Chapter 17 - Full Circle

Hi Reggie,



I want to take a moment to thank you for your interest in -------. While your past skills and experience are impressive, we didn’t feel there was a strong fit for our current opening.

I enjoyed talking with you and want to thank you for the time you spent with us and for your interest in the position. Please feel free to watch our careers page and apply if something in your interest area opens up.

Thanks again and good luck in your search.

Sincerely,

[HR rep]

My reply:

Thank you, -----.

I have updated my profile in your database.

{To anonymous -- an announcement to you, not the HR rep}

*****

I have had the most amazing conversations with men.

I am now 43 years old. "While my past skills and experience are impressive, no one seems to feel they are a strong fit for their current opening."

I am fine.

I've talked to men about my age and predicament. One has a web design business. From time-to-time he goes for interviews -- mostly for the fun of it -- passes their written examinations and their verbal queries. Yet, "though his skills and experience are impressive..." they hire "Joe College."

I am fine.

I talk to men that are in the same predicament. We have past skills that are impressive, or we're overqualified "based on our years of experience."

I am fine.

What's interesting about our conversations is that we have the same fears, the same self-doubts, the same prayers unanswered. We have the same hopes, the same dreams, the same aspirations -- to feed and provide for our households.

I am F.I.N.E.

But here, the acronym does not mean "Freaked Out, Irritated, Neurotic, and Erratic." At the beginning of the blog, I admit it probably did.

I have lived beyond severance, beyond benefits, beyond unemployment checks. I've managed to survive a semester at the University of Texas, Austin in Astronomy. I'm going back in the fall for two classes and a project with youth at middle and high schools. I've commented in two women's books: "Life is a Song Worth Singing" (poetry) and "Secret Sins of the Heart" (memoir) by Clarissa Bolding and Rachel Caron. I'm working on the commentary for a good friend, Joe Brundidge on his book of poems "The Naked Truth of Element 615" (his stage name). I have enrolled in a copywriting course that apparantly came at the right time.

I take no credit for the above blessings, for these blessings are from Above.

So, I am F.I.N.E.: Fired up, Inspired, Naturally talented, and Ecstatic.

I realize that I have the right to control what something means.

So, as an act of faith and not of vengeance, I am pulling my resume from all sites: Monster, Hot Jobs, Drake Beam Morin and specific company alerts. This should please the Bureau of Labor Statistics: the unemployment rate is only tabulated for the persons receiving benefits. In an Orwellian sense, I have voluntarily become an "un-person."

I will not apply for or receive unemployment benefits. I will live by my talents and live well.

My past skills and experiences are impressive, and those that feel I am not a strong fit for their organization will soon see what they have lost. The fact is, they cannot pay me the amount I am truly worth. I AM priceless.