Job-hunting

Perhaps you are already tired of hearing me complain about looking for a job. Perhaps you are tired of hearing me joke about giving blow-jobs on the street for crack, coffee, and turkey sandwiches in the event of not finding a job. (Incidentally, I pick these commodities because, to my way of thinking, they will be essential for life on the street.) Perhaps you are tired of hearing me worry about whether or not I'll be able to find a shopping cart to keep my life's possessions in, and hoping that I'll be able to find a sturdy plastic shopping cart as opposed to a completely metal one to minimize rust in the damp, cool San Francisco weather.

Well, that's just too goddamned bad.

It's too bad, in part, because if I think about relationships for ONE MORE SECOND at the moment I will implode and end up a pile of swingy black pants, chipped toenail polish, diamond grandma rings, internal organs, and probably some other really disgusting things.

Anyway, I can barely recall the last time I had a resume. When you go into academia, you have a curriculum vitae (or "CV"). It's basically like a resume, except that it has information about courses you've taught, chapters and articles you've published, conferences you've attended, etc., that most private sector jobs couldn't care less about. Embarrassingly, my CV is easily accessible online to anyone who wants to see it--a downfall of working at a government-funded institution. (My home address and phone number really do need to come off there.)

Anyway, I'm working on adapting my experience to fit a resume format. This necessitates weird decisions that I haven't considered for a long time: Do I put my first job at McDonald's on there? (Probably not.) Do I put all the summer/youth camps I worked at in college on there? (Probably so.) Do I put my part-time pole-dancing job on there? (Um, doubtful.)

And then there are the cover letters. My "selling myself" on what valuable skills and experience I could bring to any given organization. The beginning of the "pick me! pick me!" pleading that I fear I will be reduced to. Cover letters suck. I have a bad short-term memory, so I'm creating a file of all the ones I send out and the names/addressed to whom I'm sending them to help me remember which jobs I apply for.

So that's what I'm doing. If anyone would like to hire me--or know someone who would--please get in touch with my people. When I figure out who "my people" are, I'll let you know.