Semi-Official Tentative Announcement of Maybe Having a Job in a Couple Months

A couple weeks ago, I heard my phone chirp.  Looking down, I saw a text message from a friend (Scripps ’07) asking me if I wanted her job when she left it this summer.  Considering the last calendar year—I just passed my one year jobsearchiversary—I responded immediately with “Yes, yes I DO want your job.”

Which is how, after a five-month dry spell, I was up an hour and a half early at 5:30 to make sure I had enough time to get ready before catching the first of three buses to my interview at the company where my friend works. Continue reading

It is so cold in Portland right now

Apparently I’m somewhat fixated on the weather, but it has been cold here to the point of unreality—at least, it feels unbelievably cold as I sail downhill on my bicycle.

I have had a dull couple of weeks; a few hiccups in the unpaid internship that have been very revealing and informative about how to go about setting up a good dynamic with the people I work with, especially the line between jocularity and hostility. Also, I am excited that I could use the word “jocularity” in a sentence without sounding completely ridiculous.

Onto equally vague but more cheerful news: as I was deciding whatvariety of cupcake a dutiful offspring might bake for a parent’s birthday, I received an email from a friend that works in the same office as I do, about an open development position. She had received the email from one of the social justice non-profit organizations she worked with over the summer, and forwarded it to me.

Of course, earlier that week, I met the director of said organization in an elevator with a bicycle, and given the following conditions:

a) Sleepy

b) Frozen into a person-shaped icicle by a 12 mile bike ride in 34 degree weather with 20 mph gusts

c) Being me

I, of course, neglected to introduce myself.

I feel like I can see Valinda bringing her hand to her forehead, and shaking her head side-to-side slowly and unbelievingly. At least, that’s what I wanted to do once I sat down with a cup of coffee and my 1800-piece auction solicitation mailing, even before I knew they had an opening.

The position has quite a bit of event planning, which gave me pause before I started thinking about it. I chatted with my friend E* and one of my awesome former boss-folks who reassured me that this was definitely something I could do. And looking at my resume and remembering that I have done programming and some event planning, as an RA, worker in the Annual Fund and as an alumna volunteer, the event-planning component seemed far less intimidating.

Plus, one of the responsibilities of the position involves mailings, and I have a somewhat abnormal love for managing mailings and managing data.

Admittedly, after five hours of papercuts, my abnormal love is being somewhat taxed by this enormous auction solicitation mailing.

*The one that worked at the college that sent me the information for the open position in California

There really aren’t words for how silly this is

The data entry job I applied for at the local foundation turned me down because they thought that I’m much better suited to be a coordinator.  The coordinator job at my friend’s college/place of employ turned me down because they think I’m much better suited to play with data and data entry.  The irony is almost delicious.

Which is to say: I remain unemployed and my wallet continues to be populated solely by a rapidly multiplying population of dust bunnies and tumbleweed.  They informed me they were very impressed with me, which means there’s a growing population of people who are impressed by me, but don’t particularly want to hire me.  I’m apparently at a level of impressive where I’m over-qualified because I’m 23 and have all the skills to do a job, making me into I am what my former Super Excellent Boss-Person L called a “flight risk.”  Which means, essentially, because I’m young and fairly qualified for a job like “Advancement Coordinator,” I look like I’m not a good fit because I look like I’m only on my way to other things.

Apparently I’m actually too awesome to hire.

Continue reading

Weather-Related metaphors, interviews, and hit-and-run accidents

When it rains, it pours.

Considering how much I whine about the weather in Portland, the beginning of this entry is oddly completely unrelated to weather.  While I was out-of-state interviewing, the local non-profit called me for a second interview, so I had to speed back to Portland for what ended up being an unsuccessful mission.  Well, unsuccessful in the sense that they didn’t offer the job to me, but not a categorical failure: it was a second interview and not being offered the job does save me from facing the unpleasant dilemma of choosing between doing what’s smart and what’s in more direct service of my long-term goals (and what I’d rather do anyways).

So, my interview out-of-state seemed like it went really well.  Which is to say: I left the building and felt good about how the interview went.  My friend was one of the people interviewing me, and though she certainly didn’t softball anything, it was reassuring to know there was someone in the room who already thought I was neat enough to be there.  And, I just finished rereading Northanger Abbey, (I love Jane Austen so much) which has a protracted section about the misuse of the word “neat” so I like that, in this case, it works for both the old-school and modern meanings. Continue reading

Latest Interview, and Interview Preparation

Portland’s last Wednesday in October was incredibly cold.  It was less than 40 degrees as I rolled out of SE and up to where my interview was.   As usual, I was early, and found myself with fifteen minutes to kill before I could reasonably amble over to the office where my interview was.

At that point, I went into the office, and offered icicle-handshakes to the people interviewing me.  It seemed like it went well, and the pair of staff members that interviewed me had a very appealing dynamic, which I think speaks to the friendliness of work environment. It was actually a fun interview, and I managed to work in the fact that I bike downtown several times a week, wrote a thesis at Scripps, have a cupcake blog and did fancy things at Scripps.  I also said I really wanted to learn Raiser’s Edge (a program used for fundraising), and I think sounded somewhat knowledgeable when I was talking about how Access and Ebase were not particularly powerful database programs.

At one point, they asked me what my work-style was, and I said that I like to break things down into manageable consecutive tasks (how I wrote my thesis) and ask a lot of nitpicky questions because I am…nitpicky.  Continue reading