The world, or at least the city, is on vacation. It is the last week of
August, and I see it in the gym, on the less than packed streets, even
on the subway.
But after more than 7 months of job hunting for many hours every day, I refuse to accept that nothing will happen today. I refuse to give myself over completely to what my kids want and need to do in their last full week before school starts. A job hunter, it seems, is never really on vacation.
Even when I was still working full time, I looked in anticipation. I scoured job boards and made lists of contacts to contact. In this, perhaps the deadest week other than Christmas to New Years, will anyone read my emails? And if they read them on the beach, will I stand out as a go-getter or fade from their memory and their inboxes before they ever make it back to the office? Would I be better off just diving into the kids' last week of summer and returning to the job of job searching once they are seated in their new classrooms for 7 hours a day? Or will waiting mean missing an opportunity that only comes up this week? The job hunter's job, it seems, is never finished.
With the exception of the early morning hours, when I am up and the kids are still sleeping, the decision is at least partly made for me. While the desire to have a job is urgent, the child standing in front of me needing help with summer homework is more urgent. While the knowledge that having coffee with movers and shakers and, well, anyone who could connect me to anyone, is important, making sure that my son can see past his overgrown bangs when he starts in his new school is more important. And while training myself on the 15 new computer programs potential employers expect me to know is valuable, making sure my daughters entering high school and middle school know that they can talk to me about their new challenges will, in the long run, be more valuable (even if not to my bank account).
So for this week, I grab my morning hours and an email here and there--and, well, the time to blog--but then enjoy our last week without schedules. Next week the whole city, myself included, will be back from vacation. And I am fairly sure that the job hunt will still be there.
But after more than 7 months of job hunting for many hours every day, I refuse to accept that nothing will happen today. I refuse to give myself over completely to what my kids want and need to do in their last full week before school starts. A job hunter, it seems, is never really on vacation.
Even when I was still working full time, I looked in anticipation. I scoured job boards and made lists of contacts to contact. In this, perhaps the deadest week other than Christmas to New Years, will anyone read my emails? And if they read them on the beach, will I stand out as a go-getter or fade from their memory and their inboxes before they ever make it back to the office? Would I be better off just diving into the kids' last week of summer and returning to the job of job searching once they are seated in their new classrooms for 7 hours a day? Or will waiting mean missing an opportunity that only comes up this week? The job hunter's job, it seems, is never finished.
With the exception of the early morning hours, when I am up and the kids are still sleeping, the decision is at least partly made for me. While the desire to have a job is urgent, the child standing in front of me needing help with summer homework is more urgent. While the knowledge that having coffee with movers and shakers and, well, anyone who could connect me to anyone, is important, making sure that my son can see past his overgrown bangs when he starts in his new school is more important. And while training myself on the 15 new computer programs potential employers expect me to know is valuable, making sure my daughters entering high school and middle school know that they can talk to me about their new challenges will, in the long run, be more valuable (even if not to my bank account).
So for this week, I grab my morning hours and an email here and there--and, well, the time to blog--but then enjoy our last week without schedules. Next week the whole city, myself included, will be back from vacation. And I am fairly sure that the job hunt will still be there.
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