I spoke too soon. So now what do I do?

Wouldn't you know it, yesterday I mentioned that it had been 5 weeks since the nuclear plant test and I figured I'd never hear from them again, and just half and hour ago they called me. They let me know I'd passed the test, and wanted to do a behavioural interview on the phone. Right now. Ok with me. So they asked a bunch of questions looking for examples of how I had handled various situations. I hate these kinds of questions. The situations are either something that happened so often that nothing specific came to mind, or something that never happened, or simply something that I could not remember. Well, I answered the best I could on short notice. If I passed this interview, the next step is what they call a technical interview. That is supposed to happen sometime in November.
And this brings me to a dilemma: what do I do if something else comes along in the meantime? Do I pass it up on the hope that I'll continue to be acceptable to the nuke plant? Or do I go for the 'bird in the hand', even though it may not be what I prefer to do.

I think I need chocolate to help me ponder this. Wax the brain to make it go faster.

Still here. Still (mostly) sane.

Not much happening around these parts. I'm doing my best to fight off depression and enjoy this time as much as possible. But the fact is I have a lingering fear that's always in the background. Sometimes it fades for a while, but it's always there.

It's been 5 weeks since I wrote the test for the nuclear plant (that's nuc-u-lar for a certain tool south of the border). I don't hold much hope that they'll call me for an interview, even though the status shown on their site still says "in-progress".

I had an interview for a place here in town. I would be doing basically the same job I'd been doing for the past 9 or so years, but at least I wouldn't have to move. I think it went ok, not great, but ok. Apparently I'm one of 6 interviewees picked from 50 applications, and this will be trimmed down to 2 to be grilled by the QA manager. If I don't hear back by the end of the week, I can forget that one as well.
I have another interview scheduled for Thursday in Toronto. I don't really want to work in Toronto, but a job is a job. I hate big cities. Other than these 2, I've had a few calls from headhunters, but nothing more concrete than that. Sigh.

The spousal unit has dragged me into something called NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. The idea is to write a 50000 word novel in the 30 days of November. At least it will keep me busy. I want to expand something very strange I wrote way back in high school. If only I can find where I put it...

We went to a Halloween type party thing last night on somewhat short notice. I was enjoying it, but after about 2 hours Spousal unit's stamina gave out and we had to leave. Too bad. Lots of amusing people, good food, and watching silly movies. We had watched Army of Darkness and were just starting Young Frankenstein when we left. Bah.

Thought of the day.

Spotted in a forum somewhere:

"There may be no 'I' in team, but there is a 'U' in suck!"

This is my kind of sport!

This is from Top Gear, one of my favourite shows.

http://www.glumbert.com/media/carshoot

Wouldn't that relieve some stress.

At least it would be quieter...

I've always said this would be a nice planet if not for all the damn people.

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg19225731.100-imagine-earth-without-people.html

The first day of the rest of my life...

Ok, here it is the first full day of what I'm considering a new chapter of life, or at least a (hopefully) short intermission between chapters. Today's goal is to maintain the positive attitude I forced myself into yesterday. So far, so good.
So I slept late, simply because we were up late last night with R&D watching the last 2 X-men movies. I hadn't yet seen #3, and D hadn't seen #2 either. I enjoyed #3 but didn't consider it quite as good as the other two. I can't say whether that's because of a different director, or the writing, or what.
Shortly after getting up, I dragged my groggy carcass to the car to drive Spousal-Unit to her volunteer thing at the local cable company. Then it was home for a quick shower to clean up and wake up, and back to the mall to figure out what's wrong with our new cell phones. That was cleared up quickly and painlessly, and it was off to return the X-Men3. Home again, some leftover pizza for lunch with a side order of channel surfing, and then to job hunting.
I must have about 30 or 40 bookmarks for agencies, search sites, and individual companies. I surfed through about half of these for new stuff and sent out 4 more applications/resumes. I'm not sure but I think things may be starting to pick up a bit. Perhaps now that we're into 4th quarter or something.
Now to play around a bit, maybe clean the kitchen a little. Pretty mundane and boring stuff, I know. But, so far, I seem to be keeping myself sane.

Bah! To hell with this!

Tomorrow will be the 2 month anniversary of me being fired. I hereby declare the period of mourning to be over. After considering how useless it is to be depressed and miserable all the time, and after a much needed boot in the posterior from the spousal unit, I am done with that crap. This post will be to tie off a few loose ends regarding this mess, and clear them out of my skull.
1. Yes, I did fuck up slightly. In no way do I believe it justified termination, but there is nothing I can do about it now. All I can do is learn from it and move on.
2. I will not volunteer any theories about why I was fired during future interviews. I did this once in the foolish belief that it is better to be honest. I strongly suspect that this resulting in me not being selected. Apparently honesty is not something that many HR managers appreciate.
3. My former employer (at least the individuals who made the decision) made a mistake. They threw away a skilled employee unnecessarily. Well FUCK THEM!!!, to be vulgar about it. Funny how this stuff never came up with the former manager I reported to. Bunch of boneheads.
4. The last 2 years with my former boss (often referred to as Napoleon by some former co-workers), have been mostly miserable. Very possibly I would have left voluntarily at some point anyway. The man has the personality of wet cardboard, but with the ego of Donald Trump, and the skills of damp dishrag. I can only hope that someday soon his bosses realize how truly ignorant he is, and that he is entirely dependent on his underlings. Look at it this way, before he came along our department lost 1 person in 5 years, after he took over we lost 5 in 2 years. I wish him much misery in future.

So that's it. That is a closed chapter. I'll continue to search for something else, start cleaning the house and packing in anticipation of having to sell and move, and hope for word from a certain particular place. I want to work at that place where I tested for 3 weeks ago. I want to leave the automotive industry, quality assurance, and maybe engineering in general. That is how bad the aftertaste is that I've been left with.
In the meantime, I'll go to the gym more to try to pack on some muscle and trim some flab; I'll play some games, write some blog entries, and try to be more pleasant to be around than I have been for the last 2 months.

Gone mad, back in 15 minutes.

Well, still no job. Not even a phone call. I called a few of the headhunters yesterday just to remind them that I'm still here. Basically, they're all saying that the job market is off this fall. Normally things pick up after Labour Day, but not this year so far. Just my farking luck. I've been applying to things here and there as they pop up, but it's just a trickle of opportunities, and I've yet to hear back on any of them. I suppose all the fun with Ford's and GM's financial problems are affecting the automotive job market, but the coming Toyota plant should offset some of that. One agent mentioned that the high Canadian dollar has affected many companies profit margins, and one of the first places they cut is new hiring. Understandable, but it won't pay my bills.

Some folks have been trying to tell me to relax and enjoy the time off. You have got to be kidding! If there was a definite time limit to this and I knew I'd have gainful employment at the end, then perhaps I could relax, but this uncertainty is driving me insane! My moods tend to swing anyway, but this is starting to border on manic-depression. There have been times lately when I have actually felt cracks forming in the old mental concrete.

The worst times are at night when I'm trying to get to sleep. That's when the doubts and fears start flowing in a full torrent. What if I can't find anything? Will we lose the house? Will we end up homeless? Will we lose everything we've managed to gain in the last 12 years? Of course in the rational light-of-day I realize things probably won't be that bad, but there are times I can't stop the scenarios of failure running roughshod through my frontal lobes. They've even gone to the point where I've imagined myself freezing to death out on the street some coming winter.

I've been trying to cope by medicating myself with chocolate (my main vice), going to the gym and exercising myself senseless, vegging in front of the tube, or playing computer games (the least effective). I've started studying programming in Python in order to keep my mind active. The weekly outings with friends is a huge help too.

Here's hoping I can keep my marbles together until I find something. In the meantime, perhaps I'll listen to some Goon Shows so at least I won't be afraid of the insanity.

(For those not aware of the joys of Goonery: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goon_Show )