JOB HUNTING

I think I might have mentioned that I am seeking gainful employment. I try not to whine or put my panic on paper but I woke up this morning feeling as though my credentials or job strengths would fit on the back of a postage stamp. Not a good feeling. I can see my resume in my head. Specific skills ... I kick ass at kakuro and sudoku. Then I got stuck, couldn't think of anything else.

I am an accountant by training and education but a writer in every cell of my body. Writing, however, does not pay the hydro bill. I have moments of utter despair. Am I unemployable? Too old? Should I be put out to pasture?

So I sat and got nostalgic for a moment. (yah, I know ... my favourite pass time). I was remembering my first job. My first paying job this side of polishing my dad's shoes on Saturday nights for a dime. (First of all I remembered stashing my dimes in a pony hair change purse and then realized how morbid that was. Some pony gave her life so that I might save my coins in the pursuit of personal wealth - I felt regret, but I digress. )

I just realized I have my sweatshirt on backwards - no wonder I can't find a job.

My first job was at the Fort Frances Clinic where I walked round and round a large ping-pong table for 50 cents an hour. It was the new age of computers. The OHIP billing records came on dot-matrix printed forms that were all connected and would have stretched from one end of town to the other. They were sorted numerically and of course, had to be ripped apart and sorted alphabetically. I was thirteen and my comprehension of the alphabet became flawless. I got this job because my dad was the manager of the clinic and no one else wanted it, least of all him. I put on hundreds of miles around that table and learned immediately that my get-rich-quick scheme needed some tweaking.

I was promoted sometime later to filing clerk and part-time receptionist and general all purpose go-fer-girl. I loved working where my dad was, loved looking at him in his glass-walled office and knowing he was the most important cog in this wheel and feeling immense pride.

From that I became a dissector in the anatomy lab at university getting the cadavers (human bodies) ready for lab class the next day. Sounds gruesome but it was fascinating. I got paid $10 an hour, which was considerable in those days.

I worked for the Ministry of Natural Resources on creel census and deer survey and on fires. It sounds fun but the deer survey literally meant finding deer feces (yah, poop) and counting it. Glamorous? Not so much. I coloured maps for the MNR, too, and stayed between the lines.

I left university knowing full well I was not going to be a phys-ed teacher or use my minor in Calculus for the greater good. So I stumbled headlong into accounting and that took up the rest of my working life with a few side trips with my real estate licence and being a dairy farmer. Oh, it's all so colourful. The real estate thing was my most detested job. It was 1988. A chimpanzee could have made money, so that wasn't the issue. It was the selling thing. I would struggle to sell water in the desert. Selling requires a healthy dose of self-confidence. I'll say no more.

I was a flight attendant. In the north. Briefly. It was fun. I pretended it was glamarous, but I like the stories that have come from it, stories that give my past a bit of colour and shape.

My point is, I've held a lot of jobs over the thirty-four years of pretending to be an adult. The notion of feeling used up and/or useless is slightly overwhelming and wakes me from a deep sleep with alarming regularity and with night sweats that I refuse to blame on menopause. My resume (or should I say my CV) would be fourteen pages long if I rambled on about all the jobs and skills I have developed.

I've never been afraid before to try something new. Or perhaps I should state more clearly that I haven't been afraid to be afraid, if you know what I mean. So what has changed? Is this what aging does? Takes our courage and messes with it?

Maybe I could be a server in a lovely restaurant. I could make a pleasant evening even more pleasant for those who dine out. I'm friendly and cheerful. Or maybe a grocery store checkout person. The lady in Hanover always gives me recipe tips and makes me feel like we are friends. I could do that.

Or what about a hardware store clerk or in a building centre? I've built a barn. I learned a few things about power tools doing that. Surely that gives me some credentials to find the right aisle for the three inch screws with a robertson head. I know the difference.

I could be a greeter at Walmart but I'd rather not. Please, not yet.

I could pump gas but the cold makes me stupid and forgetful.

I could ....