Wool and Spice

You know how you work towards a goal that has an indefinite deadline and may or may not happen anyway and there are all these loose ends that should be taken care of but you figure there’s plenty of time to get them done because there really isn’t any guarantee that the goal is even in sight. Besides, in the back of your mind, you think you have the bases covered. You just don’t take the time to check. Well that’s been my life lately.

I’m job hunting and as you can imagine it’s going a leeetle slow. I’ve sent out resumes and gotten no responses or the jobs don’t fit. Nothing has been happening. Then last night at 10 pm I get an e-mail from a company wanting me to interview today. They need someone right away. OK, short notice, but I can do it. All I have to do is:

• Find my work clothes and figure out what to wear.
• Change purses.
• Print my resume and my references.
• Let my references know they might get a phone call.
• Go through my practice interview questions.
• Brush up on my manners, it’s been so long since I’ve had to be “nice” to people.
• Do something about my dried-out winter hands, a manicure would be great, but no time.
• Get directions to the location and make sure I know how to get there.
• Get enough sleep so my face doesn’t look all tired and wrinkly.
• Lose 20 pounds.

Yeah. Should have started a few of these before. But still, I figured I had 9 hours. No biggy.

So I responded to the e-mail and said sure, just let me know what time to show up.

Checked my e-mail at 5 am this morning. No response. Got to work on the list.

By 9 am I still haven’t gotten a response, so I called the company. The manager isn’t there. I left a message saying “Yes! I’m available! Call me back!”

The phone rang around 9:30 but wouldn’t connect. Of all the days for phone problems. Turns out it was my neighbor, but still. Another pain-in-the-patoot problem to fix.

It’s 2:00 pm and I’m still waiting. All the errands I planned to do today are undone. (No call forwarding.) Meanwhile, while pulling together my clothes, I realized I gave away my winter coat that fits over a suit and never replaced it. Found out that the paper I planned to print my resume on doesn’t like the printer and fought that battle for half an hour. The 20 pounds didn’t disappear overnight.

It’s snowing and cold and my adrenaline is long gone. I know things happen and I’m trying not to be (too) critical. But. It would have been nice to get an e-mail saying something has come up and we’ll have to postpone. At least then I’d have groceries in the cupboard and bird food in the feeders.