We've reached the 3 week mark and I'm thinking a summary is in order.

Applications sent out: 16 (1 point per)

Responses received: 3 (5 points per)

Unsolicited contacts received: 1 (5 points per)

Interviews: 1 (10 points per)

Job offers: 0

Days started at 8AM: 0 (I'm giving one point to the Recession for each weekday, other than my birthday and the two days I took off, started after 8AM)

That brings our point total to date to Recession: 113, CotR: 50

I've get several call/emails out on the responses I received, so I'm hoping to have a few more interviews next week.

I'd been planning on using this week to recover from the disappointment of the first two weeks.

No responses to any of my applications, nothing but frustration and my birthday coming up Wednesday (now today). It seemed like a good time to recharge the batteries.

Then I received an email from an HR director who'd seen my profile on Monster and wanted to discuss my background. Finally! The position looked a bit outside of what I'd been looking for, but interest is interest and I was happy to have it. I responded and set up an interview by phone for 2PM today.

I started the day by attempting to sleep in, but unfortunately The Editor called and woke me up so I could sign for a package she was expecting in the AM. Once up I decided to spend my birthday playing Madden 08 on the Wii. After a couple hours of video game-generated reverie, I was getting close to interview time, so I put down my controller and picked up my computer, ready to look at the websites I'd set up previously to provide work-related anecdotes to the interviewer. This is where things started to go wrong.

My phone rang. I checked the time: 1:55PM. "A little early," I thought.

It was my mother. "Hi! Happy birthday! By the way, we put Toonces down yesterday."

Toonces, my family's cat since I had been in high school, had lived a long and angry life. At 18 years of age, kidneys failing, his time had come. I'm not much for signs, but finding out about Toonces five minutes before my interview didn't seem to bode well (thanks, mom).

After saying goodbye to my mother I received the call I'd been waiting for, and it didn't go well. I believe that I represented myself well, but my area of expertise didn't quite match up with what they wanted (as I'd previously thought). Web developer, as it turns out, means different things to different people.

The call dragged on and at a certain point I lost interest. If I'd pushed, I probably could've gotten an interview onsite, but why bother? She and I both knew it wasn't going to work, so better to cut my losses and look elsewhere.

Happy birthday to me!

We've reached the two week mile marker, but I can't say I've actually moved forward in this endeavor.

I've sent out a number of resumes, but haven't had any response. I've filed for unemployment, but am not yet eligible to receive any benefits. I'm going to lose my health insurance at the end of the month and I haven't taken any steps at getting a replacement for it.

I know part of my lack of progress is my own doing… it's difficult to get any momentum when you're inactive. But the rest is… I'm not sure what the rest is—what am I doing wrong?

I haven't even received my first severance check yet, so is it too early to be worried? Probably. At the same time, I haven't heard a response on any of my applications, much less been called in for an interview. Why shouldn't I worry?

The search continues…

Since I started looking I've sent out five applications. To this point, no response. It's an odd feeling, being ignored. Do I wait a couple days for an answer? Do I email and follow up? At my previous job I would often review resumes and participate in interviews. Whenever an applicant seemed pushy I'd remove them from consideration — figuring out who to hire was hard enough without the added guilt of perceiving their desperation. Perhaps this is payback.

I found an ad for a part-time webmaster position today, it looked like something I was doing for my old company around four years ago. Do I go after this job and buy myself more time to find something better or do I stay on the search full-time? If it were just me I'd be leaning towards sticking to the search, but I've got other responsibilities. As much as I'd like to stick to the search I need to make money anywhere I can (of course, I probably won't hear back from them).

In addition to all the job searching I did today, there was time spent on unemployment as well. I put in my first request for payment and, as expected, received notice of pending issues on my account. I called the customer service line and they confirmed that my severance package would most likely delay me being eligible to receive payments. After the call I hopped online to fill out a self-assessment form to be reviewed by the unemployment office once I became eligible. This is where the fun really began.

I started out answering yes or no to a bunch of questions about how i was looking for my job. Was my search too narrow? Were my expectations unreasonable? All good questions. I answered them the way they needed to be answered, but beyond that I can't say that I answered them correctly. There were other questions, but I'm tired now and I think those questions are best saved for another post.

I promised a post on unemployment and I WILL DELIVER (some other time)!

I'm an unemployed motherfucker without any prospects.

Today was one big fucking waste of time. I added a resume on Monster and spent the rest of the day looking at various job sites — NO GOOD LEADS! Monster, HotJobs, 37signals and Craigslist, and no goddamn leads.

There were plenty of positions that seemed like possibilities, but I always came up short once I got to the technical requirements. Is it possible that after eight years at the same company my area of expertise has narrowed to the point that I'm only qualified to work for the people who laid me off? Un-fucking-believable.

On top of that I haven't heard back from any of the companies I contacted over the weekend. Not going to panic on those just yet (don't want to seem desperate) but I'm not feeling very good about that either.

I took a couple of days off, both from posting and from the job search.

The Dread, bolstered by a cold, had come on full bore. I couldn't get myself out of bed, much less send out my resume or be bothered to look for jobs.

It's a funny thing: where at first I'd been almost relieved to not have a job, I began to miss it, and to think on how much time I'd wasted. Eight years of forty hour weeks. It may not seem like much to people who've had to work two jobs or longer hours, but to me it's been my entire working life. Everything before that was completely insubstantial and everything after, at this point, is hidden by fog.

I'm left with fog and a quarter of my life wasted, and when I imagine my next job, I can't see anything lasting so long. I was going to be a lifer; if I'm not a lifer there, how can I be one anywhere else? So I slept in, stopped keeping score, stopped trying to be positive.

The fog lifted a bit today, even though I'd been planning on taking the weekend off — a ridiculous idea given the "work" I'd been doing during the week. After sleeping in to an appropriately late time, my girlfriend and I went furniture/grocery shopping. It was nice getting out of the house with her without feeling guilty about not spending every waking moment trying to chase down a job that I'm not sure I want. After we got home, she helped me finalize my cover letter and resume, and I send them off to a couple decent-looking prospects.

Finally, a stab at contact with the world of the working!

We'll see how it goes.

Today, I got up at 9:45AM. Better than yesterday, but…

Recession: 104, CotR: 4

I'm beginning to feel the Dread. I didn't have a list for today, and I don't have one for tomorrow. The things I have left to do aren't related to finding work — renewing my license and cleaning my car. I spent a couple hours looking through classifieds and I'm going to try to put as much time into the same activity every day until I've found a job. Beyond that what do I have to do?

I've always been a proponent of taking a lazy vacation. Every year, I try to take at least one week to spend time around the house, sleeping in and watching tv. This vacation, however, doesn't have an end in sight. The not knowing is daunting.

Today, I got up at 10AM.

Recession: 103, CotR: 3

I started the day thinking about my future.

The greatest challenge I face in getting a new job isn't in getting the job (well, it might be—we'll see what happens when I start applying), it's in deciding what job I want.

When I finished college I needed to get a job. I wasn't looking for a career—just a way to pay for rent and beer. So I got a job taking personal ads and, at times, responding to customer emails related to problems with the company website. I managed to parlay that (don't ask how—I got the job even though I was wearing my sweater inside out and didn't know what a URL was) into a job setting up small business websites. From there I moved to positions in quality assurance and modifications (working on our more complicated sites). I worked at that company for over a year. Once I'd had enough of them (it was basically a telemarketing scheme) I started looking through the local classifieds, where I found my current—nay, former—position.

All of that is a long-winded way of saying that I didn't get my former job because I love the work. I got it because I needed a job, then needed a job, then needed a job.

So, what now?

Thanks to my severance package I have time to look, time to think. Do I want to continue on as a web developer? Do I want to do something else in the industry? Or do I want to do something else altogether?

At this point, I can't say I know.

Recession: 104, CotR: 3

After I'd wasted a couple hours thinking about my future I moved on to something a little more tangible: my resume.

Not much to say there—worked from a couple examples, attempted to cobble together something that might get me hired. Another piece of advice: even if you have a job, make sure to update your resume every couple months. Remembering the exact names of companies I worked for eight years ago, and the approximate dates I worked for them, turned out to be harder than expected.

Recession: 104, CotR: 4

Recession: 1, Child of the Recession: 0

A little background: I'd worked remotely for the last year plus, affording me a very flexible schedule. Over the weekend I decided that I should start getting up at 8AM every day during my job search, helping me adjust to working what I'm sure will be an earlier schedule at my new job.

Today, I got up at 10AM.

Recession: 2, Child of the Recession: 0

Now, you might be asking why I, a Child of the Recession (henceforth to be abbreviated as CotR), would be competing with his father rather than basking in his patriarchal glow. Well, what child hasn't wanted to slay his father and bed his mother (for our purposes, my mother is the Economy)? I am the bastard product of their union. I was brought into this world screaming and jobless, and now I aim to make him pay.

Upon further consideration I need to adjust the score - he scored his first point when I lost my job. It seems to me that an achievement of that level deserves more than a single point.

We'll give him one hundred points for taking my job, bringing our total to Recession: 101, CotR: 0

I started the day by making a list. Lists are the backbone of surviving, nay, thriving, in the chaos that is a jobless day. If you take any piece of advice from me (make sure I get a job before accepting any of my advice), take this: make your lists, check them twice and make sure you achieve those goals in the time allotted for their completion. These lists have become your job - you will get paid in the satisfaction of not having wasted an entire day playing Madden 08 on your Wii.

Here are the list items for the day:

1. Sign up for unemployment
2. Fill out and send in final expense report
3. Mail out waiver and keys
4. Work on resume

Sign up for unemployment: This was a soul-sucking, heart-rending experience I will detail in a later post. It's done now, and let us thank the gods that it is.

Fill out and send in final expense report: As a web developer, I often visited our clients and in those times incurred expenses for which I was regularly compensated. I filled out my final couple months of expenses and emailed them to my ex-manager. 'Nuff said.

Mail out waiver and keys: When the position I held with my company ceased to exist, the company was kind enough to offer me a severance package in exchange for me waiving the right to sue them. I wasn't really planning on suing them so I agreed to these terms. In addition, I included keys to the company apartment in New York. This is, quite possibly, the thing I will miss most about my job. Signed and dated, dropped off at the post office. Done and done.

Work on resume: Since I'd worked at my company for eight years, and in that time I hadn't pursued any other jobs, my resume has remained in the same state that it was those many years ago - on a floppy disk in a word perfect file format. Rather than attempting to recover the file (I don't even know where the disk is) I've decided to start from scratch. At the moment I'm supposed to be working on my resume, but since I've completed three of my four list items I've lost my will to work.

Hmm…

Recession: 102, CotR: 3