Checking In and the Dismal Reality of Unemployment

I've not felt like writing much, lately. I've been really ill since the holiday season, and can't seem to shake it off. I'm also feeling uncharacteristically blue - I can't shake that either. I'm making an exception, for once, to talk about how I'm feeling, and what's going on in my world.

I always try to look on the bright side, but I'm finding it hard, these days. I have been out of work for quite a while now, and it's wearing on me. I'm not used to being idle (relatively speaking), and I don't like it. I can't seem to make something happen, like I've always been able to do in the past; but then, my health isn't good right now, so perhaps things are as they should be. In any case, I've gotten a lot of knitting done, when I am able to sit up.I've been so very sick, I sometimes sleep the days through. I have more energy in the early evenings, for some reason, when I can manage to move around at all. And so I can catch a movie or two and get some knitting done - that helps keep my arthritic wrists flexible and limber..

For chronic conditions, I have fibromyalgia, arthritis, hypertension, and asthma, as well as being diabetic and having hypothyroidism. In short, I'm a hot mess physically. Then again, these are conditions I've had for years, now. What's got me down right now is a respiratory infection - the flu - that I can't seem to shake. Today is a better day than I've had in a while, but I can feel my energy levels dropping as I type this. I'll be back down again soon.

As far as the job situation goes, I have had someone review my resume (AGAIN), and I have been learning more about the nature of job market today. It seems that 'market' is the key issue: apparently, I'm not very marketable in the general sense, and don't know how to sell myself properly.

Frankly, that doesn't come as a surprise, entirely, because I didn't major in business, nor do I have an MBA to go with my other 'extremely impressive credentials' - that's often what the interviewer says right before s/he explains, regretfully, that I'm not qualified ENOUGH to work for their firm. In HR-speak, that means, apparently, "I THINK you are qualified to the job, but I can't find the words that tells me it's OK to keep talking to you, so I'm going with someone who has the right words," or so I'm told by the resume service. They did indicate that there is hope for me: someone is available to fix the deficiencies in my resume (put the proper flags in so I can get past HR and the software) and can act as my personal agent in the job market - be my full-time, professional agent - to devote themselves to showcasing my talents (as if I were a working actor): for a 12% fee, of course.

I am getting old, obviously: I have failed to recognize that names, labels, and titles count for more, these days, than skill and experience, and have come to the table unprepared. One interviewer told me flat out, that I'm much too old to expect to work again in my field. That hurt - I'm only 56.

I should have expected something like this to come to the science and engineering world sooner or later of course, and I am no stranger to the concept. I used to act  and stage-manage little theatre when I was younger, and I am a musician: I have an old SAG card, and was once a member of the Musician's union, back when I was expecting to be paid for what I played. In that world, if you look and sound like what they want, you're hired: no audition necessary. If not, keep walking. Looks like that's how it goes now everywhere - the decisions are made in a few seconds and not a few weeks, based on a first-glance impression.

I've been away from this part of the country for a long time; I'm not part of the local network anymore; so, even though people know me and know who I am, they don't 'KNOW' me; if you know what I mean. Others are in the same boat as I; our choices are few; stay here and languish, or leave. I not ready to leave yet, so here I am. Ah, well. In any case, I am a little sad to see the gatekeeper system come to my professional world.


The person I consulted said, basically, my resume is never making it through the screening process, something a lot of 'older' professionals are running up against. She also said I should consider seeking another degree, in another field, or retire early. I didn't like what I heard, but I was glad to talk to this person, even if it was a bit painful and humiliating in the extreme. Sometimes we need a stranger to throw cold water on our little fantasies, suppositions, plans, and pipe dreams - a cold wake up call that lets us know it's time to take a long hard look, then decide to quit, or start over.

The agent summed my situation up as follows:

   1.      The gap in my work record makes me a risky employee: I might put something or someone else first, before my employer: that makes me unreliable.

   2.      The fact that I have chemical engineering and chemistry background is considered misleading, because my work history is clearly in materials, surface science, and nanostructure. That is also hurting me, apparently. I don't credibly fit in the right HR 'boxes'. Materials scientists are supposed to have materials science degrees, she said, not chemistry or chemical engineering. OK, sez I ...

        *          Here's how it went down: the reviewer pulled out some HUGE HR handbook I've never heard of, and queried me according the book's definition of what someone in my field 'should' be conversant with - I'm not, at all. I've never worked in process or designed heat exchangers or pressure vessels, and have no desire to. I mentioned that there are several types of chemical engineers (not just design or process), and brought up materials science again - so she quizzed me there. That's a fit.

   3.      I don't have the right jargon in my resume, especially with respect to job history and duties, so that the HR programs and representatives used to screen resumes recognize me as an expert in my field, or even that I'm a viable candidate in that field (!).

        *         While the resume isn't supposed to contain overt jargon, I don't have the right keywords, phrases, and skills flags added in, as described in the HUGE HR handbook, to illustrate I actually know my stuff (or have a command of the buzzwords used to convince the HR person that I know my stuff). My response that if queried or put to the test, I know how to perform and get things done, manage projects and personnel, etc., and that if procedure isn't working, I'm willing to take responsibility to make necessary changes: all that makes me a poor candidate and a weak communicator, apparently.

        *          For example, I don't call Thiele Tray packers by that (apparent) trade name; I call them packaging stations: one of two examples I ran into recently. Not that there's any reason I should know about packers like that - I'm a research scientist/engineer, not a packaging specialist. I've never worked with them, but I do know about them, because I went out into the plant, on my last job, to help troubleshoot flawed parts. I saw one in a shoved into a corner in the otherwise immaculate production floor, and asked an operator if he could tell me what it was. Chalk it up to curiosity :).

        *          I also lost out on a faculty job teaching mathematics because I didn't call the procedure for solving quadratic equations by its title: Cramer's Rule - or so I was told after the interview. I correctly explained and described the quadratic equation solution method (that's what I called it) and demonstrated how to apply it, but being able to describe and explain it and show someone how to apply it is, apparently, of no use unless I can say off the top of my head, from memory, 'seeing A X-squared + B X + C = 0, one should now apply Cramer's rule ... '

I'll be the first to admit, I have NEVER cared about jargon and always preferred to look up the titles, names and formalisms, rather than committing them to memory (leaves more room for learning how to get stuff DONE - labeling it comes later when you write the report, or so I've always thought ... ).

I listened to the interviewee after me for the teaching job - she got it. She flung jargon and procedural titles about like she was scattering corn to hungry geese - she never got asked to DO anything, nor did she have to give a minilecture describing how to apply something. The reviewing committee hung on what she had to say as if she dripped mana from heaven. They just ate her up!

I'd never have thought to have done what she did - even if I had known what procedures and methods titles the committee wanted to hear me toss about, beforehand. I hate that kind of thing, because I've found, in practice, those who can pop out the buzz words on cue, seldom are actually able to apply the methods and procedures they are talking about so facilely, and rarely are they spot-on about the appropriateness of that approach. What they DO seem to have is a list of conditions - problem solution flowchart - that presents one of several pat solutions that can resolve most cases, like a recipe list of most-used solutions to common problems. I don't work that way. I only want to effect a solution ONCE and it's rare, indeed, when I have to do something twice. I pride myself on that. That's also considered a major flaw, these days.

So, it seems I need to take a crash course on buzz words and jargon to survive, in the new world of American business.

Anyway, the math instructor position was never a job I was seriously in contention for, apparently. I think it's possible that the committee had to interview me to so as to satisfy their EEO requirements. The HR program that put my resume before the committee had flagged me as a minority candidate (also something I got told after the interview); the person hired was neither minority or brunette or red-headed! :). Not that it matters: the other candidate said things the way the committee wanted to hear them; I did not. It's that cut and dried.

All I can say is, WOW. It's a brand new world out there, and I have COMPLETELY missed the grand opening, the train, and the boat.

Just a thought before turning in for the night ....

Nothing earth-shattering went on today, I'm knitting hats and contemplating my next sweater project. I did get the power company out to check the electrical connections at the box - and it seems the breaker box is giving up the ghost, so to speak. Happy, happy, happy ... Whee.

I changed the background on the blog yesterday, and today, it was almost too much for the eye to bear, so it's 'gone, gone, gone ...'

Funny that, just how changeable we can be from day to day. What seems perfect, or marvelous, or outstanding, today can be tomorrow's GLARING mistake :). Or so it seemed. Had to put the tourquoise to rest. My eyes want soothing.

On a closing note, I'm sharing one of my favorite cartoons with you. Its history: while I was in grad school, I chanced on another grad student in my specialization, who was also quite the cartoonist.  I'd heard of him and about him at a conference where we were both giving papers: Dr. Nick D. Kim, of New Zealand. As an artist, he's just 'Nick'.

We'd never met formally, although we corresponded a bit while I was trying to get finished (as so was he at that time) - his cartoons furnished a lot of merriment during what otherwise could have been a very dreary time during the dissertation, and I was glad drop him a note when I especially enjoyed one.

Anyway, here's one of my faves - if you EVER wondered how I feel about chemistry ... and so, good night.

Nick's cartoons reside at his website: www.lab-initio.com.

It's a new day! What haven't you done yet?

Yesterday was BRUTAL - lots of work, lots to do, and very cold. Taught Friday morning, as always, and one of my students asked me a question that has stuck with me since. Kelly was being snarky (poor thing is visibly and somewhat miserably pregnant and can't help herself at times).

She rapped out in the middle of one of my monologues on applications of temperature and heat phenomena to ask - 'What HAVEN'T you done before?'

I heard the collective gasp from the rest of the class - she wasn't meaning it in a good way. Kelly thinks I'm a know-it-all and has no problem letting me know it. So, I am - in certain subject areas, anyway - and I AM getting paid to teach her physics whether she wants to learn it or not.

But as I started to get defensive to keep from getting angry, I paused a second to think - then I replied, 'There are lots of things I haven't done - yet. But I surely plan to!' - and moved on to latent heats of fusion and vaporization. Exciting stuff. She was quiet for about 30 minutes before the next outburst - a new record.

But I've been thinking about that question ever since - we should all be asking ourselves, 'what haven't I done yet?', every morning of every day. And I'm not talking about the housework, the dishes, the taxes, or the laundry, or the stack of exams I have to grade today. I am asking myself, and now I am asking you, what haven't you done already, that's on the list of things you are holding for 'someday', for 'when I retire', for 'when I have more money/time/status'. for 'when I have less to do, less stress, my children are grown, for the slow season at work', etc? Something that YOU - or I - decide deliberately to do, because it's what we want to do at that time.

Whether you're like me, one week from broke on a public college salary and trying to work a home business, or even if you're rich as King Croesus, I'm sure there are things that you want to do that you're putting off for a better time, for 'someday'. Putting off because the kids need you, your spouse needs you, your parents are old, your car needs repair - a million different reasons.

Why should you not do things just because you want to? This assumes you follow the following rule: FIRST, DO NO HARM. That caveat considered, why not do things that make your heart sing - things that might make you wild with joy, happy and eager to get started; things that stay with you and give you a lift through the rest of the day - things that bring some bright light into your life?

Why are we denying ourselves even a bit of that joy?

How about hugs, for example? How about walks in the woods or down the street - 10 minutes to clear your head and breathe new air? Toss a stone in the water, toss a frisbie, How about taking a week a year to bike across the continental divide in meditation, for your holiday season gift to your psyche? I've got a friend that does something like this every year at Christmas - kisses his wife and kids goodbye, loads up his all-terrain bike in his truck, and heads out to the mountains. Think about something you can do - with your family, or alone, and DO it. Block out the time, and enjoy: guilt-free.

I've got a cuddle-bear dog - he stands on his hind legs, puts his front paws around my waist, throws his head back to rest his throat on my chest, closes his eyes and goes 'hmmmm', or as close to it as is possible for a canine to get. I can't help but hug him back. It's really cute, and I'm a firm believer in the old adage that hugs are the spice of life, even the ones from my dog. He hugs me, and tries to hug my mother, he hugs my nieces, my nephews, my brother, and a select few of my friends - he furrows his brow and looks inscrutable and wise, wags his tail and smiles by pulling his doggie lips tight over his fangs, and keeps us all young.

Who does that for you? Think about that one, and I'll be back tomorrow.