Today I had a rejection call from the Public Library in Bend. I was turned down for a job as a library clerk. This is what a library clerk does: checks in books, checks out books, talks to people who ask such things as "I'm looking for a book by the guy who wrote the book about airplanes in India," or kids who ask "Can I get change for this dollar." This is the gist of a library clerk job.
I have two Masters Degrees. I have taught Writing at the College level. I have created a GED program and instituted a GED Testing Center in a county (this one) who doesn't even know what GED stands for. And I was turned down for a library clerk job.
After my initial shock and politeness I called back to find out why but no one answered and at this point I didn't care. I waited until Mike got home and told him about this and he said, "I know, I remember when I was looking for a job and how many times I was turned down."
I said to him, "I don't mean to be rude, but I'd like to talk about me right now." (Okay, maybe I did mean to be rude.) For those of you who know my husband, the general consensus is that no one can believe he's married to me. He's very nice and kind and quiet and patient and I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it. However, I need someone to rant and rave with me and curse the entire library system started by Mr. Carnegie.
Job hunting is bad for the ego. Those who have known me a long time know that I have a fairly tough ego. I usually think I'm smarter than most people (especially if they're men), I usually think most people are not as "together" as I am and I'm fairly opinionated. But job hunting is slowing breaking me down.
When I write a cover letter I agonize over a sentence and I'm pretty sure I can no longer spell and don't tell me to use the spell-check, I'm convinced it's also wrong. I'm tired of expounding on my strengths, which at this point in my life are: not killing my husband - not killing my 14 year old- how do you put that in a cover letter?
I'm to the point of looking up bomb-making on the Internet so I can put an end to the confidence-destroying Human Resource buildings. I've decided that when I win the lottery, I'm not giving any of it to anyone who did not give me a job. Those people will be sorry.
On the other hand, I think that A - I probably need to be there since once people meet me, who could not want to hire me and B - my supervisor over here at CMC is convinced that one day I'll have the Gina Ricketts Learning Center, so maybe that's where I need to concentrate my energy. Besides, if I create my own school, not only will things be run how I think they should be run, but I'll never have to look for a job.
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