2001-09-23 - 11:07 p.m.
The Great Un-Employable Me

It's no good, I think. Once wounded, always weak. (And no, I'm not talking about the 9-11 events anymore; at least, not directly.)

I started looking in the Employment ads in the paper this week. I told my boss that I've lost money every month since taking the job at the university, and that I just can't stay anymore.

It was the absolute truth, but she managed to give me a guilt trip anyway. She told me how she'd saved my job from the budget folks earlier in the year (apparently, since all of campus is supposed to be using their new $3,000,000 database program, why should an individual department need their own Database Manager) by telling them my *real* job was essential office backup. She also said that (due to that same $3,000,000 new program) the university was putting in a hiring freeze and would not be able to replace me.

Well, I guess they'll just have to cope. I can't live on $10.15 an hour in this town; I only managed on $9.61 an hour before the cost-of-living raise in June because I had a savings-account cushion. That's long gone. I'm overdrawn for the 3rd month in a row.

The ridiculous part is, all I'm qualified for anymore is an office job. Have you checked the tech job listings in the paper lately? Every last one of them wants multiple years of experience in very specific programs or environments, none of which I encountered in class, or now in my "Database Manager" job.

Oh, and something even funnier ... I would actually make more at an Administrative Assistant position than I do now. I could be making $12.00 or more an hour to do basically what I've been doing this last week, while Secretary #2 was gone ... sitting in the office, answering phones, doing various projects in Excel and Access and other generic Microsoft programs.

Anyway. Back to the "wounded" comment at the beginning of the entry. Just sitting and looking at the ads put me in tears. Overwhelming feelings of worthlessness and depression. What the hell did I get my degrees for, anyway? There's no way I'll be able to get a grad degree next year. I can't even afford to take the fucking GRE, and you have to have all application materials in months before the semester you enter. So much for that idea. And the armed forces ... Hell no. I'm such a wimp. Look how I react to a simple job-hunt. And I'm kidding myself if I think they'll take a be-spectacled, allergic-to-cold-water non-leader female like me and make her into an officer.

Maybe I should have listened to the doc back in '98 and taken the anti-depressants for the full year, instead of getting my pride up and deciding I was strong enough after just the two months. I never seem to have got it thoroughly out of my system.

One thing the 9-11 events have done for me, though, besides the basic emotional re-thrashing (depression, patriotic urges, insane career ideas, etc) is to give me a certain clarity. There are some things I'm just not willing to put up with anymore ...

I guess maybe I am healing after all. Heh. Growing scar tissue. Tender, but tough: not much give left.

Oh, and in case anyone was wondering ... my mother's better. No doctor visit or surgery after all. Phew.