I’m starting to get really worried as to whether this whole thing is going to work out for me. It seems I may have made a bit of a mistake in moving my departure date up to when I did — I arrived in Seattle at a time when the job market is pretty nasty, and I’m getting really tired of being unemployed.
As all of my computer knowledge is self-taught and I hold no actual degrees that prove I know what I know, getting into anything computer-related at this point is something of a pipe dream. Since I knew that was a possibility, I had counted on being able to get hired on either at Kinko’s or Suncoast or both — I thought that eight years of experience plus Xerox certification on the DocuTech and DigiPath would give me a good chance at getting into Kinko’s, and I had just completed almost a full year at the Suncoast in the Dimond Center in Anchorage. Unfortunately, Suncoast is currently full with their summer hires and likely won’t be hiring until around the end of summer/beginning of the school season, so that isn’t happening to quickly; and Kinko’s has switched to a system where you can’t actually apply in person at a store — merely check their website to see where any openings are, and there aren’t currently any posted spots at the stores that I know I can get to easily.
At the moment, then, that leaves me still unemployed, pretty much broke (I’m down to my last $50 at the moment), and getting more and more disgruntled every time one more day goes by with no return calls or e-mails from the jobs that I’ve been applying for over the web. I’m about to start hitting the lowest tier of employment — everything I can find in the Capitol Hill area, from grocery stores to fast-food — just to see if I can get some form of income fairly quickly.
I just hate the fact that I have to end up doing that. Tons of computer knowledge that does me no good because I haven’t been certified in anything, close to a decade in the quick-print industry and I can’t get to a Kinko’s that has an open spot (and the other print shops I’ve checked with so far aren’t hiring), retail experience that currently is filled with summer hires…and all of a sudden, everything that looked so good and promising from Anchorage is starting to look frighteningly like a momentous waste of time and money if I can’t come up with something really soon. I’ve sold off or given away the majority of what I own that I felt able to part with, including my car, and have already burned through almost all my finances through the move down and into my Shoebox — even if I wanted to throw in the towel and head back to Alaska (something that I’m still too stubborn to resort to yet), I couldn’t afford to do that at this point. Something needs to come through soon…I’m not sure what I’m going to do if it doesn’t.
I just hope this wasn’t all a big mistake.
However, in slightly happier news, when I met up with Holly and Ryan at the Baltic Room last night, she reminded me that the girl who’s name I couldn’t remember in the last post is named Courtney, so now I can go through and fix that post so I don’t look quite so retarded. Hrm. Well, that’s something, I guess.