Boo. Did I scare you? I am alive. Just haven't posted in way too long. First, due to computer issues then, just being uninspired.
At anyrate, I am alive and kicking. In the time I've been gone I have acquired a job... and put in my two weeks notice of leaving, last week.
This post was actually a draft from a while ago I made one night while job hunting but due to the computer issues mentioned a moment ago, I was unable to complete. So, just for the sake of getting an update type blog up, and hopefully inspire me to start writing more, I shall walk you through all of the 'oh-so-fun' experiences I've encountered getting back out into the working community.
Let us start with the job hunt, shall we?
Here was the bases of what started out a very rantful post draft that would have been titled, "YOU, want to do WHAAA?... Roffle." I had also contemplated the title, "Silly woman, housewives and mothers shouldn't work." as that seems to be the mentality of the majority of employers I pursued. After sending applications and resumes to dozens of places, I only received 3 callbacks. Even more disappointing was that none these produced a face to face interview. All phone interviews, that I thought had went well, until I was asked one question. All phone interviews lead to this question and one was the following conversation verbatim, the others extremely similar:
Interviewer: Now, lets see. So you worked at [place of business] until September of 2009?
Me: Yes ma'am.
Interviewer: And what was your reason for leaving that company?
Me: Maternity reasons. I hadn't worked there long enough to qualify for Maternity leave so it was a voluntary quit but I left in good standing with the company.
Interviewer: Okay. I see on your resume, Dalhanahue, that you have no record of employment then from (such in such date to at the time, what was current)
Me: Yes, ma'am. That is correct.
Interviewer: *Slight pause* So you were not working during that time and not working currently?
Me: (there was underlining tone coming from her that I didn't think I'd like where it was going so I was wanting to say, "Oh yeah I sell myself out on the street corner down at the Square every Saturday night but it was under the table work and didn't want to put that on my resume." but instead politely said..) No, ma'am I have not worked since I left [place of business.]
Interviewer: *Another brief pause followed by slightly more of an arrogant tone creeping in* If I may ask, so, what was it that you've been doing since you left there?
Me: (Why sure you may ask and I'm so glad you did because I've just been waiting to be able to tell someone that for the last two years I've been drifting in and out of our plain of existence suckling on unicorn balls! It's quite beneficial to ones health! Couldn't have anything to do with the fact I said I left there because I birthed a child out of my twat.) Of course. I elected to stay home and raise my daughter for a time. It's been a very rewarding experience, but I am looking forward to rejoining the working community to further provide for her on a financial level.
Interviewer: *longer pause and then in a disappointed tone like I'd just stolen from the cookie jar..* Ah.. I see.. Okay.
The rest of the interview consisted of formalities; finishing up my work history, and a general run down of the job I had applied for along with comments stressing how they still have a few people to interview but would hear from them if they felt I met their qualification; never to hear from them again.
All of the interviews went almost exactly like this. It seemed to me that these employers (and just for those curious I was interviewed by two women, one man) assumed that my fucking brains and capacity to function as an employee, plopped out along with the afterbirth and continued to trickle away from me with every passing day I stayed at home changing diapers. I sincerely felt like I was being negatively judged for not pushing the kid out and returning to work as soon as I knew my innereds weren't going to fall out and I was in tip top shape again. Highly disgruntling, a bit infuriating, and none to good for one's morale I should say.
So time passed, no call backs, continued to be a 'useless house wife/mother.' Finally, after our funds dwindled down to a nerve wracking and stress inducing level, I pushed my ego aside and close to begged for a waitress job I had back in college. I had left in good standing with them (see a pattern here? I have a good work ethic and am a hard worker, but apparently that doesn't matter because what I've been doing for the past two years, accounts for nothing to my character in the eyes of a new employer.) and figured if they had the work load available they would take me back. They did, and they did.
I abhor this job. I could not pass up a sure source of income but I HATE it. It is was the first job that started to render me jaded to the world and lose faith and compassion for humanity, especially in our society of the good ole U.S. of A. The idea of working hard and getting paid justly for it in America is nothing but a pipe dream for most middle class citizens. We're not as strapped as the lower class so we think we can make it work, we're at least one step ahead, but this is simply not true. Not to mention, in all honestly, I've probably had more training on how to communicate with people properly between the few courses I took in high school and college than any manager I've worked for at my current job and any job I've had since I came to this region. So, how did they get there? They played dirty politics: kissing ass, making the other employees look bad, and the occasional affair. Oh, being the owners relative had a bit to do with one.
Although, I've digressed from my point slightly and at the same time brought up another. So lets finish one before moving forward. Becoming jaded. The customers I deal with at work. One word; disrespectful. A mass gross of disrespectful people being so, in numerous ways. To get into specifics would take to long and this post is already getting a bit lengthy.
Now onto my other point. With the managers. My main issue here that all of the current managers, started out serving just like me and my co-workers. They got to where they are not because of skill but because of other things previously mentioned. So, when issues arise the servers are the ones that get thrown under the bus because of the managers lack of professionalism and communication.
This, in part, is one reason for me putting in my two weeks. The other reason, is that my husband has decided to try and get back out and find a job and I can be the one to go back to being the stay at home parent. Which brings me to my final point. It seems on this journey of me getting out and working I've been getting either one extreme side of the coin or the other when it comes to discussing my position with others. Possible employers and a few actual nice customers I've casually chatted with seem to think I should be career focused and piss off on the whole lame motherhood thing. I've gotten comments like, "Well good for you honey! You should go back to school and get a career and make something of yourself!" Then again on the flip side I've also gotten comments like "Oh you've only got two more weeks here and your husbands going to get a job? GOOD, make him get out and be the bread maker. That's the way it SHOULD be!" WTF? Fuck, all of that.
First and foremost neither my husband nor myself especially, really want a full fledged career as baffling as that apparently sounds to people. Both of us come from broken homes. It's made us stronger but it's also left us with this 'strange' desire to create a loving home for us and our daughter. Weird huh? Granted, in order to that at least one of us has to be making money. Although, neither one of us feel it's the others obligation. That it should be his role as the man, or mine as the woman. We are a partnership. If there's an opportunity for me to get a job, as that was what happened, I took it. Vise verse, and the other will stay home and tend to the little one. Now, we have discussed that one of does tend to have a better knack for one or the other but our gender and assumed roles have nothing to do with it.
Regardless of who gets out and gets a job, we both just want to work hard, earn money, and at the end of the day leave work at work and come home to our family. Sadly, this notion is such a struggle to acquire and maintain. Employers want to hear that you want to work there with the hopes to someday advance to management and if you don't you're seen as lazy/have a bad attitude/not outgoing even if you take pride in what you do and work hard.
This whole experience has just been so disheartening on a whole. Our society, economy, and working society including it's ethics, are so screwed up. I look at our daughter and I fear for her future if things continue on this route. I pray for her I really do. Gods do I pray for her. If nothing else I hope she takes this page from our book we're trying so hard to write: the redeeming factors in this jacked up world are the simply joys found in the beauty and awesomeness of nature, family, true friends that are considered family, and love of self. Things we will probably continue to struggle to stress while we fluctuate under and in the financial 'doughnut hole' in this crap economy but are most important. We might not have the idea living arrangement but it's a roof over our head and none of us have ever gone hungry. With those met, and our family held together with respect and love, I suppose all we can do is keep on keeping on.
