the daily snivel
After five years of reliable employment with Agriculture Canada, job hunting is a relatively new experience for me. So far, I'm averaging an output of between 1-3 different job applications each and every day, and that's been going on fairly steadily for the past month. I've had four interviews in that time, but no summer jobs as yet. Does anyone know if this is normal? It's very frustrating to hear nothing back, because all you can do is speculate about what sets one candidate apart from another, and whether it was this word or that bullet on your resume that makes it so unappealing. It's enough to make a person superstitious. I'm going to start dripping chicken blood into a flaming chalice each time I deliver, e-mail, or fax out a CV, in the hopes that if my years of experience with legal procedures and client service, software, web design, and superhuman typing speeds (of 80 words per minute) can't find me a job, then perhaps Satan will.
Well, actually, I do have a job now, which is my super swell-tastic news for the day, which will perhaps be rather refreshing after all my petty whining. It's just a week-long contract, but it's still enjoyable and challenging work, and pays tremendously well. My contract proposal was accepted today by Health Canada, which was looking for someone to transcribe the proceedings of a recent meeting on blood safety. I get to work from home (it was recorded onto videotape), use my own equipment (my iBook and my TV), and although I'll be required to independently familiarize myself a lot of medical terminology and wear my fingers down to nubs, I'll also be earning a fantastic twenty dollars an hour. It's so wonderful to have something to do. I was starting to fear that I might develop a taste for daytime television mainstays Dr. Phil and that charlatan who claims to talk to dead people. And while the government gets the work done for a bargain (other transcribers charge fifty dollars an hour), I get to pay my bills and eat. Everyone wins, especially me! I could also stand to get a smashing reference at the end of this, or even more work, if everyone is satisfied with my work. I'm only awaiting final approval of the contract to begin, which might happen as soon as tomorrow, but no later than Monday.
Meanwhile, however, I must continue to prostitute myself to prospective employers, because that wondrous work will be all over nearly as soon as it starts, and I'll start being poor and boring again.
Stay tuned.
Comments:Well, actually, I do have a job now, which is my super swell-tastic news for the day, which will perhaps be rather refreshing after all my petty whining. It's just a week-long contract, but it's still enjoyable and challenging work, and pays tremendously well. My contract proposal was accepted today by Health Canada, which was looking for someone to transcribe the proceedings of a recent meeting on blood safety. I get to work from home (it was recorded onto videotape), use my own equipment (my iBook and my TV), and although I'll be required to independently familiarize myself a lot of medical terminology and wear my fingers down to nubs, I'll also be earning a fantastic twenty dollars an hour. It's so wonderful to have something to do. I was starting to fear that I might develop a taste for daytime television mainstays Dr. Phil and that charlatan who claims to talk to dead people. And while the government gets the work done for a bargain (other transcribers charge fifty dollars an hour), I get to pay my bills and eat. Everyone wins, especially me! I could also stand to get a smashing reference at the end of this, or even more work, if everyone is satisfied with my work. I'm only awaiting final approval of the contract to begin, which might happen as soon as tomorrow, but no later than Monday.
Meanwhile, however, I must continue to prostitute myself to prospective employers, because that wondrous work will be all over nearly as soon as it starts, and I'll start being poor and boring again.
Stay tuned.
