Thoughts (Part 2)

[ladynox25]

A number of people have suggested that I find a new job, move somewhere else, etc. I would very much like to do this, but at the moment I'm stuck.

Here's a typical workday for me:

Get up at 6 am, check email and LJ (10-15 minutes), get dressed and have breakfast, get lunch together (15-20 minutes), leave for work.

The commute is an hour minimum if there is no traffic, all the lights are green, and the school zones are inactive. This is mostly not the case. Usually it's more like 1 1/4 hours, sometimes 1 1/2.

When I get into work, I check work email, LJ again, and CNN.com for news. Work is extremely variable, but always busy. And stressful. Lunch from 11:30 to 12 noon. I leave around 5 pm.

The commute in the evening is a little longer than in the morning. If I leave 5 minutes early, I can miss some of the worst of it. I have to stop on the way home every other day to get gas. I drive a SUV and it uses up 3/4 of a tank to commute two days to work. My gas bill per month right now is $200 (~$20/tank, a tank every other workday, 5 workdays/week, 4 weeks/month). And that's the cheapest gas I can find.

When I get home, we eat dinner (20-30 minutes). Breakfast and dinner are the only times I have to read during the week. I have an enormous backlog of books calling my name right now. Anyway, after dinner I do the dishes (15 minutes). So we're now down to around 7:15, 7:30 pm. I go to bed at 9:00, 9:15 at the latest.

So out of a typical work day, I have two hours maximum to find another job. Two hours in the evening, when everyone I would need to phone or whatnot is also at home. This also leaves me no time for myself, no time to unwind from the stress of the day.

On the weekends, I'm usually doing chores around the house, or shopping for groceries, etc., or taking my car in to be serviced. My car gets maintenance every 5000 miles, that is about every other month right now. When I have time on the weekends, I usually divide it between quietly doing nothing more than think (a vital necessity) and catching up on my reading or online activities.

You do the math.

No, I'm not currently looking for a job. One of the reasons I'm wanting to get a place of my own nearer where I work is precisely to free up more time so I can spend it looking for another job.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_constantine/]

Okay, I'm seeing a contradiction here. You want to find a place closer to where you work so you can spend more time looking for a different job, which may be located somewhere else entirely.

And if you have time to look for a place to live, why are you not instead spending that time looking for a job?

It seems to me that you're putting the cart before the horse. You've accepted the fact that you want to move. You should look for a job first, and the lack of firm geographic boundaries (because you're intending to move anyway) will leave you with more options than if you move first. Why would you want to move first and then limit yourself to only looking for jobs within your new geographic locale? That makes no sense.

As for not having enough time, in addition to my comments above, I would point out that many other people do more than you do now. When I get home dinner is not waiting for me, I have to cook it first. I have an entire house to maintain and clean all by myself. I'm not saying this to berate you but rather to point out that there demonstrably is a way for you to do this, and you just need to figure out how. But just "doing the math" and resigning yourself to "being stuck" ain't gonna get you anywhere.

Why not do some job hunting when you get into work, instead of checking CNN? Can you really not live without knowing what the body count in Iraq was today or how many millions of chickens were slaughtered because of bird flu? You can post your resume to Monster or any of the dozens of other web sites, it would take maybe 5 minutes per site and what have you got to lose by at least trying?

Can you look for a job during lunch? Even if you don't eat lunch at your desk with internet access, you can still cruise the newspapers. What about signing up with headhunters? They do the work for you, at a minimal investment of time from you. You think it could hurt to try?

If you want to change your situation, it's going to take some effort and sacrifice. And when it becomes important enough to you, that's when you'll finally accept the sacrifice and start doing something about it. All I'm seeing here is excuses that are telling me that it obviously isn't important enough to you just yet.

Just my $.02.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

I drive a SUV and it uses up 3/4 of a tank to commute two days to work. My gas bill per month right now is $200 (~$20/tank, a tank every other workday, 5 workdays/week, 4 weeks/month). And that's the cheapest gas I can find.

Maybe I've missed something obvious here, but it looks like you could save a lot of money simply by driving something that's not a SUV. They haven't made them mandatory in Texas yet, have they? :-)

[texas-tiger.livejournal.com]

No, SUVs are not mandated by law.

This car was my parents' and it passed to me. While the title is still offically in my dad's name I pay everything on it. And I didn't have to purchase it, so it's what I drive.

I couldn't afford one of my own at this point, though in about 3 years when the Explorer gives up the ghost, I'll probably be able to.

I will definitely be getting something with better gas mileage. A sedan, most likely. Used.

[larabeaton.livejournal.com]

I recommend a very low-impact form of searching for another job. On Monster, you can set up email alerts for all of the posted jobs that match whatever criteria that you've entered. Many other websites do the same thing, so you can do multiple weekly searched with hardly any effort at all.

This saves a fair chunk of work.

I also suggest finding another job before finding somewhere to live. It's much easier to find an apartment near where you work than it is to find a job near where you live.