nice of you to notice the call back

My shoulder is completely f*cked. No idea what happened. Reached for something like normal and now it's been on fire for days.

Somehow managed a doctors appointment after calling yesterday. Really hoping it's just a muscle pull and not a tear.

An update on my career search for anyone following my saga.

Next week is my final unemployment appointment. They said they're not going to grant me the standard 26 weeks of benefits and instead will hand me the first job they Google and if I don't accept it it counts as my refusing to work and they'll cancel my benefits. I'm hoping my anxiety and panic aren't exacerbated by the job they hand me.

And my career counselor screwed up yet again and said she forgot to request a required document back in early February when I qualified for the IT apprenticeship, delaying the process for over six weeks and counting while my unemployment benefits are rapidly expiring.

I did the work for her and tracked down the document from the apprenticeship organization, but noticed that they just changed the cost of their program to almost three times the price. This may delay the federal grant approval even further. I've reached out to them for clarification to hopefully have this resolved soon.

There is good news. I applied to a warm lead for a government job back in January. They just got back to me and I had a phone interview this morning. A friend of mine works there doing the very job he referred me to saying he was confident I would excel there.

The supervisor I spoke with said I did excellent, said I have an incredibly professional and calming phone voice, and said I am likely qualified for much higher-paying positions at the organization. He said I should receive an email or call from their out of state HR department and if approved can start in as soon as 6-12 weeks. I aced the interview!

And as it is a government job, the listed benefits absolutely blew my mind. I had never seen anything like them, and it vanquished my fears of not being able to take a day off here or there throughout the year to see my girlfriend in Canada if I’m able to secure and keep the job.

Benefits would include:

- 13 to 26 days of paid annual leave
- an additional 13 sick days annually, with unlimited accumulation
- an additional 11 paid federal holidays
- Work-from-home options
- Comprehensive federal health insurance for life
- Up to 75% of health premiums paid
- Flexible savings accounts to pay for health care expenses, tax-free
- Eligible for monthly retirement benefits after just 5 years of federal service
- Supplement your retirement with the tax-deferred Thrift Savings Plan, similar to a 401(k)
- Regular performance-based increases and accelerated increases for outstanding performance

and more!

The unparalleled health insurance alone makes it worthwhile for my routine health expenses. And in my first year I'd have more than 5 weeks of paid vacation time between PTO and sick days. And I'd be all set for early retirement.

Unfortunately another property of it being a government job is that it takes 6-12 weeks for their HR department to make a hiring decision. My benefits are scheduled for early-termination next week. I'm not sure what I'm going to do but I hope they hire me soon.

I was told to check my spam folder daily for the next 3 months.

Wish me luck.

depending on the job that unemployment finds for you maybe work there temporarily so that you can put food on your table until the government job comes through since it will take awhile.

That's great news ISB! Really rooting for you; that would be a great position for you and you certainly deserve all those benefits and the security such a job brings, with the potential to move up in the pecking order.

Yeah, I would just take the job this idiot gives you, wait to get hired for the real job, not turn up once you do, and when/if they ring just say "My country needs me. Who am I to say no?"

ISB! ISB! ISB!

Thanks, TH. It does me well to write those little posts during this uninsured time where I can't afford to see my therapist, so thank you all for permitting me to micro-journal here.

I am as productive as possible while unemployed. For example, I did 38 tasks yesterday alone including acing the interview, then applied to 6 other jobs to hopefully secure temporary work while waiting for the HR dept of the government agency to push their paperwork, (estimated as I said at 6-12 weeks). Then I found the federal employee health insurance plan option website and constructed a system to run the numbers for all available plans with my annual fixed medical expenses to derive the lowest-cost plan for myself just in case I do win that job.

But the idle time between my flurries of productivity are a real challenge. I may have mentioned previously that I'm not comfortable taking on any new projects or hobbies while everything is in flux career-wise, so there are stretches of hours where I have nothing to do. I don't own a television but I try to listen to some music from my server and am reminding myself to enjoy this freedom while I have it. I proactively schedule plans for social outings and events so that I have things to look forward to. That way I don't slip into an unhealthy headspace. But it's still a challenge.

Next week will be interesting when I find out if there are in fact terminating my benefits early. I'll keep everyone posted. I hope to have good news soon.

Thanks for everyone's support and encouragement.

I had some free time this afternoon so I set myself to a task. I researched literary agent databases, found a promising source which wasn't behind a paywall, and then performed a full-search for agents who publish non-fiction music books who are actively accepting email queries and new clients. I found 69 resulting agents, then researched each one to build a database of potential matches for my book.

More than half of them had broken links to their listed websites so I had to reverse-search those entries to find their current active sites and contact information. I also documented any details about their fields of specialty which align with my writing so I can call attention to those elements in my queries. When I was reading about strategies for proposal and query-writing they said to personalize your message to stand out from other submissions and to show that you've done your homework on the agent.

Tomorrow I'll start drafting query letters for the 24 best matches I found today. Projects like this are far-healthier ways to make use of my idle time rather than scrolling mindlessly though social media. It felt good to accomplish something today.

Maybe I'll find a print publisher! :)

TIL that my wife

*Juggalette

And ICP > Linkin Park

Accurate.