The surrender.....

Last week I was turned down for my last two serious job prospects--the family CPA firm and the air pollution district. The lady at the firm sent a nice letter about how I was "one of their final three candidates, but..." I would almost rather get a generic form letter than that.

Also got a letter from the air district informing me that although I passed the interview I was not on the final list of eligibles. The HR person said I could have feedback if I wanted it, I guess I will take her up on it just so I can really depress myself and finally hear from the interviewer's perspective about how poorly I interview.

Went in to the temp office last week, let them know I was up for anything, pretty much.
Allegedly most of the work is full-time. As usual, I did well on the tests so I assume if I follow up something might result. I just need to come up with enough per month to cover my personal credit expenses.

I haven't totally given up on a "real" job, but I have to face facts--if it were going to happen, it probably would have by now, and it's been nearly two years since I last worked. In a way it is liberating because I'll more or less be finished with the annoying parts of the job hunt. Once my unemployment benefits run out I'll at least be more free to do other things.

When I was in my twenties, I enrolled in a paralegal certificate program. I never worked as a paralegal, and luckily fell into my post office job a few months after I "graduated." I still have the student loan debt from it. It sucks, but I'm starting to think my accounting career is more of the same, just more expensive, with less of a possibility of something else working out. And I'm not a young single twenty-something anymore; my screwups no longer only affect me. My wife is stuck in a job she hates during one of the most stressful periods of her life, all because I can't get it together.

Oh well, have a ton of chores to do.

So...

I got turned down for the last county interview, which wasn't a real surprise. They are either about to or already have enacted a hiring freeze, so a job there was unlikely to be in the cards anyway. I'm not all that upset by it. I guess I'm getting used to things not working out, which is both good and bad. It's good that I can adjust to setbacks, but it's bad that I think I'm kind of used to losing out on things now.

Only about eight weeks to go of unemployment, and I think I'm going to start looking at making the transition to finding temp work soon. Back when I had months and months to go of unemployment, it made sense to hold out and try to find full time permanent work, but now I'm not risking much by taking a temporary job. Plus since we're looking at trying to get out of here, temporary work may be the way to go anyway.

I started SKIPPY DIES last week and am about a fifth of the way through. Glad I tried it again, I really enjoy it.

I tried to read THE PALE KING, an unfinished DAVID FOSTER WALLACE book, but just can't get into it. It has a lot of things about taxes and the IRS, so you'd think I'd be one of the few people out there who would be able to appreciate it, but...guess not.

Have a lot of household tasks, phone calls to make, etc. I'll still try to blog at least once a week.

Sifting through crap....

So, we basically have the equivalent of an extra house worth of stuff [if not more] to clean out and figure out what to do with, so that is not much fun. Taking a lot of trips to Goodwill and one of the other local thrifts. We try to avoid Salvation Army due to the whole homophobia thing.

Don't have a lot of books coming in, but I am very much booked up. I had two Scandinavian mysteries, but will probably only finish one. The other is already slow and a little dull. I'm getting to the point where I forget I have books out, and that isn't good, so it may be time to clear the deck soon. I was trying to read SKIPPY DIES again, but haven't even started, so I guess I'm not really trying.

Hoping to maybe hear something this week about one of the interviews from last week. I really don't want to have to mess with temp agencies when my unemployment runs out in July.

Breaking promises....

I've been reading, but decided to just update on the interviews. Or interview.

The first interview at the family run CPA firm went pretty well. If I were to remain in public accounting, it would probably be the best place for me--a variety of experience, but with no crazy hours. The partner seemed to like me, but they are just starting the recruiting process and are unsure how they're going to proceed. I am pretty confident that I will be called for a second interview, they do not seem concerned with most of the things that usually trip me up.

The other interview turned out to not be an interview, but an oral examination. The top scorers will be called for the actual interview, at some future date yet to be determined. I did okay, but among the best? Not really sure. This pays more than accounting, but may have limited transferability when we do eventually get out of here for good. Believe it or not, I may be favoring the first job.

I ended up cancelling the third interview [with the county] because I need to be available to help with wife with some things that day. I'm not too worried about skipping the interview. The county's recruiting methods pretty much seem to guarantee that I won't ever get a job there, and this particular agency was the worst of all. I see familiar faces just about every time I go to interview, so I think there are a large group of people like me who score well on the accounting exam but don't have the experience to be considered for the job. They really need to either require more experience to take the exam or else lower the experience requirements for the job.

Reading Henning Mankell. Not as good as Harry Hole, but still pretty good. I'm really getting into Scandinavian crime novels, and as many have discovered, just about all of the lesser-known series out there are way better than the overrated GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. Mankell seems to be profiting from the popularity of it, although he perversely has ended his series now that the time would be ripe to reap the benefits from it. I guess it would be good to include a link to his webpage even though I don't think my Imaginary Reader will be all that interested in clicking on it.

An embarrassment of riches.

I know I said I would not write about the job search anymore, but oh well.

I have three interviews next week with three different employers.

Job #1 is a position I really care about and would love to get. It isn't in accounting, although some accounting background is helpful. It's working for an air quality agency. It would basically be a chance to start fresh and not be hampered by my prior experiences. The interview format is the panel, which I normally don't like, but they use something called a "blind panel," where the interviewers aren't given any of your information. This would probably mean no questions about employment gaps or questions like "How do we know you won't just quit and go back to public accounting?" BTW, I took my CPA off the resume for this position, so it won't come into play at all. My lack of experience would probably not hurt me so much here.

Pay is much better than accounting positions here, and I'd be working regular hours but with every other Friday off. I'm focusing all my energy on this one. The main con would be, when we did get to leave the area I don't know how well this would translate into a job where we moved. There are similar agencies, but not in the city where we want to move.

Job #2---yet another small accounting firm that put an ad in the paper. They at least have a website so I've been able to check them out. Family owned firm with about six or seven accountants. I'm barely within the experience range and probably got the interview because I have the CPA. If I connect well with the interviewers it might work. Cons would probably be lower pay [small firms tend to pay less anyway] and it's public accounting so the hours would probably suck, although smaller firms sometimes are a little more lenient about that. Also, I would really love to not do public accounting anymore, but if I did get this I guess I could get the experience I needed to get a better job later. I could go either way on this one. It's the day before the interview for Job #1, so at the very least it could serve as practice, at least from a psychological standpoint.

Job #3. Yet another county interview, even though I have never gotten an official rejection from the last one. I believe I have interviewed with this particular agency before and been rejected, so no reason to think it would go any differently this time. I believe this place had me answer five questions and got me out the door without giving me an opportunity to ask any of my own. You never know, it could involve different people who have some other way of interviewing, but I doubt it. I don't really care about this one at all. The county is really getting clobbered financially right now, so I don't see how they can afford to hire anyone when they are probably about to lay off a bunch of people. This interview is late next week, well after the other two interviews. I'm tempted to not even do this one at all, but I guess it would be good to put on the unemployment form.

I'm worried about the possibility of getting job #2, starting right away [small firm usually equals fast turnaround time on interviews], and then hearing that I got job #1, and then I would worry about what to do at that point. I've never really gotten within sniffing distance of a job offer in public accounting, though, so it is probably not something I should worry about. I mean, I got my job at the Big Firm, but I found out later that it had to do with stuff that had nothing to do with them actually wanting me as a candidate.

So, token book post...reading A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD and don't think it's amazing, but it's still pretty good. The section told in PowerPoint slides is something I had kind of considered doing for some kind of zine/art project once, but I am beaten to the punch yet again.

I have trouble with books that shift too much between characters and time frame.

Also reading: biography of Ray Bradbury that I enjoy but is very much authorized, although I don't know how much dirt there would actually be about Ray Bradbury anyway.

A book on the Mayflower, called MAYFLOWER.

A book on the Cherokee removal which I grew up knowing a lot about but it's good to actually read about it.

Some others I haven't started yet and need to. Have a few more waiting at the library. I know someday, maybe someday soon, I will start working and will miss all this reading time, although lately I've had to do more stuff around the house than I once did.

Heading home....

We made a big decision last week, that we are going to move back to my home state, and I'm hoping that we will be able to be in the city where I used to live.

So the job search is kinda-sorta suspended, as we get closer to my UE running out I will start trying to find temp work and hope to be able to at least make enough per month to cover my various credit bills. I still have two jobs pending [the last county job and one other that has not contacted me about an interview]and if I do manage to get one of those we will change our plans accordingly. Other than that, I am no longer actively seeking full time permanent employment. Shhh! Don't tell the unemployment people!

Long story short, we've never liked it here, and were only here for reasons that we couldn't do much about. That situation has changed, so after eight years it is finally time to go. Really hoping to move later this year, although more realistically it will probably be sometime next year. Have a lot of stuff to take care of, and no one to help us with it. Junk won't sell itself, and neither will houses. Especially in this crap market.

It's good to finally have a clear goal to work toward. I feel like I've been spinning my wheels for the last few years.

Professionally, I'm going to work toward getting my license active here, and then getting reciprocity with my home state.

In other news, I finally managed to change a flat tire after a few risky, failed attempts, so I am feeling pretty good about myself for once.