Someone's Out There!

Success came today in a strange way: I received a rejection letter in the mail. Yes, it was a success because I have generally not been hearing back from anyone I've submitted resumes and cover letters to in this particular sending season ("season" only because it is temporary in my eyes).

I've honestly been depressed about not hearing anything back save for a scant number of automatic responses and confirmations of emails/resumes sent. I've felt like a statistic.

This was a folded letter, addressed to me, signed with a real pen and mailed in a size 10 envelope. The last time I received one of those was early 2000s. The last mailed rejection notice I received was around 2005 and was a flimsy postcard. I felt so jaded. Like on those old movies and sitcoms in big cities where everyone reads your postcards before delivering them, I felt like "everyone in the building" knew that I had been rejected, even though we live in an anonymous world and only the postman knew if he cared enough to read.

This spurred me on to send out six resumes and cover letters that desperately needed to be sent. It's strange what revitalizes me. It's not so much the cause, but the fact that I feel like I have an ounce of new blood in me.

Any feedback is good feedback in my book.

Last Week

It's here: the last 40 hours of my (hopefully not) last job.

I feel paralyzed by all of the decisions left to be made. When to cut the cable and home phone? When to get a roommate? When to just take any ole hourly position to cover bills and rent?

I'm trying to take things day by day and realize that nothing has to happen all at once. Don't get me wrong: I would do all of these things tomorrow if I knew I would not have a job for the next year. The only thing is, I may find a job in the next week and then I'd have to put up with a roommate, a commitment to another job or a re-installation appointment with the cable company (I know, not the *worst* thing in the world!). I keep thinking about my ancestors and how they lived (and thrived!) through the Great Depression. I just have to have heart and strength like they did.

Wrapping up things at a job is just as depressing as my future prospects. I shouldn't care but I know that once I leave everything that goes (or went) haywire will be chalked up to my existence within the company. I've seen it happen before at this and other firms and it's truly a travesty. "Let's all talk about the person who left as though we never should have hired them!" Especially when it's the person who hired them talking. Some things will never change, though. And the competitive nature with which people seek out information on the employee who left and then trade it like some ancient spice in old Europe. As though it makes them more valuable to be speaking with or cyber-stalking this person through social networking sites. Airing their laundry for the office and speaking about what they would do in any certain situation. While at the same time, they were the badge of honor of still being with said company. As though their staying-on has anything to do with their intelligence, strategy or worth. Despicable, yes. Unavoidable, unfortunately yes. Should I even give this a second thought? NO!!

I need to forget about my current dilemma and hit the ground running. I need to keep driving myself toward future success. That's the only way I will make something for myself - of myself - is to focus on myself and just let everything else just fade away.

Back in the Saddle

So this past week or so I have re-dedicated myself to job searching. FUN, I know! It's become fun again mainly because there are jobs being posted that fit my criteria on all the major sites. This resurgence has invigorated me. I've redone my resumes, written cover letters during lunch and even put off doing my normal lazy activities (read: watch reality tv and eat) to take the opportunity to submit a resume or two.

It's always been that I procrastinate so much while applying to a job opening that it's sometimes gone right when I am ready to apply. I have to have the perfect opening statement to my cover letter. I have to look up and reconnect with references. I have to re-do my resume to make it perfect. All that is out the window now. Thanks to the boyfriend, I am [somewhat] relaxing my standards just to get my information in front of HR's eyes. Good is good enough. Done is good. However you want to put it, I am kicking my perfectionism to the curb. I guess we'll see how this goes.

Life Gets In The Way

I have been laying low recently, hence the no blogging. I actually forgot I had a blog. Strange, I know.

I've been dealing with family issues and a family friend's death. I have experience with much family death, but each loved one's death I experience takes me back to the previous ones. And then I am mourning for them all. All over again. It's an exhausting process and grief is just something you have to go through to get through. This is the time that I yearn for my childhood - the time before any of my relatives passed away.

Death is so definite. One day you're talking and planning and yearning and the next you're not. I'm not goth or obsessed with death. It's been a part of my life for a while now and I am still searching for its meaning. I have listened to "On Death and Dying" twice in my car a few years ago. I'm thinking about putting it back on in heavy rotation.

Losing my job has been a grieving process. Now with these situations lumped on top, it's difficult to take on both every single day. Meetings at work where people gently tiptoe around the fact that I won't be there in a month's time make me feel more dead each day.

In Elisabeth Kubler-Ross' five stages of grieving, I believe I'm at depression when it comes to my job. I'm hoping acceptance will come in the next five weeks, but we shall see. I've been here for a while and now I'm depressed on a personal level.

Ms. Adulthood Goes to Washington

Check out Ask Mr. Credit Card's article on a new bill. I think Capitol Hill is monitoring my blog and just saw me lean towards paying off all of my cards in order to not pay interest and have them handy later. Reading this WSJ article makes me want to keep hoarding my cash instead!*

* My decision is vacillating each minute. 

Finally out of the red! (well, sort of)

Technically, I am still about $14k in credit card debt, but Mint.com says my bottom line net worth is a cool $1,300. WOW. I'm chalking this up to a combo meal containing the following:

• I have been hoarding cash (like a krazy person - yes, krazy with a "k")
• Greatly reduced spending on my credit cards/spending at all (couponing is now a hobby, it's replaced clothes shopping and mindless eating!)
• And my 401(k) has been increasing in value with the recent upticks in the market

I should be happy, but I still have all that debt hanging over me.

I've been thinking about taking the (almost) $10k in cash I have and just wiping out the majority of my debt. This scares me because I still haven't had any interviews and don't have any job offers. And I have less than two months to go before I have to jump off the cliff of uncertainty! In a perfect world, I would pay off all of my debt and then go cash-only. However, if I don't have a job(s) lined up for income, then I will end up going back on the credit cards. And if I pay them all off, the card companies may lower my limits or shut down my cards - though I do believe this is better than the alternative: having them jack up the rates while I'm still carrying balances and not having any money to pay them down.

Of all the times in my life, I really wish I had a crystal ball right now. Or at least a Fairy Godmother. I truly can not stand making my own decisions.

And So It Goes...

I've had a rough week. Meetings that I am normally involved with are not including me. I feel shunned and rejected. My superior originally told me not to tell anyone of my impending doom and now it's all but obvious to the casual observer that my position is being phased out. 

I feel like those computer monitors at my last job that had painfully-jubilant "Y2K Ready!" stickers practically glued onto them years after the non-event. Once flat screens arrived, those dusty old monitors were toast. And I'm feeling burnt already.  I feel betrayed for having this "secret" be so apparent now. Everyone else in my division gets to stay - only I will go. It's tantamount to being picked last for kickball each and every day of grade school. I'm finding it harder and harder every day to drag myself to the office. I'm internalizing (nothing new) and need to "reframe" the situation, as they say. 

 

Or maybe I'm just bitter because some of my co-workers act blissfully ignorant of the economy and our company's position. While my priorities and decisions have changed radically, theirs seemed to have stayed on course. They still go out for lunches, still chase happiness with money in their fists, still need the newest, best and top-of-the-line items that the Jones' just bought. 

I drove home crying yesterday, feeling stripped of my duties at work and as though I were carrying the weight of the world. I felt sick that a simple job could make me so darn emotional. But I made a few calls, sopped up my tears and realized the more time I spend pitying my current situation, the less time I will have for making it better. 

Even though it's not like me, it's so much easier to have a pity party than to pick myself up by the bootstraps.