Wife Got a JOB!!!

Pure Joy

Wife got a JOB!! 

That's right. 

Wife is now employed. In one week, in fact, she's gone from unemployed to having a full time and a part time job. The place she was volunteering at by helping with their marketing, media and grants, loved her so much they wanted to start paying her. So on Monday, she agreed to being on contract for 55 hours a month. There was a lot of negotiation, they wanted to have her part time for 20 hours a week, but it just wasn't going to be enough to pay the student loans and wouldn't have left her open enough for full time work. It is a HARD choice to make. 

So that happened, then by today, she had two jobs that she had interviewed at that said they would let her know this week. At noon, one called, the one that's just 5 minutes away, and offered her the job. Full time for a marketing company. 

"Yes yes yes yes yes," she said to every question. After a minute, "You know, I need to calm down a bit, I've said yes to you more than I did to my husband when he proposed." 

This is what that feels like: 

She then called me at work. 

"I got hired," the words nearly choked her as she tried to spit them out. Then she proceeded to sob incomprehensibly for two minutes while I calmly tried to ascertain which company hired her (the other one emailed to say they would not be able to choose until Monday as they had a scheduling problem with one candidate). I finally got it out of her.

"Come home" she said. And I told my boss and got the OK to go home and start feeling human again.

Pure bliss

I got home, and together we drained a bottle of Friday's long island iced tea and half a big bottle of wine. She was drunk by 5 and asleep by 6. 

Her search started in full a year ago at about this time when her former boss said she wasn't allowed to keep herself safe after a student threatened her - plus working with mice and bats doesn't help matters. She worked with me for 5 months which got her away from that, but has had nothing since March 1.

As an idea what it's like out there: Since May 23, we have sent out 174 resumes. We erased the records from before that because it was just too depressing to scroll through. I sent out six applications on my birthday. She was getting about 3-5 contacts a week - either phone, in person, or recruiters if they count during the past several months. We just needed one yes. And we finally got it!

On another note

You may have noticed the number of blogs trailing off lately. Well, applying to 4-5 jobs a day kind of curtails one's time to do things they enjoy, like writing. Plus I've been writing some art reviews for another publication, and that takes some time. But now I can also make another announcement.

Wife and I will be starting a new blog!

We've been working on it for about a month, banking posts ready to go.

I started Myths of the Midwest in 2011 to help myself stay sane. It has been pretty much a chronicle of wife and I as we struggled out of a crushed dream of a doctorate for her and the rather constant struggle of finding our place in the working world. I appreciated everyone who read it. I enjoyed sharing some of the more insane things that happen from time to time in my awkward life. I also got to share getting engaged and married and the first year of married life. It was a vent and served its purpose well, though it never really caught on much.

The new blog will be a lot of the same topics, but more ordered into categories to share actual tips and empathy to job seekers, notes about writing and advertising, and posts about the things we enjoy about life in the cities. It'll be our calling card for potential freelancing jobs, and now that we're both finally, solidly employed and hopefully getting by through the next year of taking care of shit that's been squeaking by like the fact wife has no work clothes beyond her interview suit, my car is on life support, hers needs brakes, and a ton of other stuff that you have to put off just so you can eat.

The new blog is in the design phase - utilizing some friends we've picked up along the way and their wonderful talents. The nice thing is it won't have to be anonymous. We'll be ourselves and try to bring the funny and the frustrating. I hope you'll join us. It's probably a month off yet or more considering web design can be a bitch, but consider this a teaser. I'll send a heads up when it gets going. Thank you for reading, it meant everything.

Fargo Jones