escape to insanity

Oooh this is good.

Today I was checking my e-mail, as I'm wont to do, and decided to check my “junk” folder to see if there was anything of interest that was mistakenly flagged as spam. Bear in mind this is an e-mail account on the tigerblade.net server, so the spam filter isn't quite as good or efficient as GMail's.

I see an e-mail with a subject line that intrigues me, so I move it to the inbox to read it.

Your e-mail has been received by the City of Janesville.

Hmm. What e-mail is that? OHH! I remember now.

About a year ago, I had moved into a townhouse back in Whitewater, and was temporarily out of work. While I was diligently looking for a real-person job, I was also trying to find some sort of work on the side just to keep some sort of cash flow going. I was occasionally pounding the pavement writing down names and addresses of small businesses around town that I thought might benefit from some sort of web work, then sending out e-mails or snail-mail letters asking if they were at all interested in having a website built (or updated if they already had one). Along with small businesses (mostly mom-and-pop places) I had contacted a few of the surrounding cities to ask the same thing. Some just had “webmaster@ci.blahblah.gov” whatever addresses, some had contact forms, some had nothing at all.

In any case, I sent e-mails or filled out contact forms inquiring about web work. Eventually I got a real job and stopped worrying about freelance stuff since none of it panned out. Fast forward a few months… I finished my four-month contract at that job and picked up a new job (which I love), which I've now been working at for about seven months. Today I get an e-mail back from the City of Janesville stating that… that what? That they'd like me to do some work for them? No. This e-mail is to inform me that they've received my submission, and that I can “expect a response shortly.”

Sweet! They've received my submission. Just to be sure, I checked the timestamp on the original form entry (which they conveniently have available to review), and it was submitted September 16th, 2006. Today is November 30th, 2007.

It took them 14 months to receive my note and send an “auto-reply.”

I'd send them a note back to tell them they're a year and some months late, and that I've had two long-term jobs in the meantime, but alas… it was sent from an address that doesn't accept incoming e-mail. Figures.

So… I got an interesting voice mail today. First, I was confused because my phone didn't register a missed call, just a voice mail. In any case, I called to check what I had missed. Oh, the excitement!

I'm greeted by the voice of a woman who identified herself as Sarah something. Sarah something is the manager of some such department at a Best Western Hotel in a town a few miles from where I went to college. At first I was confused as to why this woman would be calling me.

As I listened on, her reason for calling became apparent. It's nice to get voice mails where the person actually explains why they called. Anyway… she started to explain that they were working on filling some recently vacated positions. She was looking through applications and found my name, apparently.

Let's back up a bit, shall we? Sometime last year, late August or early September, I had just moved away from my hometown, back to the town where I went to college. I had a townhouse there with a friend of mine, and was looking for a new job. While I was out trying to market my more career-oriented skills, I figured I'd slum it a bit and put in some low-level applications as backups. Just in case I didn't find a “good” job soon enough, I wanted some applications to fall back on: Wal-Mart, Blockbuster, etc. Since I'd worked at a Best Western for a couple seasons (summer/winter between college semesters) previously, it seemed like an obvious choice.

That was early September. Sep. Tem. Ber. Month Nine in a twelve-month year. This is now mid-June. Month Six. Including the month of September, that was ten months ago. Nine and a half if you figure that we're only halfway through June.

At what point is it just too late to call an applicant? Do they really think I'm just sitting around a year later, waiting for that call from Best Western? Do they really think that banquet set-up is such a posh job that I've been hoping they'd call, hoping I'd be offered the chance to slave away, breaking my back for minimum wage, part time? Please.

In any case, I've had two full-time career-oriented jobs. Two jobs that pay more than double what the Best Western bit would have offered, even after a raise or two.

Yeah. I had to laugh after hearing that voice mail. Calling me almost a year after I applied (in a last ditch effort, by the way)?

I think I'll call her back in April to let her know I'm currently unavailable.

Ok… so… it's past three o'clock in the morning, and I'm dead tired. I've been awake since about 8am. That would be eight o'clock in the morning, yesterday. I'm only marginally awake. Believe me, when I say marginally awake, I mean it. Look at that over there. I'm fighting to keep my eyes open, and there's your proof. Ain't I a looker at 3:46 in the AM? I'm about to crash into my bed and lose consciousness for a few hours of sweet sweet sleep, but I figured I may as well post some updates while I'm here.

Because I know you care.

First up, the reason I'm still awake at this ungodly hour after being awake since early yesterday. I just got back from… drumroll please… Spider-Man 3. And holy crap. Holy… freakin'… crap. Fantastic. I've still got goosebumps after that one; the midnight showing was definitely worth it. Venom, Sandman, the second Green Goblin, and Spidey. What a fantastic movie… I won't spill any and ruin it for anyone who hasn't seen it. I've just still got the picture of Venom in my head. Ok, enough rambling about that. More later, maybe.

Make that probably.

The other recent development came earlier in the evening. As evidenced by a previous post, I've been unemployed since early in March. March 9th, if I recall correctly. Today is now technically May 4th, I think. I'm pretty sure. I interviewed earlier for a job with a very prestigious company… I wasn't sure how it went at first, and was ready to put it out of my mind if needed.

That wasn't needed.

At about 9pm, shortly before we were about to head out for a night that culminated in Spider-Man bliss, my cellphone rang. I recognized the number — it was the staffing recruiter that had scrounged up the interview for me. I couldn't fathom why he would be calling me at nine o'clock at night; the only thing I could come up with was that I probably hadn't gotten the job and he was calling to break the news.

How wrong I was.

So now… as of this coming Monday the 7th, I'll be rejoining the workforce. I'll be making my semi-triumphant return to the ranks of the employed after a two-month hiatus. Sweet! I'll be doing the long daily commute again, but that'll only be for a few weeks until I move much closer more permanently. Then it'll be only about a twenty-minute drive, which will be nice now that gas is up to $3.29 a gallon. I was thinking about pre-emptively selling off my first-born child just to make sure I can fill up my tank next week. The joke'll be on them when they realize I don't plan on having kids… whatever will they do then? Bwahahahaha.

Ok, I can tell it's time for me to go to bed when I start using 'Bwahahahahaha' in posts. So au revoir, g'night, sweet dreams, whatever you want to hear. It's been a long day, but it's been good. Finally, things are starting to come around.

The upside to unemployment is that you don't have to do anything. The downside is that you don't have anything to do.

As of this previous Friday, I am now once again free of employment. I have no meaningful, gainful employment to speak of, and that will apparently still apply for the foreseeable future.

Thus far, on my second day of actually noticing (I don't count the weekend, since I wouldn't have been at work anyway) I'm enjoying the extra two hours of sleep my body has granted me. I wasn't sure how long I'd be able to sleep in, seeing as my body has grown accustomed to the shorter hours in bed. I've also managed to stay up past my ridiculous self-imposed work-day bedtime, which is nice.

Of course, I can't stay this way forever. I do eventually need to find a job. However… there are complications. One, I'm only going to be living in the area for another two-and-a-half months, so long-term gigs are iffy. Second, it doesn't help when companies you're going to interview with decide to cancel the interview just a few short hours beforehand. No ill will and no names, I'm just saying. It'd be great if I could just score a couple relatively simple one-off freelance gigs to do over the next month or two. Just a mom-and-pop store that needs a simple site to advertise their wares (the kind of place I sent proposals to back five months ago), nothing major. Just something to keep myself busy with.

In the meantime, I'm gonna slip back into bed for a bit, then get up, take a nice long hot shower (oh how I miss those) and enjoy the weather that seems finally to be coming around.

You may have noticed, if you visited the site in the last day or so, that there’s a countdown in progress. At the time of this post, it stands at 10 days, 15 hours, 15 minutes. This countdown is an estimate of the total time remaining until I am once again unemployed self-employed.

The project I was contracted for is coming to a close in the next week and some. The new intranet site will be launching this Friday night (which is going to be an interesting couple of hours) after which I’ll only be needed for a few extra days just to make sure the transition goes smoothly. After Friday the 9th of March, I’ll again be without full-time gainful employment.

On one hand, I’m looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to being able to go to sleep whenever I want, and wake up whenever I want. This whole go-to-bed-really-early and wake-up-equally-early thing isn’t so much fun. I don’t plan to get back into my college sleeping habits, but I would like to go to bed at a reasonable hour (meaning, midnight at the earliest) and wake up sometime after the sun has risen. For the last four months or so, I’ve been getting to work just as the sun is deciding to show its face, and that’s just not as much fun as it sounds.

On the other hand, I’m going to really miss the structure of a full-time job. That’s one of the things that’s nice about school and/or work — there’s always something scheduled to keep you occupied, or at least give you somewhere to be at certain times. Un Self-employment doesn’t really have that sort of structure built into it. Unless I can get me some sort of new job relatively soon, I’m going to be a lazy bum. It’s not that I need a job desperately — I can afford to coast for a little bit — but I do need something to do on a regular basis.

So I guess we’ll see what happens.

I'm about to leave for the first day of my new job…

We'll see how it goes.

I find it amusing that within days of receiving confirmation that I'll once again be gainfully employed, I start to hear back from other companies.

The day after hearing back from my new employer that I'd be starting Monday, I get a call from a woman at a different company that she needs a web developer pronto to get her company online as soon as possible. I of course mention that I would be starting a new job come Monday, and ask if she will still be needing someone to fill the position in three or four months (when my contract with my new employer will probably end). As I expected, she can't wait that long (who can blame her) but she'll keep me in mind for the future.

Also, in the last three days, I've gotten a total of five rejection letters. Two in the mailbox, three emails. Thanks for getting back to me so soon after I applied, guys. Two and a half months later is a great time to get back to someone who was looking for a job.

Meh. Monday morning is gonna hit me hard… I'll have to wake up considerably earlier than normal. But I'll be getting paid again, which is nice.

One of my t-shirts: I thought I wanted a career, turns out I just wanted paychecks.

Finally. Finally things start to look up.

After playing phone tag for a week and a half with this staffing company and the company they represent, I've finally gotten somewhere. This morning I got the phone call that I've been waiting for. The company finally got final approval to hire me on.

I don't know yet when I actually start work yet. They're running a background check on me, so when that clears (in 2 to 8 business days??) they'll let me know. So I could be starting as early as Thursday. Hopefully that multiple homicide from back in '93 doesn't show up on their records. For the record, I did not actually commit any homicides as far as I know.

I find it rather amusing, because last night I started having a dream about having to go back to my old job (which I'm not particularly fond of)… that would not be cool.

For the last two months, I’ve been trying to find a job. Unfortunately, it’s proving more difficult than I expected. Well… a few weeks ago I was contacted by a staffing company representing one of their clients who need someone to do some website work for them. Fairly basic stuff, just moving content from their existing site to a new template.

Had a few meetings, with the most recent one being this last Friday (the 13th). I met with the two people who are actually more or less in charge of the project I’d be working on, had a nice chat, found out some information about the project, all was fine. They said they needed to get final approval to go ahead from their director, and that they’d get back to me no later than Wednesday of this week. Wednesday came and went, no response. I talked to the staffing agent, who told me that they’d been unable to get ahold of this manager, but that they’d call me back by 10:30am of the next day, Thursday. Well, 10:30am Thursday came and went, no response. I call the guy back again, he says he still can’t get a response from these managers. He says if I don’t hear back by noon today (Friday), call back and find out what’s going on. So… I do. He says, again, that he’s going to try to get ahold of these managers and get back to me. Well… it’s 4:41pm and I have yet to hear anything. Ten minutes ago I got to leave a voicemail for him, and now it’s the weekend.

Is it really all that difficult to just make some phone calls and say yes or no? I don’t even care at this point if I got the job or not. I just want to know. I just want a yea or nay. I’m sick of getting jerked around by this company, telling me they’ll get back to me as soon as they can and then never actually getting back to me.

This is getting to be frustrating.