Saturday, December 24, 2011

How I Spent The Fiftieth Week Of The Rest Of My Life

The timing couldn't have been better.  Although I didn't plan it this way, I'm finally (sort of) employed again.  I got hired by a temp agency on Tuesday and am supposed to get a call to start getting short term assignments after the first of the year.  I'm not sure if anything will actually come out of it, but it felt good to fill out paperwork to, potentially, get paid again.  I'm still searching on my own, and need to send out some resumes this weekend (because who can resist someone asking for a job via e-mail on Christmas), but there's less pressure on me.

It was good that I interviewed at the temp agency the next day as I was told that I was "overqualified" for a lot of the stuff that they had by my interviewer (who understood, of course, that after a year, I was willing to take pretty much anything). But since the next day I got an e-mail from Silver Spring that I did not get the Membership Coordinator position at the American College of Nurse-Midwives, I was better able to take it.

I actually learned a lot about what was happening to my resume at a lot of places and why I wasn't getting interviews during my interview at the staffing agency.  It turns out that people, at least by what the recruiter told me, would have no idea what an Education Delivery Specialist did on a day-to-day basis.  And that I needed to either really play up the fact that I interacted with and gave information to members on a daily basis either in my bullet points or my cover letter or people would not be looking at me for those kind of positions.

My interviewer actually asked, "was that really your job title?"

He also suggested that I pull the stuff from my Education Network Coordinator position up to my Education Delivery Specialist position because it wasn't beefed up enough for a position that I had held for five years.  So in the resumes that I've sent out since this interview, I've done so.  I already got one person who directly e-mailed me back saying she'd be in touch with me after the new year for a Communications Assistant job, so I think it might have worked.

As I'm not going to work anywhere in the D.C. area for the entirety of 2011 now, it will make my taxes really easy.  And that's good because I'm really going to need to survive on them if I'm temping and don't get the amount of hours that I need.  But that's next year.  I'm just going to consider the fact that I've got someone looking out for my resume now besides myself as an early Christmas present.

Here's how I "spent" last week:

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13 (Free)

  • 4:08 p.m. Washington Sports Club - Free.  Having spent the entire day on Twitter, I realized that I needed to get to the gym if I wanted to get anything done.  Afterwards, I was tired so I still didn't.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14 ($11.82)

  • 1:27 p.m. Noodles & Company - $7.85.  Finding out that I had underpaid my rent and that my bank was going to charge me $10 for a cashier's check, I was starting to get stressed.  So I got some noodles to calm me down.
  • 1:52 p.m. CVS Pharmacy - $3.97.  Since I had to get a check at CVS anyway, I decided to get soap even though I wasn't quite out.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15 ($15.38)

  • 1:23 p.m. Tynan Tea & Coffee - $7.00.  I got such a late start to my day that I went to get tea and a sandwich before I went to the gym for once.
  • 3:01 p.m. Washington Sports Club - Free.  Even though I still felt sick, I went back to the gym to pick up my Kindle that I had left and exercised a little.
  • 5:00 p.m. Roti Mediterranean Grill - $8.38.  I decided that I was going to go down to Occupy D.C. for their holiday party.  Which meant I was by Roti.  They were actually open this time.
  • 5:21 p.m. Occupy D.C. - Free.  After being at McPherson Square on a weekend day, it seemed really empty this evening.  Even with a large group gathered for Christmas activities.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16 ($37.09)

  • 12:30 p.m. Giant - $37.09.  Since it was a bit cold, I decided that I was going to go to the Giant closest to a train stop instead of the one closest to my apartment.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17 ($8.13)

  • 11:30 a.m. Occupy D.C. - Free.  I talk a lot about how messy McPherson Square is on Twitter.  So I went down to talk to someone about it in person.
  • 12:04 p.m. Cosi - $8.13.  Over pizzas, I discovered that a lot of people agree that it's time to clean up or get an indoor site.  It was refreshing to hear such rationality.
  • 3:01 p.m. Washington Sport Club - Free.  Helping to clean up the park again left me feeling a bit dirty.  So it was a good thing I was planning on going to my gym anyway.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 18 (Free)

MONDAY, DECEMBER 19 ($41.55)

  • 1:26 p.m. Starbucks - $4.00.  I woke up with sinus issues.  So I thought that some tea would help.  While I was there, I got the call for the temp agency about an interview.
  • 4:16 p.m. Rollins Barber - $15.00.  Shopping local this month has proved difficult in a lot of areas.  But the barber got my hair so close that I'm never going back to a chain barber while I live here.
  • 4:52 p.m. Cafe Shawreen - $9.43.  Finally making it to the kosher place by my apartment proved to be a tasty, but expensive experience.
  • 8:08 p.m. FedEx Office - $13.12.  I ended up messing up my references quite a few times before I finally was able to print them off perfectly.  But I just enjoyed the T1 connection in the meantime.

So that's $113.97.  Not a bad week as far as spending went, but I still think that I went a bit too bit over my budget just the same.  I think I should spend next week inside just applying for jobs before I start getting temp assignments.  Then I, hopefully, won't have enough time to do too much of that.  Not that I won't. My total money spent since I've been unemployed is $10436.16.

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