This is long and bloggy. But that's what the thread is for, no?
So I think I've got things sorted with unemployment and should get enough money from them to pay rent before rent is due again. Also, we are getting a roommate for a little while, which will help. A friend I went to school with, who has also not found a job, has a lease that ends early next month, so she is going to take our second bedroom until she finds a job. I did the math last night and with the unemployment and her rent, we will only need to charge a few hundred a month to pay our bills and eat and what's it.
Also, I may have found Steve a job through a friend. It's only one day a week, but that is a start. It's income in and recent, local experience and references. I should know tonight if that is for sure.
In job news, my brother contacted me yesterday about a technical writer position at his work, so I've applied and he also gave my resume to his director. It seems like it would be a nice gig, the pay is pretty good, I could move back to Rochester and it's doing work that I think would be interesting and be relevant enough to help get me where I want to be in 10 years. It would be writing the internal and external documentation and training materials and running some live training sessions, for the company's adoption of IPv6. I only understand the basics of IPv6, but I am confident I am able to learn it, and understanding, distilling, and communicating meaning, particularly of complex concepts, is one of the few talents I am confident I have. (Confirmed by outside sources like my academic crush professor.)
Though, my faith in my abilities is undercut somewhat by this cover letter I am failing to write for another job posting. I am applying to run the social media for two of the schools at my university (including the one I just graduated from) and I can't seem to find the words I want. I hate writing cover letters generally, but this one is proving much more difficult than usual. I am having trouble molding what I want to say into content appropriate for a cover letter, instead of a rambling tresies on the creation of identity in a post-modern world. Which is sadly ironic, since one of the things I am trying to say is that I understand the way meaning is built across contexts, and how the medium of transmission is inseparable from the content, and that I have the skill to use the context of a particular medium to enhance the overall identity each school is attempting to communicate.
I am regularly frustrated as I apply to jobs because I feel an immense pressure to have my self-marketing materials be perfect, because that is the skill I am selling. Like, you don't hire an electrician by going into his house and checking all his lights, or even an archivist by digging through their physical and digital files and tsk tsking at their system, but I keep applying to jobs where I am pitching my ability to organize and communicate information and ideas effectively and in a way that makes an argument beyond the 'facts.' That's exactly what a cover letter, resume, portfolio site, linkedin profile, twitter account etc are meant to do. If I can't do it well with them, it seems self evident that I am ill suited for the jobs to which I am applying. I know some of my peers feel the same way about their portfolio websites, since they are doing UX stuff and then feel pressure to have their website be responsive and usable across platforms and to meet all common heuristics for usability and so on, but I feel that *and* the need to have the copy be perfect and eloquent, on the website and the resume and the god damn cover letter. It always comes down to the damn cover letter.
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Topic: Blog Thread 4; Live Free or Blog Hard - 'cos we all like blogging (Read 568899 times)