A couple of weeks ago, I thought I would be receiving a job offer from my first-choice county. When Kid A was 3 days old, we returned home from the sad, sad check-up appointment to discover that I had ranked #1 on the county's oral examination. Considering that it was the only county I'd applied to, Teacher Man (TM) and I were pretty happy, thinking that I would absolutely get a job offer after the hiring interview. That hiring interview took place at the end of July -- Kid A was just over 3 weeks old -- and I felt great about how it had gone. The supervisors who interviewed me said that they would be hiring to fill 4-5 positions, and that the training class would start on September 2. Based on this information, TM and I started looking into child care. They also said that they would notify applicants during the second week of August.
My friend, with whom I had interned (in my first-choice county), sent me a text message on the Tuesday of the second week of August, asking me to let her know when I heard from the county. I texted her back, asking whether she'd been offered a job, and she replied that she had. I gave her a call and we chatted for a little while, and I told her I'd let her know as soon as I heard something. It was around 10:30 in the morning, and I even made a joke that if I had to wait around too long for their call, I'd be upset. My mom was with us for the day, visiting Kid A. I was really excited for my friend, and was anxious to get the call, but no call came. When I hadn't heard by lunchtime, I was annoyed. When I hadn't heard by 4:00, I was angry and confused. We ended up putting a movie on to pass the time (Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is NOT a great movie to watch when you are waiting for news and when no news is bad news), and I got more and more annoyed. It was unfair, but I really wanted my mom to leave, because I just wanted to be able to express my anger and frustration in my own way, with just TM, who knows me better than anyone, and who is better than anyone at helping me work through stuff like this. But there we were, the four of us, sitting around, waiting. By 5:30, I was going stir-crazy, and took off for a short walk around our complex. I felt near tears, but no tears came. It was helpful to walk a little, to move some of the negative energy that had been building all day, but it still sucked.
I'm not accustomed to being passed over for things that I want. It's certainly happened -- by no means have I always succeeded at getting what I want. But on balance, I tend to be a top candidate for things like jobs. It just so happens that a) I am now dealing with big, nameless, faceless bureaucracies and am vying for one of a handful of jobs (it happens to be the crummiest economy in recent years, and our state is facing a budget crisis, which trickles down to the county level), and b) I am competing with really, really talented people, many of whom are my friends, in a year when several local counties have put on hiring freezes for the jobs we all need to get. I should mention that, here in the Bay Area of California, there are four colleges with MSW programs, all of which offer the Title IV-E stipend, which means that, every year, there are roughly 80 new MSWs, all of whom are contractually obligated to begin working in public child welfare (which means "get a CPS job with a county") within 6 months of graduation. When the economy sucks, that becomes harder to do.
However. Despite the bad economy and the resulting uncertain job market, I am one of a handful of recent grads that still does not have a job. Part of this is my fault: I deliberately held off on applying to counties that were not my first choice because I was due to have a baby in July, and I did not want to be offered a job that I could not take (the larger counties around here tend to hire a "training class": a group of new hires that all start on the same date and attend roughly 8 weeks or so of training). But another part of this is my #1 ranking: I know a large contingent of the group that was hired in a large adjacent county, and during their hiring interview process, rankings seemed to matter more than performance at the hiring interview. I thought, when I received my ranking, that my first-choice county would be similar, and that I could put off applying to other counties until I determined that I needed to. Well, now I need to. And I have missed the deadline for that large adjacent county, which has just concluded interviewing for the training class that will begin in mid-October. Which is exactly when I wanted to start working. Grrrr.
So, for the foreseeable future, I am home, with Kid A. And I am very, very happy about that: I didn't want to start working in September, anyway, so I have begun to think that someone is looking out for me/us. I did NOT want Kid A to be cared for, full-time, by other people at 2 months old, no matter how wonderful and loving and talented those people might be. So I have shifted from confusion and anger to something approximating gratitude.
But it may be difficult for me to adjust to being a SAHM (stay-at-home mom, for those unfamiliar with internet-based acronyms). I am able to write this (well, finish it, anyway) because, after three days of virtually no daytime naps, Kid A has been asleep for three hours. Given that the last several days have been completely consumed with childcare during waking hours, and that this is TM's first full day of back-to-school (students arrive next week), I have spent the last hour or so not knowing what on earth to do with myself! I've (mostly) prepared dinner, I've leafed through a magazine, I've spent some time online, I've washed (and eaten) some grapes ... I even had a friend here for a visit during the first part of Kid A's massive nap. If I don't find some hobbies, either my house is going to be insanely clean (which TM would love), or I am going to wear out our local library. Any recommendations for some good books?
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