Taking the daily train from jobworthy to suckworthy. Image source: dannychoo.com.

I haven’t worked in a while – at least at a regular paying job.  In fact, I haven’t worked a steady gig in almost 8 months!  That’s more than twice as long as any of my previous career gaps.

You know, I scan the job boards daily, chat with recruiters weekly, solicit my LinkedIn network accordingly, apply for every job that I fulfill requirements for (and then some), tweak my resume periodically and…nothing.

The phone just isn’t ringing.

Well, take that back.  It rang once in January and resulted in two interviews – an initial phone screen followed by a face-to-face.  But as the times appear to be dictating, the division I might have worked for was closed down last week, the victim of a massive budget cut.

> Sigh… <

I imagine many others with my skills, education and background are feeling the same way I do after untold hours of frustration and fruitless effort.  Or are they?

I’ll let you decide for yourself.  Listed below are fifteen reasons why “you know when you’ve been out of work too long when…”:

• You’ve already forgotten how to set your alarm clock since, frankly, you haven’t had a reason to use it in a while.
• You occasionally used to, but now you perpetually forget just what day of the week it is.
• You know a commute to be something a lame duck president gives his convicted cronies.
• You can go hiking any time you want to.
• You can drink wine with your breakfast.
• You have allowed yourself to acquiesce from delectable soul food to shoe-leather-tough sole food.
• You’ve seen all the free movies offered by Comcast On Demand – even the ones you swore you would never watch, like those sloven, puerile comedies featuring Larry the Cable Guy.
• The frequency of creditor calls is inversely proportional to your desire to communicate with anyone.
• You should be going stir-crazy – that is, if you could just summon up the emotional energy.
• Depression isn’t a prolonged economic meltdown - it’s the new four-letter word. Well, two words, really: “depression” used as a four-letter word - in any context - justifiably requires its own invective adjective.
• You’re sleeping a lot more than you did when you were working - but you’re still hopelessly lethargic.
• You’d love to be with your friends, but you know your own sense of generosity now gets you into trouble - and dang it, doing fun things with friends – those you still have – costs money.
• You only check the mailbox once every two weeks – for that unemployment check.  So you can still eat.  And have Internet.
• You forget whether you’re wearing pants or not, and you plain just don’t care.
• You start to identify with Larry the Cable Guy.

Larry the Cable Guy? Sheesh…  It’s clear that I’ve been out of work wa-a-a-y too long.  But I know I am a productive - possibly even influential - member of society.  (I still am, right?  Or can be again?  Pretty please??)

Clearly it’s time to git ‘er done – just as soon as I relearn how to set my alarm clock.

~winehiker