Posts Tagged ‘job search’

…Trials and Tribulations Continued

Posted on: by Jeremiah Tolbert

My sta­tus for my unem­ploy­ment claim  finally updated today to tell me that I won’t be paid for the time period because it is my “wait­ing week.”  Whatever the hell that means.  I thought the fact that it took them 2 weeks of screw­ing around to even get all my infor­ma­tion processed equaled my “wait­ing week.” So one month of no income.  Thanks, The System!  The System is just grrreat!

I think I’ll work on get­ting my info loaded up with The Creative Group (temp agency) and count that as a job con­tact and be done with it for the week.  I get to ask for another pay­ment on Sunday.  Let’s hope this one actu­ally gets paid.

Thankfully I don’t have to worry about the state actu­ally pay­ing me in March, as I’ve got a good bit of free­lance lined up for then.  So I’m not going to let this get me down for long.   I’m back on my feet and dust­ing myself off and throw­ing myself back into the work.

A Curious Phenomenon

Posted on: by Jeremiah Tolbert

I’ve noticed some­thing unusual in my time unem­ployed.  Incredibly expen­sive stuff breaks all at once.  It’s almost as if your pos­ses­sions have been wait­ing for the moment you can­not afford their upkeep and then, snap–broken.

Our Saturn just had brake work done, had a bat­tery replaced, and now it’s not so good at start­ing, so I’m going to throw in some fuel injec­tor cleaner.  Hopefully that will finally make it pos­si­ble for Sarah to drive the damned thing.

The Alero needs rotors replaced, the whole brakes deal.  Also, I went and got myself stuff in Rocky Mountain National Park and had to be towed back­wards out of some snow.  I hooked up the tow line and couldn’t find any­thing really solid.  So I hooked it up to a bar that runs along the axel.  I’m not 100% sure what the name for it is, but I bent the hell out of it.  I’m tak­ing the car to be fixed right now, but they wouldn’t even give me an idea of how much it would cost to replace that metal bar, but they did say it can­not be replaced on its own.

I haven’t had to do this much car main­te­nance in years.  Perhaps it feels like every­thing is break­ing all at once because it’s such a pinch on us to have shell out hun­dreds out of sav­ings to pay for the repairs.  Unfortunately, not hav­ing two decent run­ning cars isn’t an option around here, espe­cially if I might end up ulti­mately com­mut­ing to Denver.  Sarah  once sat down and fig­ured out the bus route to where she works, and despite it being a 20 minute car ride, it’s a FOUR HOUR bus ride.  So not really an option there.

I would not mind one day hav­ing one car that we use on the week­ends, and then tak­ing some kind of pub­lic trans­porta­tion the rest of the time.  It’s one of the appeals of Portland to me.  At this rate, we’ll never live there though.  I have wanted to live there for so long, and so badly, but fate itself has repeat­edly con­spired against us.

You start to feel like the world is kick­ing you when you’re down after a while.  The hits just keep on com­ing.  I keep get­ting back up and putting my shoul­der to the wheel again.  But it’s not easy.  I’m lack­ing very much in hope.

It has now been 9 days since I filed for a pay­ment with unem­ploy­ment.  I still have not received a dime.  I call the cen­ter 20–30 times a day, but it is always busy.  I have not got­ten through inside of busi­ness hours when a real human could talk to me.  It’s not that I’m on hold.  I can’t even get through to be put on hold.  Local news reports that peo­ple have spent up to 4 hours wait­ing on hold to talk with a real human being.

I think I’ve got some projects lined up for March so I won’t have to rely on unem­ploy­ment.  At least my clients can pay promptly 95% of the time.

To School, Or Not to School?

Posted on: by Jeremiah Tolbert

I have been think­ing about try­ing to enroll in a graphic design or pho­tog­ra­phy pro­gram here in the Fall.  I don’t know any­thing about what it’s like to go back to school and get a new bach­e­lors when you already have one.  I don’t have any idea how much it would cost, and obvi­ously, I would have to take more loans. I already have $40,000+ in stu­dent loans left from my last one.  So–is it worth it?

Reasons for get­ting a graphic design degree

  • A lot of jobs are requir­ing it that a few years ago did not
  • Would really hone my skillset and give me the ground­ing in fun­da­men­tals I seek
  • Would pos­si­bly let me get through a bad time in the economy
  • Could still take free­lance while doing so, just at a lower volume

Reasons against going back to school:

  • I can barely earn enough to live and pay loans right now as it is.  Will adding another degree really make me that much more employ­able that I can make enough to han­dle the new, larger debt load?
  • I could prob­a­bly find a job some­where with­out one
  • School can be very tedious
  • I already have more real world expe­ri­ence equiv­a­lent than a degree gives

My job search has been fairly unfruit­ful right now.  It’s tough not to be dis­cour­aged and won­der if I need a big change in life.  I was talk­ing with Jay this morn­ing, and he was try­ing to point out that it doesn’t nec­es­sar­ily reflect badly on me.  It’s hard not to feel dis­cour­aged though.  My free­lance busi­ness is going okay, but how long will that last?

I’m adrift on a sea of uncer­tainty today.  I’m wait­ing for a wind to nudge me in the right direc­tion, but maybe I should just pick a direc­tion and start paddling.