The Whole Spectrum

With no interviews on the horizon and my vast network of connections all but exhausted, I woke up this morning at a loss.

Over the past six (gulp!) months I have made sure that I do something (or usually a whole bunch of somethings) every single day to further my quest for a job. With resumes and cover letters at the ready, requiring only employer-specific tweaks, and with memberships to all the requisite free job sites (and thus e-mail from "job agents" in my in-box every morning), it's been pretty easy to make a routine of searching for potential jobs and taking action on them.

But today I felt like I was spinning my wheels. Maybe it's discouragement or maybe there just aren't as many potential jobs for me out there, but I felt lost when I sat down at my laptop this morning (at 4:45 AM, dammit!), preparing to...

To what?

I'm not one to meditate, really, but I think that's what I did as I sat staring at my laptop very early this morning. It was either meditation or falling almost back asleep, but either way it culminated with me suddenly deciding that I would make a damn good elementary school teacher (second or third grade, or maybe fifth?) or a good seventh grade English teacher, and I was suddenly energized, looking up everything I could find on what it would take for me to obtain a Washington State teaching credential.

Energized, and then deflated.

It turns out that, even though I already have a masters in education, it would still take me a year and a half to two years to get a credential -- and once I started teaching I'd begin at maybe (if I'm lucky) half my customary salary. That might be fine if our kids were completely on their own, but we still have three more to put through college... simultaneously! So unfortunately getting a credential and teaching just isn't an option at this point.

By late afternoon I'd traveled completely to the other end of the spectrum, signing up for a membership with TheLadders.com, a recruitment and career site that focuses on executive, managerial and other professional career positions that pay quite handsomely.

So where will I end up? I can confidently say that by Thanksgiving I will be working at some job that I SOOO hope is meaningful, challenging and... can I even wish for creative?!