7-11 My Lucky Day

7/11
It was my lucky day -  the first day of the next part of my life.

The company I worked for for 30 years had closed its doors.  I had stayed on for a few weeks to set up the liquidation site waukeshaheating.com, but that's all done now, too.

I had never been unemployed for more than a week, so I had to be very strict with myself.  There would be no unscheduled moments of the day.

Fernanda at 4pm

By 6 am I'm reporting to my workplace -  but first, Coffee! The only place open at that time of the day is McDonald's - Steve and Mary are both sleeping in, so their places are closed - I know how much Steve needs his beauty sleep... But coffee at McDonald's  - it's not such bad coffee, and it's only $1.00 there, even for a large. And the kids behind the counter are too sleepy even to give you the stupid look.  So, with my coffee and my briefcase in hand, I head to my office - it's actually my wife's office, at the shopping center, but she doesn't get there until two in the afternoon, so don't tell her, OK?   And there, I spend the first four hours of each and every day checking job listings, filling out applications, and updating the resume.

About 90 hours of work

For those of you who haven't looked for a job lately, the shaky clipboard application on a folding chair in front of the personnel office window is a thing of the past.  Online applications are the way it's done now, checked by robots as they are submitted, so that everything is filled out properly. Good thing  about the on-line applications - at big places where there are multiple openings, you can apply for multiple jobs at different times, and be ignored by six or seven people at once, or maybe they even have robots to ignore you, to save them the trouble.

There are robots which read your resumes that you upload as *.pdf files, and the robots sometimes fill out much of the application for you.  They're not to good at getting the information in the right blanks, though, so check their work thoroughly!  I've imagined myself working at lots of places already, and trying to get those places to imagine me there as well.  There was a nasty scam where they created a really attractive job description, and as soon as they had your informatioin, your mailbox fills up with online college recruiters.

Morning View

My web page clients were happy.  I finished everything in-house the first week I was off.  Check out weeimagine.com and joyceskylightcourt.com.

And,  betting against myself, I'm beginning to market retirement facilities for daytime music jobs, something I've never been able to offer,  before.  I enjoy playing piano for skilled-care centers, and the residents appreciate my musical tastes more than most other audiences.

So, that's mainly what I've been doing.  Applications and then catching up on stuff around the house later in the day.  I've applied about 10 gallons of Thompson's water seal and nine gallons of paint, 1000 lbs of scalloped paver edge, 10 lbs of Liquid Nails, and 12 lbs of Alex,  in the past two weeks.

I've never been out of work for so long, and I feel funny about being places I never used to be during the daytime, afraid someone will ask "Got the day off?"  But nobody really cares; I should get used to it, and enjoy some of it.  Weekends are different, too.  What are we resting up from?  That's why I've got to be so strict with myself about keeping the hours, and keeping the hours productive. And I'm steering clear of Facebook and Twitter for now, because it's so easy to turn minutes into hours there.  I desperately don't want to become one of those unkempt slugs sitting around Steve's place all day, looking coolly down their noses at someone who comes into the joint with paint on his shirt. They love humanity, but hate people.

So, here I am treading the fine line between sanity and self-respect. I'm writing this because it's raining when I was planning on painting, so the time was an unexpected gift from God.  Thanks!

Thanks for listening and contributing. I'd love to hear from you.