.city-data.com/city/Wasilla-Alaska.html

Hope & Disappointment

After learning I did not get the job I was really hoping I would be hired for, I've been giving a lot of thought to the relationship between hope and disappointment.

Every broken dream that causes me to cry is a direct result of having reached for a place, a person, a thing, or set of circumstances I want to draw into my life. When what I long for doesn't happen, how badly I feel about it seems to be in direct proportion to how much I had hoped. In my mind, the definition of pain is the distance between what IS and what I hope for. Little distance = little pain. Big distance = devastated, bleeding, bruised and battered heart whimpering in a ball on the floor. (Well, figuratively anyway.) What it comes down to, for me, is this: if I could stop HOPING for certain outcomes then I would never be disappointed.

Recently I allowed my hopes to go flying sky high.
Today, my disappointment has my heart crawling lower than a snake's belly.

So was all that hope a mistake?

I don't think so.

I prefer to hold on to the words of Martin Luther King who said: "We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope."

It is an inevitable part of living in this fallen mortal world that we will all experience some shattered dreams and big disappointments. How we choose to respond to those events will shape how we experience our lives.

Sometimes it may seem a bit masochistic or misguided to keep flinging my heart skyward with hope, giving room for deep longing for certain outcomes to happen. More than one person has recently advised me I'd be better off to practice more "acceptance" and appreciation of whatever actually comes into my life instead of forever chasing passionately after different paths. I know that advice is well intended. But it's not for me. I am determined to keep hope alive.

I am a dreamer at my core. I like being optimistic as I reach for different possibilities. It's not without a price. But it is a price I'm willing to pay. A lot of the things I reach for never come to pass. Some of those missed dreams cause me to shrug my shoulders and say "oh well!". Others have sent me huddled into fetal position wailing for days. But I will accept that risk. I would rather have a life of scars from the crashes than play it safe by never striving. I will take the heartbreak. Because I choose to continue to reach for the stars.

Silly girl.

Continuing Journey

Those of you who know me well know I have moved A LOT. (Arizona, Ohio, Florida, Michigan, Washington, Oregon - with several shifts between various towns...over 25 moves since leaving my parents' home.)

When my job at the non profit ended last July I began looking for a position in or near Boise. I was utterly CONVINCED that was where I would land next, hopefully for keeps.

There were a number of reason I picked Boise. (close to family, nice climate, affordable housing, LDS temple there, right size town...not too big, not too small, but in the words of baby bear in the Goldilocks story, it's "just right".)

However, after MANY applications and six interviews in Idaho, no job floated to the top. I went through every phase of anticipation, excitement, disappointment, worry, crankiness, discouragement and fear you can imagine.

My husband in nearing retirement. I will be primary wage earner for the next 15 yrs. So it is critical that I find a place where I can get a job with decent benefits where we will be comfortable living long term.

So I began widening my net...applied for jobs in lots of different places doing lots of different things: Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Washington, Oregon and Alaska.

And wouldn't ya know, it seems I may have found a hit... in Alaska.

I am working really hard at not getting over confidant. I've had too many near misses over the past few months to dare get cocky again. But this one feels different. This one somehow just seems to be a fit. I passed the phone interview and am now scheduled to fly up for a face-to-face. They will start checking my references this week and I will do a 30 minute presentation to show my stuff...We'll see how it lands....

But through it all I have had such an interesting roller coaster ride of perceptions about what work means. What work do I consider beneath me? What work do I consider out of my league? Why? How come not having a job to go to felt so excruciatingly crummy some days and appeared as sweet respite on others?

In my head I completely understand that my value as a person is NOT defined or limited by what I do to earn a paycheck. Yet in my gut I still tie a lot of my identity to my job.

I've thought a lot about good jobs I've had and horrid jobs I've had and tried my very best to sort out what I need from a work environment to make it be a better match.

What do you like about your job? What do you hate?
If you could do ANYTHING you wanted (and no matter what it was you would get paid EXACTLY twice what you now earn) what would you do?

Work is indeed an intriguing part of our lives. I've had several starts and stops with trying to do some serious academic research about American perceptions of the workplace. Lately, however, I've been too busy dancing in circles with my own attitudes about it all to make much sense of bibliography and footnotes.

Will I get this next job I interview for? I honestly don't know.
But I feel ready for it. I think it would be a good fit.
Only time will tell.

No more teaching for me

Well, I got the word.

They hired the other person. I did NOT get the teaching job I had applied for. They said I interviewed very well and obviously had great background, but they made the choice to go with their adjunct instructor who they already knew. From the sound of it, it was a forgone conclusion. They knew who they wanted before the process ever started. GEE, we've never seen THAT happen before have we??

Of course I am disappointed. It felt like such a right match. But I'm not giving up. I'm STILL determined to find a job that will take us to Idaho. I just don't know yet what that will be.

Next on the hit list -

I'm still in the running to be Ass. Director of the Women's Center at Boise State and as Executive Director for a non profit that serves the elderly.
If not either one of those, I'll find something else. Every trip we have made there has confirmed for me that it is the right place for us to be. It WILL happen. Just not the way I thought.

Sad to close the door on my days as a teacher. I was really good at that. Also it is rather scary to have nothing for sure in the wings since my job at STAR comes to a close in July. But it will work out. I'm sure of that.

John Lennon was right. Life really is what happens while we are making other plans. It will be ok.

Limbo Land

I'm still waiting to hear about the teaching job I interviewed for. It has been an interesting process to watch how hope, fear, excitement, and dread keep looping around in my head.

I want this job. Still, I am fearful about assuming the role of full time faculty.
For the past dozen years I've always had some OTHER sort of job for my full time bread and butter work and then done my teaching one or two nights a week (or online) on the side. WORK was something I did to pay the bills. TEACHING was something I did to feed my passion. I have some concern that if my passion becomes my work I may burn out on the one thing that I truly love.

Christmas is fun, but I wouldn't want to do it every day. If it was always Christmas, it would cease to be special.

One of the primary reasons diamonds are considered valuable is that they are relatively rare.

If I am teaching day in, day out year after year after year will it lose the magic?

Part of me thinks it would be better to get some OTHER sort of job in Idaho so I could continue that pattern of keeping my teaching as something "extra" on the side.

But another side of me says I'm sick to death of balancing two jobs and I sincerely do want to turn in my crazy workaholic membership. I want to achieve greater BALANCE in my world. I want the time to simply be and breathe.

IF I were teaching full time one of the blessings would be having my job be doing something I really love. But an equally potent blessing would be having all those yummy breaks away from the work. Week off for spring break, week off for Thanksgiving, two weeks off for Christmas, three months off for summer...yeah, I could get used to that.

But I have heard nothing back from the school yet. I thought I would by now. I KNOW these things take time... but when I interviewed on the 22nd they said they had it narrowed down to just me and one other person, and they hoped to make a decision by the following week. Well, that week has now come and gone without a peep from the college.

What does that mean?
It may mean that they are just slower than they had hoped.
It may mean that I missed this opportunity.
Right now there is no way to know.

So I wait...with hope and fear, excitement and dread.

This uncertainty and anticipation are not my favorite place to be.

But it is what it is.

So I wait.

Pins and Needles

I'm in Idaho once again - scheduled for my SECOND interview for the full time sociology faculty job I am hoping for. Yes indeed, I made the first cut into the final top three.

I have SERIOUS butterflies. I am trying to let go of all expectation, to simply trust God and the universe to know what is best. I keep trying to pray "thy will be done." But I WANT this so bad I can taste it. It seems like such a right fit for both me and for my family for MANY different reasons.

DON'T get your hopes up I tell myself - stay in a state of optimistic acceptance of whatever may come to pass. But it's too late. Once I got the call that I made the cut my hopes did all sorts of flip flops in my belly. I do want it with a keening hunger that steals my breath.

Heck, I got so excited about the possibility I started pulling books off my many bookshelves and packing to move. Yeah, I get it that is WAY premature. But I had so much nervous energy I couldn't help myself. I packed 10 boxes which are all neatly labled. Garden books. Paperback novels. Old classics. Church books. Sociology books. This isn't a matter of being over confident. I TOTALLY get it that I do not have this job wrapped up. It was more a matter of completely focusing on the reality I desire and preparing for that to happen. It's not that big of a deal if I have to put the books back. If I DO get to move as I want to then yippee, I'm ahead of the game.

I pray for calm. I pray for willingness to accept whatever comes. But right on the heels of that I keep falling back to: Please God, please, please please, if it be possible, let this opportunity come.

I'll be on pins and needles till I hear. I have some nagging concern that if the answer is no - not this job, not this time, not this place that I just may crash and burn. I would hope not. But I suspect the disappointment would be huge. So I am trying to put on the brakes for my eager anticipation about having this particular dream come true. Maybe this is something else all together. Maybe this is just to be a test of my resilience? Maybe this is one more experience of coping with heartache and loss?

I KNOW God lives, I KNOW God loves me, I KNOW God hears my prayers. Yet I also know that sometimes the answer to those prayers is no. I trust that when He does say no that it is not capricious disregard. I know He has my very best interest at heart. But I also know that a big part of this fallen mortal world is to test and refine us and that adversity is a huge part of that plan.

So while I trust & have faith that in the ETERNAL realm whatever happens will be for my good, I do not trust that it will work out feeling good NOW.

So I'm worried and nervous, scared and all wobbly inside.

Oh, how I want this.

But I will breathe deep and do the best I can to be calm.

Interview at 11:30 today Idaho time.

I'll let ya know how it goes.

Finding My Fit

On Friday I interviewed for a full time teaching position at a community college in Idaho. The interview went extremely well. At no point in the process did I feel like I was posing or trying to SEEM like what they wanted. I was simply able to present myself as authentically as possible and describe the way my background would be a match for their needs. EVERY single question they asked seemed like a match to my strengths. Then I did a 15 minute teaching demonstration that went very well. Through the whole process I felt like I was "In the Zone", able to communicate clearly from my own personal best space. There is not one single thing I would change about anything I said.

So now I wait to see if I make it to the next round in the selection process. I think it would be an ideal match. But for all I know, they could have known exactly who they wanted for the job before the screening ever began - which happens a fair amount in academia. What I know for sure is that if for any reason I do not get this job it will not be due to any misstep on my part. I gave it my very best shot. Now I just wait to see how it all unfold.