Exhausting

Interesting week.

I finally got my head in the game of the job search thing.  Have sent off twenty applications, average of two a day since the Thursday before Easter.  I have three weeks to go at current place, and if I don't get anything in the next couple of weeks, I will be more carpet bombing in my approach, two a day at the moment is targeting fairly precisely, at least I think.  I've honed some good paragraphs for the cover letters I'm putting through, or at least, I think they are good cover letters.

So far have had three responses.  Government department role isn't shortlisting until June.  A thanks but not quite from an employment agency.  Am waiting to hear back more feedback about that, to see how to strengthen the resume and cover letter.

And got a not enough experience in the oil and gas sector, but we want you in to register with us, from an agency.  So I got an interview of sorts, and went over to see them Thursday afternoon.  Not exactly sure how it went, taking out the filling out paperwork side of things, I was in and out in fifteen minutes.  All the usual questions (for temping), what do you like in the workplace, what industries, what suburbs would you work in, what's your expected pay rate, what sort of notice period do you need for assignments, how long would you want the assignments to be blah blah blah.  I think I did okay, but I may have been a bit negative about the current place.  All true however, but the wording hmm.  Entry level, basic level of service expected, going above and beyond frowned on, taking initiative frowned on.  The girl interviewing said what did you like about the place then, that made me stop and rethink.

Ah well, you hardly get a job from the very first interview of any search.  And I can adjust my phrasing on things, massage it better.  I was extremely tired on Thursday anyways, so I wasn't really in an interview headspace anyways, but it's for temping, as long as I can breathe and talk and use a computer, I should be fine for the basic assignments.  And not putting all the eggs in that particular basket anyways.

Another interesting thing about job searching is how it makes you re-evaluate the overall vibe of things.  A couple of questions in the application job sites included what are your three main strengths, and what is your greatest achievement.  For a law firm and travel company, respectively.

Three main strengths are adaptability, confidence and determination.  Greatest (non work) achievement is discovering my self confidence, and conquering, or at least controlling, my fears.  With the latter, I was wondering whether it would be too movie of the week inspirational sickly, but then I thought, hey, they asked, it's the thing that comes to me first and foremost, and if I had to figure out my second greatest achievement, then I wouldn't be answering the question honestly.

A law firm and a travel agency, I'm not highly confident in either of those fields for an interview, so why not be honest and passionate in the answers to their questions.

Dating and job searches are very similar, in my opinion.  Hell, even making friends could be considered the same ball park.  In all those situations, you are trying to put your best, most positive face forward, you are hiding away the negative or boring or neutral, and you try to massage those less than stellar points.  As I have discovered the last couple of years, I basically have had enough of bending over backwards to try and please everyone.  I know my strong points, I know how to concentrate on them, and if I don't get a relationship or a friendship or a job from being true to myself and getting rid of all the little white lies I have told myself over the years, or avoiding conflict, or avoiding actually figuring out that the other person isn't really all that compatible with me.

If a person or workplace won't accept me for me, then fuck them.  That's right, fuck them all the way to That Way Out Of My Life.

Casablanca, of course, being a completely unique case on that front.

Caught up with some of my other besties this week, and probably ate far too much pizza.  I think I mentioned that I made dinner for Roma and Knoxville, which was the first actual meal I have prepared for others in about eighteen months.  I'm a good cook when I put my mind to it.

But anyways, not sure whether I mentioned that on the application paperwork for the temping agency, I put Roma down as next of kin, or emergency contact or whatever you call it nowadays.  I mean, yes, my parents and family are still alive, but they are over the other side of the country.  Saying it like that, funny, because Roma is out East for the next week and a half as well.  But yeah, she is closer in distance most of the time as opposed to my mother.

But yeah, I asked whether she would be okay with being my emergency contact, and she said sure, of course.  And I was expecting some sort of back and forth about it, but just the automatic acceptance, kinda sorta floored me.  Though of course I tried to be cool about it hahahaha.  But yeah, I also kind of note it, because for the past three years, Casablanca has been my emergency contact.  But, now she's not.

And I don't really know what to think about that.