I've been juggling a few things and had a few deals pending that I was waiting to see the outcome before I posted anything here. Now I have a few answers.
I'm still waiting for my dream job. If anyone knows of a county, state or village public service (police, fire, EMS, sheriff, etc. who is hiring a dispatcher, please let me know. I'm pretty sure that's my next big direction.
In the meantime, I have continued searching for something to get the family through. I landed a part-time temporary job helping to set up the new Peebles store in Bowling Green. It's just for 10 days, from April 20 to 30, but during that time, I hope to be able to convince the manager to keep me as a part-time employee once the store opens. I'm pretty sure I can do that since she was considering me for the assistant manager position...but THAT is a completely different story that I'm not going to post here.
Additionally, I have begun volunteering as...well, I'm not sure exactly what yet.
I have met a couple of times with a guy who owns an internet/video/print publishing company in the area, who is looking to expand a portion of his business. When I walked in for the first meeting, the first thing he said to me was "we're not hiring right now, but your resume, cover letter and skill sets, and knowledge of the town and the people intrigued me."
My first thought was "if you aren't hiring, why are you wasting my time?"
But in talking to him, I am coming to see the vision of what he is trying to do, how I fit into that, and how I can earn a living from doing that. Since I thought at the time that I was about a day away from landing a full-time job, I volunteered to work for free to prove myself and show him what I could do, and we could discuss payment later.
I did some brainstorming on how we could make his idea work and who we could tap to make that happen. Things began to take firmer hold during our meeting yesterday.
Things still progress, and I won't be paid for anything there for at least another month, maybe two or three...but this project is in very early stages, and until he gives me the green light to proceed, I won't really be doing anything that will let me earn my keep, and that's fine. I would rather make sure the business plan is in place, along with the map that will guide the process forward.
This morning, I also made an amazing discovery. Without discussing numbers, I realized that between Jenn being laid off for part of last year, and having Kaleb and taking off a month and a half, she made about as much last year as I am expecting to make this year. And now that she is back to work and full-time and she has started earning her bonuses again (YEAH!!!!!!), she will make about as much as I did last year.
The point is, we are no better or worse off than we were last year. We are in about the same boat. I am looking forward to the time when we both have full-time jobs for an entire year. We haven't had that yet, and we don't know what our potential is in that direction. When we DO both manage to keep a job for an entire year, THEN we will really be on our way. I'm really excited about that prospect.
For now, I'm still exploring my options, applying for some good stuff and some not-so-good stuff, and I have a couple of other projects in the fire that I'm waiting to see how they turn out before I announce anything.
I think it was the theme song for the Mary Tyler Moore Show that said, "We're gonna' make it after all."
