This morning Michael wasn’t feeling very well. His allergies had him up at 3 am, and while I was getting dressed this morning for my interview at the temp agency he asked me if I’d mind driving myself to the interview.
Drive myself?
I hadn’t driven since February 2003!
I’ve had a license for nearly 5 years, and used it extensively when I lived in New York, driving from Syracuse to Rochester and all sorts of crazy places in between all the time in my old cars. But that didn’t mean I liked it. I hate driving.
That said, I’m not a bad driver.
Anyway, I agreed to drive myself, it wasn’t too far. I figured the little bit of nervousness I’d feel from driving for the first time in a year and a half would somehow counteract the nervousness I had for the interview.
I was mostly right, driving the Rav4 took some getting used to, it certainly doesn’t have the pickup that the Jeep had, but it’s a nice car.
I got to the temp agency a little after 9, found parking easily, and went in.
I impressed them with all the computer knowledge I had without attending college. I charmed them with stories of the hardships of web developing as a private contractor. But at the end of it all:
“Things are a bit slow. I have an administrative assistant job that a few people have applied for, but might not be filled yet, we’ll know by later this week. There is a data entry and customer support job that I’ll know about later this week. Oh, and if you want to start today you can take a stocking job at a local Department Store.”
This was rather discouraging. Administrative Assistant and Data Entry + Customer support jobs aren’t a problem, I’m willing to do those. But she didn’t seem hopeful about IT jobs coming in, contrary to what a woman I spoke with on the phone said. I expressed my concerns, and the woman actually gave me the name of another temp agency in the area that might be able to help me more! So I told her I’d consider the job options and get back to her, but I am not sure I will. Oh well, at least it wasn’t my performance that made this unsuccessful.
So I came home and made an appointment with that other temp agency for Thursday at 9:30 am (that was the earliest they could get me in). This place even has a website[1] with job listings that seem rather extensive. It’s all much more professional looking and sounding than the place I went to today. I’m hopeful I can get constant and good assignments, but we’ll see when I go in for my interview on Thursday.
I was a bit bummed by this morning though. I was able to salvage my day and send off a few resumes to some craigslist postings (one of which I later learned might be going to a friend of mine in the area, d’oh!). Also was able to send my resume to a friend of ours who knows some HR people in the IT world who might be able to help me out.
While trying to cheer myself up today, I remembered reading in my Home Comforts book an interesting tidbit about pancake mixes. Apparently pancake mixes that you buy from the store are pretty basic, and can easily be made at home with a few basic ingredients. So I decided to try to make some pancakes from scratch. But what kind? All I really have for sweet flavoring is cinnamon, so I looked for a cinnamon pancake recipe, and found this one. The dry ingredients make enough for 3 batches, you save the 2 batches you don’t use. It wasn’t any harder than making normal pancakes from scratch, as always the hardest part is cooking them in the frying pan so they look like normal edible pancakes. And it was all a success!
Too bad Michael had gone off to work, I would have liked to share this delicious acomplishment with someone. I’ll have to buy some whipped cream and make them on some weekend.
While I made these Caligula wasn’t much help. At least he stayed out of the way %)
Michael is picking up Indian food for dinner tonight, yum yum! He should be home soon, so I should wrap this up.
*wanders off*
[1] Right now I’m making a conscious decision not to mention company names I work for in my public blog. I’ve mostly stuck with this in the past, I’ve heard more than one horror story about people’s lives being harmed by workplace information posted in their blogs.