Snow!

Honestly, when I think about the future, I can't see myself with a job. I believe I'll be doing this forever. And it's not the product of despair, which is to say that it's not a horrible feeling. It's just the way it is, or at least the way it seems it is. I can't imagine what starting a new job will feel like because I can't imagine starting a new job. I guess I've been unemployed for some critical amount of time such that it's coloring my worldview.

There was a huge career fair at my Alma Mater Wednesday. I drove down to my parents' house Tuesday afternoon to spend the night there and be closer to the fair (it was 1 hour from my parents' house and ~3.5 hours from my home in Chicago). When I got about an hour from my parents' house (i.e. at about 4:00pm), it started snowing, and it didn't stop snowing until Wednesday around 11:00am. At that point about 10 inches had fallen. There were snow emergencies scattered throughout Indiana, and the authorities were asking people not to drive if they didn't have to. I decided not to risk it and went back to Chicago later that day, once the roads had been cleared and the career fair was over.

I had a list of 24 companies I wanted to talk to at this fair. Nine of them canceled because of the snow, so I wasn't alone in my traveling difficulties. I've been contacting companies in the order of how interesting they seem. An email doesn't really have the same impact as meeting in person, but since I don't really have a choice, I'm trying to make the emails conversational and including my story of why I'm interested.

Now, I know I was just saying that I believe, on some level, that I'll never have a job. But that runs counter to what I've been experiencing since I came back to Chicago. A headhunter who I thought had disappeared called with good news: the company with which she's brokering wanted to test me!. So I took their online math test, logic test, and personality test, and now they're going to interview me next week. They are in a suburb of Chicago. Also, I took a written test proctored at the public library for a company in Wisconsin that I found on Monster. I've already done a personality test and a phone interview with them. If I tested well, they'll interview me in Wisconsin.

So, I've got two pretty solid prospects. I'm reminded of the last time I had two solid prospects. Both fell through, and at least one was because they didn't have the money. I hope that doesn't happen again. I hope that, by this time, companies have realized that this low in the economy could be long-term, and maybe have budgeted appropriately.