I know you Mean Well....but Ask Me First

Let me say this first: Thank you.

Thank you to all the people who care enough about my well-being during my job search who have taken time out of their schedules to write me and give me advice. I'm grateful that these people are in my life. It's gratifying to know that I have friends out there who have it in their hearts to worry about me, especially when I have seemed, at times, less than grateful for their help.

However, some of the advice offered....it is less than helpful.

I say all this, because it's absolutely amazing all the unsolicited advice I've been receiving lately. Three e-mails and one phone call today, no less! The help being offered....well...don't think I don't appreciate being told what I'm doing wrong without anything constructive being added to the message. But....

No one today offered anything constructive. Except Gunny. I thank Gunny because his message had actual useful information that I didn't know about another prospective employer.

Thank you Gunny. I appreciate it greatly. If I was short in my e-mail, I think if you read here, you'll understand why.

Just a note. Here's what I need right now: Job leads, Tips on Openings and a good word to a prospective employer.

What I don't need anymore of, due to the overwhelming inundation of unsolicited advice I've already received: Unsolicited resume tips, unsolicited interviewing tips and unsolicited comments about what I should do prior to interviews and during the meantime while I don't have a job.

Unsolicited is kind of the key word, here.

See....if you just asked if I'd like your opinion, I'd probably say Yes. I'm a pushover that way. Plus, I can set my feet. I know that sometimes I screw up, and I'm not sure why. I just feel like I'm more likely to take advice if it's not being shoved down my throat.

On the other hand, I would like to address this trend: I'm especially dismayed and annoyed to hear about how the longer I'm out of a job, the worse it looks on my resume. I don't need to hear that. Believe me. I already know. And I don't need to be reminded. Because reminding me of that doesn't actually help and it actually makes me feel worse. What's more, it tends to make me a little panicky. Neither feeling downtrodden nor feeling panicky is a constructive emotion.

Please understand that I just spent four years at a job I came to loathe. Toward the end of my time there, I was hating myself for going back every day. I wasn't sleeping. My stomach was sour all the time. I spent my free time worrying about what was going on at that job, and how long it would be until I went back. And I was a crabby, crabby sonofabitch to be around.

And on top of all that, they paid and treated me badly.

I want to find something where it's not like that.

Being out of a job and being rejected by employers and being left in limbo? Yeah, it sucks, but it still doesn't compare to how I was feeling the last three to five months of my time at my last job.

I will say this: neither is being jobless a particularly pleasing feeling.

So.

For the concerned masses: tomorrow we're going to figure this stuff out with the Big Time Prospective Employer with whom I've already had 3 interviews, and with whom I was supposed to interview one more time this week, but have not been contacted yet to set up that time. That's the problem with the whole job thing: being left in limbo. The last interview went well, and they were passing my name to a supervisor, who would be calling for the next interview. Every phase of the process with Prospective Employer has ended with them setting up a contact time, and they've always followed through.

Why this time isn't the same as the other times, I don't know. I've given them two extra days. So I'm going to find out what the holdup is, if there is indeed a holdup.

After that, depending on what I find out with Big Time Prospective Employer, I'm going to start harassing a few other places until one of them hires me.

Despite what the name of my blog is: I'm a smart feller. I've got a college degree. I work hard, and I work even harder when I believe in what I'm doing.

Also, I believe in how I'm doing it, and I believe it will work out in the end, even if things aren't going so swimmingly right now.

And that's all I'm going to say, about that.