Gainful Employment -- Hooray!

Sandy Leonard Hutchinson,

grossly underemployed if employed at all

for 3 years and 2 months,
humbly announces she has a job,
starting Thursday, July 30, 2009.

A real full-time job with a decent salary, health and dental insurance, a 401(k) with employer match, paid time-off, and free parking. It is with a progressive, stable Internet business, so what I learn will increase my marketability going forward. That was pretty much my entire list of requirements for the next job.

The transition from Greensboro to Charleston has not been easy, and this employment piece has been the hardest nut to crack. I would like to think that we can all live with flexibility and mobility and take time out to help family, travel, pursue dreams that may not immediately produce income, but I'm not sure I could, in good conscious, tell another woman approaching age 50 to go for it. I am so lucky that Duncan has been able to keep us afloat and insured. These are tough times and many people have no cushion at all.

I sent out a celebratory e-mail to almost everyone I knew and while I got back congratulations and good wishes, I also got back notes telling me how hard work is right now. One friend wants to retire and can't. Another is not ready to retire but is being forced out. Someone else has had to lay people off. And more than one tells me that because of laptops, cell phones and blackberries, the boundaries between being at work and not being at work have all but disappeared and the result is stress, doctors, medication, and therapy. Aye Yi Yi. What am I jumping back into?

I just know I've been missing the things everyone else complains about -- having to get up on Monday morning, going to the office, a department- a "team", meetings, a mission statement and a strategic plan with deadlines. I'm looking forward to being involved with someone else's projects again!

The State of My Things

There was a 2nd interview a couple of weeks ago and I didn't hear anything and didn't hear anything. Last week I interviewed for a development position at a legal aide-type office. The whole thing was like a legal aid office on a TV sitcom-- creepy office, creepy man, sketchy story about potential of continued funding. And I heard that hated line: "This job doesn't have benefits, and of course we are a non-profit so, the salary's not great." OK, no thanks. So I called the Senior Center where I had 2 interviews and they had indeed, offered their job to someone else who, while I was great and had great skills, was just a little more qualified. Whatever that means.

The stock market is tanking. Unemployment is at a 14 year high. Today's paper says retail stores have more applications for part-time holiday positions than they have jobs. You have a greater chance of "getting into Harvard than you do getting a part-time job in a store this Christmas". How did this get to be my life? Well, I don't know, but it is. It is very discouraging. Everyone is telling me to keep my spirits up -- that the right job is out there for me. And you know, I guess that is true. It makes no sense to operate on any other premise. So, keep looking.

The holidays are coming. Get ready for that. I am about to finish the Annual Report for the Silver Crescent Foundation -- for which I will get paid a nice sum because I've been working on it forever. I need to work on the Fiber Guild's website. We have some very good programs planned for 2009 -- including an African-American quilter featured in the last issue of Charleston magazine who does "story quilts". We will go to NC for Thanksgiving, and then I will spend a long weekend in Black Mountain with Kathy and Lee. A small craft show in Dec. at St. Francis. Things to do, people to see. Chin up.

What I Want

She just wants to be employed
for eight hours a day. She is not
interested in a career; she wants a job
with a paycheck and free parking. She
does not want to carry a briefcase filled
with important papers to read after
dinner; she does not want to return
phone calls. When she gets home, she
wants to kick off her shoes and waltz
around her kitchen singing, "I am a piece
of work."

Beverly Rollwagen

Tomorrow, an interview. They are few and far between. Blow on the dice, light a candle, say a pray, cross your fingers and toes and surround me in light. If I don't get a job, I'm going to have to make my own Christmas presents just to have something to do and no one wants that!