To Job or Not To Job

So.  Here it is, thirty months since we closed the restaurant.  And I’ve visited the “I need a job” question once or twice in that time.

About a year ago, as I recall, I was really wrestling with it.  Wanted—needed—something to do, but didn’t really feel that The Universe was on board with me striking out in that direction quite so soon.

But, you know, I sent resumes out there.  And I continue to do so, from time to time.  It’s not like I’m conducting a serious job search.  I mean, I don’t need a job that bad.  In fact, I don’t think I could allow myself to need a job that bad.  Financially, we are doing fine on what the husband brings home right now.  It’s not like I wouldn’t like to have a little extra income—mostly to throw at the lingering debt from the restaurant that’s hanging around our necks.  But if there’s anything I might hate worse than having wasted most of five years owning my own restaurant, it would be that I spent an almost equal block of time previous to that looking for a job.  There are few things I loathe more than job searching.  Hard to say whether that attitude existed before that period of time, or was a product of it. 

In reference to those few resumes I have floated out into the ether since closing the restaurant:  It’s funny, but I’ve had a pretty good track record on them.  I think I’ve sent out three resumes in two and a half years, and I’ve gotten calls back on all three of them.  Which sort of gives the lie to the idea that I have in my head that my resume is crap that is hardly fit to line the bottom of a bird cage.

Of course, none of these has actually led to a job offer.  The first one--a cook position at an Assisted Living facility--generated a call back left on my voicemail;  when I called back to speak to the person who had left the message, he/she was not available.  So, I reasoned, I guess they don’t really want me that bad, so I didn't follow up...and neither did they.  Evidently I was not ready to seriously entertain the idea of going back to work.  So any excuse that got me off the  hook was good enough.

The second was the Wild Bird Shops job, for which I spent fifteen minutes on a tedious “telephone interview”—which took place months after I had answered the ad—and then I never heard from them again.  Not even to say, “Sorry, we hired someone else.”  Classy.  Who needs that kind of crap?  So I didn’t send out another resume for almost a year.

Last month, I came across an ad that struck my fancy.  But once again, I heard nothing from the employer within a reasonable span of time, so I forgot about it.  Until I get this email yesterday, saying something to the effect of, “Remember you answered our ad over a month ago?  Are you still interested?”

So, I thought, what the heck?  I’ll tell them I am. 

Which resulted in, today, my first face-to-face, bona fide, real live job interview since 2002. 

I had no idea what I was doing, had no plan of what to say, just figured I’d show up and see what happened. 

How did it go?  I've never been able to read these things accurately...when I think I've aced an interview, I never hear from the employer again.  When I think I sucked, they pant after me as if I were some prize nugget.  I am NOT going to do the whole, "Call them back, send a thank-you note, get your post-interview oar in there one more time."  It's a part-time job baking cookies, for god's sake.  I either have the chops for it, or I don't. 

The owner told me I would hear one way or the other by Friday.  It will be interesting to see if this actually transpires…