Update 02/28/14 here.
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Tuesday 2014-02-11. My prospect for the City job fell through this morning.
Some may find this story TMI, but I will get it out more quickly if I don’t try to trim it. To cut to the chase, click here.
The listing came up in my search engine results, probably in August, that the City was accepting applications for the title of Secretary II. Interested people could first apply, then take the appropriate exams, and if they passed they would be put on an eligibility list for positions with this title throughout City government. The work site for any position could be anywhere.
In September I took and passed those exams.
In October I interviewed with three different City agencies for this title: the Water Department, Housing & Community Development, and the Fire Department. Each of those jobs would have been within walking distance of the shelter, and since I would be getting off work at 16:30 I could probably get to the shelter in time to get a bed and take a shower each night.
In mid-December I got a phone call from the woman who would be my boss at the Water Department, asking if I were still interested. I was.
The remaining steps in the process included taking a physical at a City clinic. The clinic itself had to set this appointment. For some reason it took them several weeks to do so. My boss called up to say I had an appointment set for 14:00 on such and such a date.
I kept the appointment, but only then was presented with a letter from the clinic supposedly advising of the appointment, which specified that one should allow three hours for the exam. I advised staff that I would need to be back at the shelter long before that. In the event, I left at 15:30 without being seen.
I phoned my boss to advise what had happened and ask for a new, morning appointment. In due course, that was set, and I kept it. It did take three hours, but I didn’t mind, as that was my sole agenda item that day.
My job was to GET the job. I said, I must work to GET the job.
At the end of the exam, I was advised that they needed certain medical records from my providers, and I had ten business days to provide that before they would make a decision. Complying with this took significant work on my part. The decision was to be made 01/31/14.
I called my boss on or about 02/04/14 to check status. She had not yet heard back from the clinic, and said she’d call me once she did.
I called again this morning and left message asking about status. The return call came during my session with my therapist, BB. As soon as the phone rang, I told him, “It’s my boss,” before pulling the phone from my pocket. She said she’d called the clinic this morning, and they’d advised her that some of the information they’d requested was “missing” from what I’d provided; and they’d closed my file. She said that (per privacy rules, obviously) they would not divulge to her what was “missing,” but would let me know if I’d call them. Given my immediate circumstances, I planned to do that later today. In the meantime, she said, it would be up to her boss to ask the clinic to re-open my file, and then go from there. She called again before long, and kept me on hold while she consulted him. He decided that the process for my candidacy had gone on long enough, and that rather than face any further delay it would be better for the department to proceed with a different candidate. So the job offer to me was withdrawn.
I was proud of myself for the response I made on the phone, and BB confirmed to me later that I did pretty well.
When I got out of bed this morning, one set of opportunities faced me. A different set of opportunities faces me now.
Carolyn Gregoire’s article that was the subject of a recent post cites as an indicator of emotional intelligence, that “10. After you fall, you get right back up.” I have not been very good at that in the past, but I’m getting better at it in recent years, and that’s what I have the opportunity to do now.
Back to collecting search engine results, culling them, sifting them, applying online, applying maybe in person; working to GET work.
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Friday 2014-02-28. I began work on the latest search engine results yesterday and would have continued today, but have decided to set that activity — which requires a lot of attention to detail — aside for this weekend, to focus instead on smoking cessation.
(There is also the disadvantage for job search, this weekend, that my Net access is being cut short daily. I have to show up at the shelter early because the Program has resumed commandeering our beds, and there’s a risk of my not getting in.)
My silence this morning was given to trying to find my way through the motivational maze.
I need to want prosperity enough to make this change.
As remarked in an earlier post:
“When an active addict considers seeking recovery, it won’t work to make the effort because it’s a good idea, or for others’ sake. Only when the addict becomes able to do it from utter selfishness — “I’m doing this for me!” — will enough energy be given to the task to succeed.”
Wow, on examination, that entire post is highly pertinent: “Me, me, me.”
It actually pretty well sums up the choices facing me now.
There is a selfishness that creates chaos and destroys community. There is another selfishness that’s an absolute condition precedent for building community, for pulling one’s weight in society. One may be a selfishness of taking; the other, of making. The puzzle is how to help infantile persons make the transition from one to the other.
Of course, I could puzzle over it all day and not get the work done.
Well, let me wrap this up and go find some alternative project that doesn’t require intense concentration. I have at this moment, in my pocket, what needs to be my very last cigarette, and I don’t want to light it up flippantly. When the time comes to smoke it, I want to actually have a little personal ceremony; to have invested this last one with all the — all of what I’ve invested in smoking; so that with this last, I can have as it were a memorial service and finally say goodbye to smoking forever.
(Reblogged 03/01/18.)
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