Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Why do I even try?

I've now been unemployed for a little over two months. Resumes and cover letters have been flowing out of my printer and sent off like little pigeons. Unfortunately they don't seem to be homing pigeons, because nothing has been coming back so far.

I had to attend a mandatory meeting about looking for work and the opportunities that are out there. It was pretty depressing to hear that, although the average unemployment rate in Ohio is 7%, for our county it's 11%.  Didn't sound very good to me. One of the presenters was from the local vocational school, talking about adult training classes that were available.  Coincidentally, I used to teach classes there myself.  Anyway, he passed out a brochure that listed the various things available. A major drawback to any of the classes is the school location...on the other side of the county. It would be a 70 mile drive to attend classes which means spending $70 to $100 a week in gas. Not very likely.

So, I noticed that one of their classes was offered online and it sounded like something I could handle. Hot dog! I asked the presenter about it, and he said "Yeah, the whole course is offered online," so I checked the box on the form we had to turn in at the end of the session that I was interested in training classes.

The following Monday I called the school to inquire about when classes would be offered.  Surprise #1, not until September. Five months from now. Bummer. Okay, how about the online component of the class? Surprise #2, we don't offer that anymore...the brochure is out of date.

Come on, people. If you're giving out information on what's available, at least you could make sure it's current!  I mean, the brochures were obviously printed with a color laser printer hooked to your computer...is it too much trouble to go in and edit your document?

In other news, my wife's cataract surgery has been put on hold due to an unexpected rupture of a blood vessel in the eye. A trip to her retina specialist was unproductive last week, too much blood occluding the retina. He couldn't see anything, much less do any laser work on it.  We're going back in a couple of weeks for him to take another look, hopefully the blood will have settled and he can work on the eye then. If not, she may be in for some more serious surgery to do the repair.

Her gastric bypass is still on track, no setbacks on that front. She's been very serious on her diet and has lost at least 7 pounds so far. I'm very proud of how well she's doing.

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