Jobs

For the next month or so I will likely be quite anxious about my job situation for the coming year. I have five interviews and I feel good about those options, but there are still a lot of unknowns as to how the remaining interviews will go and which places (if any) will provide offers. Additionally complicating the process is the fact that half of the applications I sent out won't even be read until after this round of interviewing and offers is complete. I guess this is how looking for jobs works in the real world and it is very unpleasant.

I visited a friend from graduate school this weekend who moved for a great job to Merced, California. If you've never heard of Merced, it makes sense, because not much happens there. It's located midway between Modesto and Stockton in the Central Valley, which I think is telling if the points of reference are cities I've never heard anything about. It just made me very grateful about living in a city and having cultural options to explore. I'm sure there are great things about Merced, but at dinner on Saturday at Big Bubba's BBQ when we got our balloon animal hats before the staff did a line dance, I knew I could never live there full time.





































Still, when I am riding the train to work in the morning I pass by an area of San Bruno where there is a Home Depot and in the parking lot I often see 20-25 men standing in various groups and configurations. I assume these men are waiting for people to pull up who need help with cheap manual labor. I think of how scary that life would be to wake up each day and hope that someone will pull up to your group and offer you money for physical work. There is no guarantee, there is no security, and who knows what they make in a given day. I am aware my problems are less dire than the men I see every morning and that makes me grateful.