Things that have been happening, 2

[Continued from here]. So this is the thing that has really been occupying most of my time since the end of March. I’ve got a new job, and it’s not in a university.

This has been the plan since 2016 — to look for a full time position outside of higher education: but first it was hampered by the job market, and then by dad’s needs, and finally by COVID. I had a horrible panic attack in January, increasing anxiety, and then along about February, I had a sort of personal crisis and decided I need to get back out of the house. It took me about three weeks, but I finally said, “Apply for one job, any job, and everything will get easier after that.”

So I rewrote my resume, applied for this job, five days later I had a phone interview, and three days after that I had a job offer — without ever taking part in a F2F. I didn’t even have time to survey the market, but this seemed like a propitious moment. It helped a lot that when my (now) boss called to offer me the position and I asked him if he didn’t want to meet me first, he said, “I am a former drill sergeant and I can tell you’re a good person.”

(If you knew me in real life, you would know how flabbergasting a statement that is. I am not drill material. However, now that I’ve had a month to work with him, I just really love the guy. I have generally had much better “management” when I haven’t been in faculty positions, but this guy is especially good at his job.)

it’s a two year project position (with likely renewal or movement into a related position) in workforce development with the state, and it involves, well, developing the workforce. It’s considered a difficult job for several reasons, but the main one is that unemployment in this region is 2.6 percent. The estimate we’ve been given is that about a third of the people of working age (generally: 18 to 65) who are not participating in the workforce but not collecting unemployment payments would like to be employed, but haven’t found their way back into the workforce for whatever reason. My job is to find those people, identify the reasons for non-participation, and figure out what we need to do to get them working. Thus, I am out and about (the area I’m responsible for is about 90 minutes one way from my residence) 2-3 days a week, and working remotely from home the rest of the time.

So far I’m having a pretty good experience. Everything has its ups and downs, but I do get to use a lot of my skillsets in this position. I occasionally think wryly that this moment is why my mom practically forced me to sell Girl Scout cookies when I was a kid. So far (crossing my fingers) I haven’t had any incidence of the Sunday Scaries or Revenge Bedtime Procrastination. It’s early days, still, but I mostly haven’t had any problem switching the work computer off at 5. (It helps that my personal computer is not my work computer anymore, although the keyboard confusion is still annoying.) I work in a team of four and so far they all seem to be great, independent-minded, and self-motivated. I feel like we are getting things done.

All this has necessitated a lot of reorganization of my life and time during the day. Happily, I am also finding that my general energy level is rising and I’m getting more done (want something done, ask a busy person). Oh: and I have a living wage and benefits again. Nothing to sneeze at, even if it is allergy season.

~ by Servetus on June 14, 2022.