Monday, April 01, 2013

The Situation (Day 22)

Grace took the kids out of the house for a while, specifically to eliminate the risk of noise and interruptions during a phone interview I had scheduled for 11:30 this morning. But 11:30 came and went and I did not get a call. At 11:40 I tried to call my contact person, and left her voice mail. I've tried again, but it just goes to voice mail. I'll send an e-mail and try calling after 1 p.m. I'm not sure what happened. It seems like a very promising job lead. If this was an April Fool's joke it is in very poor taste.

So I waited around, and waited around... and then of course the downstairs phone started ringing, and I was scrambling to get down there in case they were calling _that_ number for some reason. (I took pains to try to make sure _which_ number they'd be calling -- specifically, my wireless home office phone). Anyway I missed that call on our MCI wired line, and then by that point I really, really needed to pee, and of course it rang again while I was in, ummm, mid-stream... but it was my father calling, not my interviewer.

I was supposed to get (in the mail) a password for the MI Unemployment Insurance Agency web site. It should have come last week. It didn't come, so yesterday I went on the web site to request a new one. The web site then said that it was only available 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday. I guess the state's web servers are unionized and demand overtime if they have to answer HTTP requests after-hours. Today I tried again and it said a new password would be e-mailed to me... but then it asked me for my e-mail address again and said a new password would be physically mailed. I haven't seen anything in my e-mail in-box or junk mail folder, so I'm guessing the first claim is a lie -- or else maybe the mail queue on the state's server is taking its mandated lunch break. I guess I'll give it a few days to see if the second claim is also a lie. I have a sinking feeling this is going to turn into something really stupid, like today I get the physically-mailed password I was supposed to get a week ago but because I requested a new one, it's been reset... or else I'll get an e-mail with my new password which has also been invalidated because they are mailing a new one, and when I get that one I'll find my account is blocked due to excess password requests.

I need this password because I'm supposed to be reporting on my job search contacts. I was able to report my first week using an online form. I guess I could switch to mailing in paper forms, but I've already gotten my notes typed into a text file. What (another) tedious thing this has turned into!

Yesterday I completed paperwork for the job that I was supposed to be interviewing for this morning. That involved grinding my teeth trying to figure out who would be the best references. They want "transcripts and diploma." Finding my diplomas took a good chunk of yesterday. I scanned them and printed out copies. I am still looking for my college transcript. I have not had to produce that in many years. I might have to see if I can get the College of Wooster to mail them a newly printed copy, assuming they still have that paperwork on hand after 24 years. I hope they do not demand my high school grades. That would be a first, and I am doubtful that I can even find them. They would have been with my mother's papers that I acquired when she died in 2007. If they still exist, some of them might be boxed up in our storage unit still languishing back in Ann Arbor.

Digging was actually kind of fun -- in the process, Grace and I unpacked a bunch of boxes we had put in our storage room, and that was exciting -- oh, look, a lot of books we haven't seen in quite some time! And a bunch of them we don't really care to see ever again! So we'll be giving some books away. I thought I had already unpacked all my CDs, but I was happy to find a box I missed, and so there are a bunch of CDs I have not heard in a few years. But I also discovered that, since packing up that box, I've re-bought a few CDs I already owned but which I thought were lost. Oops! Still, getting more stuff unpacked has to be counted as a win. I just hope I'm not going to have to pack it all up again in a month or two.

FOLLOWUP: my interviewer did call -- he called my cell phone... which I had shut off to avoid interruptions, since it often rings with people calling me when they can't get hold of Grace. The woman who scheduled the call had put put my office phone number in the meeting notice, but apparently the interviewer wasn't looking at that. In any case, I've re-scheduled.

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