I Hate to See October Go

Where do we go next? There's got to be a way out of unemployment.

Halloween is this week, and for the love of all things wise and wonderful, I still haven't found a real, full-time job. Because of this, our candy offerings are going to be a bit shy this year. We might have to send our daughter out trick or treating just so that she can come back with the neighbors' candy to fill our coffers. Re-gifting, you say? Recycling, I retort. Halloween is now green, orange, and black.

According to the Georgia Department of Labor, I have just exhausted all my regular unemployment benefits. They sent me four separate letters in four separate envelopes, all with the same postage date, telling me to come to the One-Stop Office today and apply for Tier 1 Emergency Unemployment Compensation (that's EUC to you). I had been under the impression that EUC was not available to Georgians. There had been, I swear, a statement on their website proclaiming that Georgia had chosen not to participate in this funding. Either stress has lowered my reading level or EUC was reinstated. In any event, it's good through December. If I qualify.

One of the requirements to maintain these benefits is to "make a more diligent job search," as well as to prove what I've done to get hired in the last week. They want "tangible evidence" that I've tried to get a job. So I went back to several websites through which I have applied, plus some email records, and printed out all the "tangible evidence" I could find. While it might make them feel better, it actually made me feel worse.

Monster.com shows that I've applied to 58 jobs since getting canned in May. Ziprecruiter shows only 18. Northside Hospital doesn't link you to all the jobs you've applied for, but they did send me email confirmation of the 10 jobs I applied for on October 21. Children's Hospital shows three jobs, Kennesaw State University, 12. The grandaddy of them all, though, is Gwinnett County Public Schools. They did keep a list of all the jobs I applied for -- and I mean all of them -- and that print-out was 16 pages long. Sixteen pages of jobs for which I wasn't hired, only one of which even landed an interview. Sixteen pages of rejection.

If I had to guess (and I do), I'd say I've applied for about 250 jobs in that school district. I've applied for almost that many in my former school district, and will continue to do so until SOMEONE out there is willing to give me a chance. At something. At almost anything at this point.

The numbers above don't include applications for which I lost "tangible evidence." The day I put out 80 business cards in car windows at a local tech school to drum up some editing work. The mail-out to 15 businesses in a local business park. The resumes delivered in person. The 911 application which led to a three-hour test, and ended when I failed the section on dispatching. The phone calls where I literally begged for work. So many I can't even remember them all.

A more diligent job search? Not possible.