Practically charged!

I'm currently listening to 2008 Grammy Nominees and applying for jobs.

It's come to the point in the season where the grey hairs are going away until November and businesses are looking to clean up their employee roster. Companies literally close down from Easter to Halloween because the population decreases. I witnessed it working for a big box retail store. I was originally hired for seasonal work - Thanksgiving until New Years and then hired on a more part time basis. Once April rolled around and people left, we noticed quite the dirt and dust accumulate while the staff of 8 stood around, useless. By June, even management sat on their laurels trying to think of busy work, and it wasn't even dusk yet.


So, a year later, I'm not at that retail store, I'm at another place. I started noticing the decrease in the intake jobs for my department, about a week and a half ago. Not that I'm really complaining, it's nice to have one project to focus on at a time, but the down time I have for the rest of the day is a killer. Compared to Christmas when I was so back logged with work, we were telling people 2 weeks for their video transfers, this is a lazy stroll in the park.

I need to get on the ball and apply to places. Having 6 months worth of work and then six months of nothing feels like a revolving temporary assignment somewhere. First you get a contract for 2 months and then it ends. Two months of sitting on your ass looking for work or the next contract. Then you get three months of solid employment and oops, contract's over. Now you're looking at five months out of service.

I troll frequent a journalism jobs site. Ever so cleverly named "journalismjobs". Most of the time, it's a quick cover letter and resume forward. Sometimes you get a captcha with it. This new one I saw today, makes the business sound a little too upscale for my tastes ("Martha's Vineyard is a great place to work, but housing is expensive and the cost of living is high. Applicants applying from a distant location should explain why it is practical to think they would be willing to move to the Island.".. see picture and link). Although I can understand the logic behind wanting an applicant to explain why they would want to move for the job, but if you're applying for something out of a reasonable travel radius, aren't you thinking of the new city's surroundings? How affordable it would be, what the place is like, ecc? I mean, hell, I may blindly apply to jobs sometimes, but my odds of getting a canned email back are much greater than the job calling me to tell me to come in and talk to them. Okay, sure. It's more economically feasible to have a local resident take the job over an out of stater; but regardless of where you come from, you're just as certain to stay some length in the job than not even taking a chance at it. If you happen to live locally, it's easier to find another job somewhere else if this doesn't work out, but that's not to say the transplant can't have it just as good.

What do you think, dear readers???









Cheers;