I hate this part of life.

I hate the uncertainty of not knowing what's going to happen in my life as soon as 3 weeks from now.

I hate having to sell myself over & over & over again.

I hate having to peruse job ads on an hourly basis so that I don't miss out on the very best opportunities.

I hate playing the waiting game after you send your application andor resume to a potential employer.

I hate that employers make snap decisions about who they're going to interview based on two documents, and I hate that these documents basically have to be perfect to receive any consideration.

I hate that it feels like coworkers are getting jobs handed to them left & right.

I hate that, in three weeks, I've recieved nothing but rejections & automated "We received your resume" emails, with the exception of one opportunity.

I hate that the one exception is THE perfect opportunity for me, yet I haven't heard a word since my response to their poorly disguised follow up email that was actually a short email interview.

I hate that this stresses me out so much, because if you know me, you know that hardly anything stresses me out.

..........................

So that's what's going on with my life. What started as celebration of the fact that I was getting severed has now turned into the stress via life uncertainty. I was looking forward to taking a month off, being a bum, living carefree. Now, I'm willing to start the Monday after I get laid off if it means that I have a job again.

This 180 in attitude has come about for a couple of different reasons. One, I've finally come to my senses and realized that I'm probably better off financially if I get a job as soon as possible. I'll have severance to live off of if need be, but preferably, I'd like to hold on to as much of that as possible for something other than living expenses. Things like paying off credits cards, savings accounts, and maybe a vacation somewhere. So I've stepped up the pressure on myself & begun the job search a lot sooner than expected.

Two, I just don't deal well with uncertainty in my life. I have plans to make in May that I can't even make until maybe a week before it's supposed to happen because I don't know what's going to happen. Right now, I'm waiting to hear back about a position that would be the ideal place for me. The position is exactly where I want to be at this stage of my career, it's with a very successful company that's been rated one of the best places to work in Seattle, and it's maybe a 5-10 minute walk from my apartment. They sent a follow-up email the same day I sent them my resume. The email was one of those "We just have a couple of questions for you" but was basically a short interview. I planned my answers carefully & sent this to them Sunday night. Of course, because they responded so quickly the first time, I expected the same, and spent all of Monday checking my email via phone nearly every 20 minutes. I've laid off since then, checking it maybe every hour or so, but at this point, I'd almost be happier getting a rejection email then sitting here in limbo. Even just an acknowledgement email, something like "Thanks for your reply; we'll be in contact if there's anything else we need." would put me at ease. Instead, I'm stuck here wondering if my email was good enough, or if I said something that blew the opportunity for me, or if the email somehow didn't go through.

There's a career fair at work today. God I hate career fairs. I'm not looking forward to spending half my day talking to recruiters, trying to pitch myself, playing the smile back & forth game with everyone, getting excited about potential opportunities only to get stood up again. It's times like this that remind me to be grateful that I have such a wonderful girlfriend. If I had to play this game while still playing the dating game as well, I'd rather gnaw my own head off.