The Unemployment Chronicles, Chapter 14

Here's a picture I took of the Aerial Lift Bridge in Duluth while helping Sister-san and Chef Jeff hunt for houses earlier this week. They settled on Old Lady House, as I hoped they would. The place needs a little updating, but it's spacious, sunny, welcoming, and well situated. Congrats!

(Aside: I know Lent has begun because all the fast food restaurants are now advertising the heck out of their fish sandwiches. I also know I could go the rest of my life without touching another breaded fish filet and not miss it. I'm testing that hypothesis right now.)

Now that I'm back from up north, I'm experiencing a bit of a lull in the job hunt. Several places I'm interested in have promised me calls back "within a week or so." Meanwhile, I've applied for just about everything out there — all the jobs I would actually want, anyway — and am hoping some new postings will appear over the weekend. I've got some work to do, and some homework from my career coach. Other than that, things are pretty quiet.

Last week I mentioned scheduling an interview for a job that looked to be beneath my skill level. This morning I went to the interview and quickly learned that I was right. The job is something I would have jumped at when I was fresh out of school, but now I'm vastly overqualified. The salary is about 60% what I need. I was up front with the interviewer about that, but stuck around to take the copyediting test anyway, and urged them to call me if they ever need a freelancer.

I got a monetary surprise last Friday when a large deposit from my ex-employer appeared in my bank account. I received a printed thingie in the mail that listed this amount as severance pay. I'd thought I had already received all the severance I was going to get, but apparently not. No complaints!

Of course, I'll have to report this "income" when I make my next request for unemployment benefits, and since the amount of the deposit is greater than two weeks' worth of benefits, I won't get paid when I make that request. And that's fine. It just means I'm saving more benefit money to be used farther down the line.

We're expecting a huge snowstorm this weekend, so the cats and I are hunkered down in the warmest part of the house. (For Warren Peace, that means between my body and my laptop, so I have to reach around him to type.) I stopped at the grocery store after that interview this morning and laid in plenty of supplies, and I started some chili simmering in the crock-pot. We're ready.

OK, time to go do my homework, design a website, and watch the latest episode of Lost, not necessarily in that order.