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10/06/2006: "feelin' a mite low"

No, that's not true. If anything, I'm feeling entirely flat today. Disheartened, downtrodden, and generally beaten could also describe my feelings today. It would be all too easy to blame the full moon, but I know that it's much simpler than that: I've got career crisis fatigue.

I graduated from a very good school, with what is arguably a very marketable degree. So why on earth have I been struggling over the past 4 years to get on track? Admittedly I have historically lacked focus in my job search, but that has been taken care of. What I'm lacking now is a network, and immediate work. Sigh.

This past week was a flurry of work-related activity. On Monday I visited not one but two recruiters about positions, one of them alluringly here in town, the other in Mississauga right next to the airport. The interview for the Mississauga job went very well; they know about me going back to school and are willing to do a contract for that period of time. The local job, sadly, evaporated before I even got a chance to interview. So right now Mississauga is the only thing going.

On one hand, it would be good to just say, "OK, I've got work that will take me from now until the start of school." After all, the company is big, it's stable, it's interesting, the general manager would be a great person to work under, and the pay would be better than I've ever made. The only problem is the location. I clocked it coming home from the interview, and with virtually no traffic problems it was still 70 minutes door-to-door. That would be nearly 12 hours a week of JUST DRIVING. Not only that, but to ensure it's not significantly more due to traffic, I'd have to shift my hours like I did last time I was contracting in Mississauga, and work something like 7am-3pm. That means up by 5am, which means bed by certainly no later than 10pm, which will really eat into what little "me" and "us" time Jannette and I get.

Then there's also the whole car thing. Jannette and I had the same thought on this; don't sell the car, and just have two going at the same time. I drive one back and forth, and she has use of the other. I'm not crazy about the idea of taking on another car payment, even if it is only for the life of the contract.

Working and driving that much will also likely mean that the amount of work I can do for Gerald's will be very, very, VERY limited. There is an upcoming project that he is going to need me for, but if I'm working 40 hours a week and driving 12, he's going to be lucky if I can squeeze in 4 or 5 hours on the weekends to do work for him.

Yes, I'm definitely feeling beaten.