One Month Anniversary

Yesterday was my one month anniversary of being unemployed. Contrary to my expectations, the time is going by very fast. That's due mainly to a busy schedule I'm trying to keep. I've established a regular morning routine of spending a few hours checking the online job sites ( mainly TheLadders.com and LinkedIn.com), and applying for anything that seems promising. I've also started doing some volunteer work. That may help me make some contacts and open doors that I never even new existed in some different fields. And if not, at least I'm spending some of my time doing something useful in the community.

There was a recent interview on NPR with a women who was a vice-president at a bank when she was laid off. Her to-do list for the day of the interview had 26 items on it, all related to job hunting. Looking for a new job had become a full time job in itself. She expects that it will take her at least 6 months to find one. Persistence and patience is the name of the game now for job hunters.

Unfortunately, for young couples with no real savings or severance pay, time is not something they can comfortably spend. At least those who can get unemployment compensation have something coming in for a while to help. But even that eventually runs out. Our district has a special election this coming Tuesday to fill a vacant seat in Congress. It's not surprising that the economic issues have dominated the debate, as they should.