Stages of Joblessness

“The two hardest tests on the spiritual road are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter.” --Paulo Coelho

Stage One: Confidence:

My last day with my family in St. Maarten was also the first day that Fairfax County was going to list job postings for instructional positions.  So I did what seemed appropriate—I made sure my voice mail reflected that I was out of the country and wouldn’t be able to return calls, and I checked my e-mail almost obsessively before we left the condo with Wi-Fi.  Obviously someone might be calling to offer me the job just that quickly.

It was after midnight until we finally made it home and even though I knew it was smarter to just go to bed, I needed to check the job postings.  There they were—about twelve to fifteen positions for an English teacher, although only one school that I was hoping to see had something listed.  And still no e-mails or voicemails.

The next morning, shaking off the sleepiness, I got down to business, looking up schools, editing my resume and cover letter appropriately, and e-mailing the information out to principals.  The activity felt good and productive, and I felt positive about hearing back from some schools fairly soon.

Stage Two: Impatience:

You’d think that nannying a high-needs autistic boy for the day would keep my mind off of the fact that I haven’t heard anything from anyone about a job.  But no—it did not in fact keep me from refreshing the e-mail on my phone at least two dozen times.  The continued checking was largely fruitless—I got two e-mails from principals during the day.  Those e-mails told me that should my experience and outlook be what they were looking for, I would be contacted for an interview. Not exactly the response I was hoping for.

Later that night, after showering the sweat of the humid day away, I was thinking about how not worried I needed to be.  I’ve had positive interviews so far. I’m in the FCPS system as a highly desirable candidate.  I’ve had good rapport with a few department heads and assistant principals who have positions to offer.  And I’m damn good at my job.

In the space of a heartbeat, I heard the still small voice: It’s not about you.

And I knew—it wasn’t about me, it was about the job that I was called to do, the students I was called to teach, in whatever place I was supposed to be doing that.  There was too much I couldn’t control—it wasn’t about me, but about waiting and accepting God’s will in the situation.

Stage Three: Disappointment with a Dash of Hope:

I woke up this morning to an offer—an offer to interview at a middle school I had never heard of before, but it shot me with a moment of hope.  At least it seemed someone might be interested in having me teach for them next year.  I looked up the school and found it had an Alexandria address though it’s part of Fairfax County.  It wasn’t a perfect fit based on what I found—it was a huge middle school (about 2000 kids), it was farther away than I would’ve hoped, and the employee survey didn’t have people overwhelmingly satisfied with working there.  

I set up the interview for the next day, and then hoped to find more like it throughout the rest of the day.

I didn’t get any more e-mails. 

Stage Four: Openness

I woke up this morning praying that no matter what happened I would not make a decision based on fear.  I might love the school, but I didn’t want to do anything I would regret later because I was too scared to make the right decision.

I drove over to the school more quickly than I had expected to make the trip and found the school under serious construction.  Even though I had been warned, I didn’t expected to have to walk through several inches of mud where a torn up sidewalk had been.

I met with three members of the English department and felt a good connection with them, felt excited about what they had to say, and generally had a really good feeling about the entire school.  As I was driving away and found a quicker way back to I-495 than I had found before I felt positive about the entire experience. 

The department head had told me it would take about a week for them to get back to me about the position, which I told myself was normal and fine.  And I told me that gave me plenty of time to figure out if this was really what I wanted and for other people to want to interview me as well. 

Stage Five: Setting it Aside—Saturday and Sunday

Over the next two days I knew that no one was going to be in the office contacting me about a job, so I managed to have a good time with friends and actually not really worry too much about the whole situation.   I traditionally compartmentalize very poorly so I was considering the ability to do it at all, even in a normal, sensible way, a win.

Stay tuned for stages 6-12 soon...