I have a busy weekend coming up so I wanted to post a snippet from the book early. By the time you read this, I hope you are kicking off a wonderful weekend.
I've certainly felt the brunt of this full moon within the last few days. Have you? Things have been intense. Strange dreams, a terrible heat wave, and a really enlightening conversation with a longtime friend have colored the last few days.
I skipped ahead to part 3 of the book, called "Time for an Upgrade." In this section, things start to (finally!) get back on track for your favorite fictional character, me.
Have a great weekend. I'll post again next week!
Love,
Jane
I kept
a running list of all the positions I applied for during my job search, and as
the list expanded, I grew accustomed to being ignored by potential
employers.* On occasion, I’d visit
the local job search service and meet with a counselor.
“Well,
Jane,” my favorite counselor, Mr. Pritchard, said to me when the job market was
at its worst, “the fact is that we don’t have very many high-paying jobs in our
database now. You have more education than most of the people around here,
which is a good thing and a bad thing.”
“Sorry,
Mr. Pritchard, but I’m from the old school,” I said. “I don’t understand why
having a bachelor’s degree is a bad thing.”
“Well,
the fact is... most local employers don’t want to pay what you were earning
before, so they choose people with less education to work for them. In a way,
people with a high school degree are best suited for some of these posted jobs,
but only in the short run, because they don’t pay well enough for them to have
any kind of future or retirement. I’m sorry, Jane. I wish this were easier.”
“How
are things going for the other displaced employees from TB&J?” I asked.
“A few
lucky ones have been able to relocate and find work,” he said.
“No
one’s found work in the area?” I asked.
“None
that I’m aware of. I’m sorry,
Jane,” he said.
“You
don’t have to apologize. It’s not your fault,” I told him.
“No,
but I’m sure you were hoping for more,” he answered. “I looked up some jobs posted by the county; they tend to
pay pretty well. But you’d have to have a very specific education, for example,
to be a librarian, and you just don’t have it. Plus, there’s the bias toward
locals.”
“Yeah,
I’d noticed that,” I said.
“Some
employers, especially those with smaller businesses, want to hire people they
can talk high school football with. They look for last names they recognize,
from doing business around here or maybe who they know socially or through
their kids’ schools. You don’t strike me as the kind of girl who talks a lot of
football,” he added.
“You’ve
got that right!” I told him. “I
don’t go to church, either.”
“Oh,
my,” he said. “Well, what about relocating? Have you looked into work in one of
the major Florida cities?” he asked.
“I
have, but haven’t heard back from anyone.”
“It may
take a while,” he said. “Our counterparts in the bigger job markets report
different problems with matching people to jobs. They kind of have the opposite
problem; everyone has a degree and that is actually in demand, but there aren’t
that many jobs to go around. It still helps to know people and have
connections, but the volume of jobs is so much less than the number of people
looking for jobs. Another option you have is to look for work in New Town.”
New
Town! Although it was over 40 miles away, New Town was a total change of pace
from Winterville. New Town had a major university and some cultural centers; it
was an oasis in a yokel desert. Jobs in New Town also paid better than similar
positions in Winterville.
“Oh,
that would be great,” I told him.
*The nice woman who's busy writing Jane's story just realized with wry amusement that the very same thing is happening to her in her job search now! She wonders if this recession will ever end!
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