SGW: Look What Mommy Saw on Craig's List

Emma -- you may know her better as The Pole Dancer -- used to be this fancy pants numbers-cruncher phenom.  And then she had kids. And became this awesome SAHM who reads Proust and stuff to her kids.  But now they're bigger and gone to school and while Emma did have this job she sorta liked crunching numbers, she's really hoping to jump back into the working world. And not by dancing on a pole.

Enjoy!

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Is anyone else in the RfM community unemployed (not by choice) or underemployed? I am, and in an effort to “find the funny” I thought I would share my morning routine to rectify the job situation.

First stop, George Mason Univeristy website...I login to Career Opportunities and check on my status. I am attempting to gain entry to the hallowed walls of GMU as an employee. Currently my entry status is a big fat “DENIED”.  That status is starting to piss me off.  In the past two years - 5 resumes rejected without an interview, 2 interviews without a job offer and 3 currently pending. I am unsure of whom GMU is hiring, but I know who they are not hiring - moi.

At one interview they stated I was a top candidate, called to verify that I was willing to work for the salary offered (as it was a paycut), and then hired someone else. Whuck?  It's like dating in high school, fraught with embarassment and rejection.  The panel said "We felt that you may have been overqualified and the position may not have been challenging enough." Hmm, because my current days filled with being broke, carpooling, grocery shopping and cleaning up other people's body fluids are sooo fascinating.  And my MBA is being well utilized calculating the costs of summer camps.

Today, the only new posting is for a Molecular Biology Technician. While I feel like a molecular biologist when examining the contents of a lunch bag left in the car’s trunk for several weeks in the 102 degree heat wave or studying a substance on the carpet -- hmmm, front end or back end? human or canine? -- I doubt this is what GMU had in mind when they mention 3 years of experience. So I will not be lobbing another resume at the walls of GMU today. Maybe I should airmail the next resume at the campus with a stone and trebuchet.

Second Stop- CraigsList. I've been reading it daily this calendar year and have compiled a list of jobs I will NOT be applying for:

• Cereal Bowl Team - a restaurant catering to the cereal eaters of the world, brilliant, but not so much that I would commute to DC.
• Female Actor to Test Male Integrity - hmm, I suspect my husband would not support this job change...
• Party Staff for Shot Sales, Liquid AND Jell-O - this ad wanted GIRLS, and - at age 41 - I suspect I need not bother applying.
• Bad A** Pie Posse :P (poster's asterisks, not mine) - I had to ask what the emoticon at the end meant, so I guess I am not posse worthy. (Editor's Note: Mmmmm... pie.)

• Beer Pong Marketing Rep - I don't like beer and I haven't seen a T-Box rep advertisement to date
• Hand Worker - actually this ad was for stuffing envelopes. They need to rethink their marketing.
• Mobile DC Dessert Truck Sales - I wish I lived in DC...all my 'hood has is the creepy ice cream truck
• Overnight Hotel Hallway Monitor - for the busloads of HS kids on DC field trips...you could NOT pay me enough to apply for this position
• Kickball Rep - too funny.  Also, awesome.
• Judge Mathis Case Researcher - unique, but the courthouse was in Baltimore
• Cupcake Boutique Sales - so I can have cupcake ass to go with the muffin top - no thanks.

Even the more innocuous postings for "Assistant" will reveal some doozies once you click from the title to the description:

• Need a femail (poster's typo, not mine) 2x per week at my house for different duties - creepy much, anyone?
• 2 morning a week, introduce our delightful daughter (2 yrs old) to the world of art through the museums in DC - if I'm hauling children to DC to see art - those will be MY delightful IHP's
• 28 year old man child seeking assistant - once you read all the tasks he wants accomplished, what he really needed was a wife
• Help us take care of our Old Man and some errands - this post led me to shout at the children that if they ever put me on CraigsList in my dotage I was... and then the threat stopped because I was unable to think of something vile enough.  Suggestions?

But today there is nothing. Nothing funny, nor anything of interest. 3rd and 4th stops for the morning website trolling effort in hope and futility are the city and county websites. The city has one part time position for a Deputy Registrar for Voter Registration and the County has some part time openings for a juvie probation counselor, a wildlife biologist and a crossing guard. Sigh. And now the kids are late for camp...  Time to go be an unpaid suburban SAHM.

Until tomorrow morning. Until then, I'll be in the backyard building my trebuchet. If all else fails, I can sell it on CraigsList. The Bad A** Pie Posse will totally love it.


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