Today, I garnered the motivation to pick up the phone and place calls to some temp agencies and inquire about applying for work. (Simple enough, right? Well, except for the fact that I don't enjoy job hunting. That's no secret. Also, I generally dislike talking on the phone. Combine the two, and... uggh. At least to the silly phobias in my mind. So I had to give myself at least a small pat on the back for taking that much action.)

(Sometimes I wonder why I even bother to keep my cell phone subscription going at all. I know why; there are still a few people with whom it would be non-trivial to communicate by any other means. Also, when I am job hunting, it helps to have a contact number. So I continue to pay out the nose to AT&T^H^H^H^H Cingular, for the time being at least.)

With my writing utensil handy, I proceeded to start at the top of the list. Without exception, after I would ask about applying, they would ask, "What kind of work do you do?"

A reasonable question. Right now, I'm interested in pretty much any short term position that will allow me to pay the bills. (I have been doing a pretty good job of being frugal, but when one's average monthly income is 0, it's damn near impossible to keep that credit card balance from rising gradually, like a creeping monster. I have until the end of the year before it accrues interest, and I have every intention of paying it off before then. Which is why I'm doing this now instead of November.)

Figuring it might be my best bet to go with what is purportedly my most specialized skill area, I said computer programming. Hahaha. After a few calls of saying that, I realized that I had better adopt a different strategy before I exhaust every agency in town. ("We don't have anything in that area right now, but email your resume to blahblah@blah.com, and we might get back to you later if anything turns up. Bye." The black hole. But maybe I'll try sending it anyway, like all the other online resume crapshoots.)

In one of the calls, I asked about doing just general office/clerical type of work. She said that their agency requires at least 6 months of experience in that area. (hmmm, I wonder if programming in an office counts as "office work".)

At this point, I don't really give a fuck what type of work I do. That's the beauty of temp work. Even if it sucks, it's just temporary, right? Even a job involving the phone, so long as I can go on to something else next week or month. (Exception: telemarketing. I would never do that unless I was at an absolute starvation level.) So maybe I just need to revise my approach. Don't go in as some with "programming skills", but as a semi-skilled drone who knows how to type. lol. That would be the ultimate, if passing myself off as having less ability makes me more attractive as a candidate. ("What, he's a completely ignorant baffoon? Let's make him the vice president of sales!")

And then there's x13. Sometimes it pays money, sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes it's hard to tell which it's going to be. Sometimes it's about getting together at inflow for food, laughs, and to play with the conference room projection system like a bunch of school children goofing off. And sometimes it's just depressing to feel like you're treading over the same ground you were a year ago, except this time dealing with somebody else's half-baked-reinvented mess of code. Bleep it.

So long as we're rambling aimlessly, why don't I? If I really don't give a fuck, why don't I just go back to King Soopers and see if the deli has any positions open right now? Assuming it's still the same manager, I'm sure she'd rehire me if they needed somebody. She said so before I left. Sure, the place sucks, but what if I promised myself to only stay there long enough to pay off my credit card and save up a couple grand. But then what? Road trip to California, on a not quite so penny pinching budget? Assuming, of course, that the real gas crunch hasn't started by then.

While I was in Lincoln, Yanthor offered to let me stay an extra week or two and look for work there. In addition -- though he made clear that this second part wasn't yet firmly decided -- he said that he and Anya were considering offering to let me stay in their basement on an extended basis for rent that would be significantly cheaper than a normal apartment. Since it sounded like the market for tech jobs there isn't much better there than it is here (though there might be some retail type jobs, which I might also be able to find here if I dug my heels in), I decided to ask for a possible raincheck on that idea. It has a certain appeal, although I'm not sure it's what I want to do. Maybe after the next fest, if by then I'm still spinning my wheels.

I realize that lacking from this discussion is any mention of longer term goals or directions. This is a critical omission, as it becomes very difficult to decide which direction to step if I have no idea where I really want to go. The best goal I can think of right now is "pay off debt", which is why I'm focusing on finding work. But then what?

Do I practice what I preach, save up more money, endure more work/misery, and buy land? Take another road trip? Where? What for? (Answers to these were lacking the last time I did so, which is mostly why it didn't really get that far.)

Even as I pursue the short term ("temp"), it would be good to keep the long term in mind, so I don't find myself lost again when I get there.