My Pandemic Life: The Unemployment Saga

Local library following proper mask protocol.

What a year 2020 has been so far. We are only in the month of July but it has felt like an eternity. Does anyone else feel that way?

annnyywayyyyyyy

My 2020 definitely has not shaped out to all I thought it would be. Right at the end of March, I was downsized from my first job due to the pandemic. To be completely honest, I could feel it in my bones, I knew I was going to be let go. It was just a matter of when. My last couple weeks of work, I was working from home like the rest of the world but I was incredibly bored. With clients halting just about all of their projects, I didn’t have much pressing work to do. I was taking my time with the work that I was doing and got creative in ways that I thought I could help others. However that definitely wasn’t enough and I was understandably let go.

I was now officially unemployed…

It was a surreal feeling really. I didn’t quite know what to do. The thought of the future was scary because it was now a big black hole all whilst a global pandemic was raging AND the economy was starting to crash. (Now, I don’t know much about the economy but I do know that a bad economy = less jobs) Yikes.

Now that I have been living the unemployed lifestyle for a couple months. I am able to reflect and profoundly say that…this sucks.

However, I would love to preface the rest of this blog with the fact that I am so grateful to my former employer for every single experience that I had working there. I developed and honed in on many skills and got my first real taste of being a working professional. I completely understand why they had to let me go. As The Godfather would say, “It’s not personal. It’s strictly business”’

Now, officially on the job hunt (along with millions of other Americans), I was living out this curious time in history with a lot of time on my hands. My days have been spent researching companies for possible openings, updating resume information and brainstorming ways that I could make myself more “hire-able”. As the months of unemployment went on my anxiety and worries about the future only continued to grow. I was going back and forth between weighing my options of taking any job offered no matter what to waiting it out and finding the right position to build my career.

Nonetheless, no matter what I “decided”, it wouldn’t matter unless I had an actual offer rather than a few leads. I wanted to shout into the void of unemployment screaming to anyone that would listen, “Hire me! Please!”

Constant self-doubt started to creep into my everyday life. Feeling like I would never be happily employed again. Alas, I know that cannot be true but it felt like it was.

Today, I know that I am privileged to live “comfortably unemployed”. I am able to wait until the world starts to spin normally again. I have a roof over my head, food on the table and a place to lay my head every night. I have AC in the middle of the summer and have down time to take mental breaks from job searching. I have mentors and other professionals thinking of me if a position were to arise. I have a support system that can help carry my burdens if it becomes all too much.

Ace helps me fetch the tennis balls.

Now, there are other many other things that I have done during the pandemic that aren't so doom and gloom. Like, I started an Instagram for my dog, @TheGoodBoyAce (I am telling you, I have A LOT of time on my hands). I've read some books, played some tennis, taken lots of walks, and baked about what feels like 100 dozen chocolate chip banana muffins. These activities, along with the people I love, keep my grounded and make sure I know that I will be employed. I will enjoy my job. Everything will happen in its own time.