Hunting

It begins yet again.

There are some activities that inspire nothing but dread from me. One of them is moving; packing up a bunch of junk, breaking a sweat along with your back hauling it to a new location, and then unpacking it feels like the biggest waste of time to me. I hate moving, if that wasn't clear.

The other activity I hate, the one that I am currently engaged in, is job hunting. Is there any process more demoralizing than looking for employment? Before my current nightmare- that is to say, my job- I was on unemployment for close to two years. In that period of time, I filled out close to 1000 applications, and sent my resume to countless businesses and organizations. I can count on one hand the number of actual interviews I attended. I fell into a deep funk that only the unemployed can experience. You feel a helplessness along with a bitter sense of uselessness as the days blend into weeks which blend in to months. It's a gloomy place to be in.

Now, thankfully I'm only dealing with the job hunting aspect; I'm still employed as of the moment, so that's a plus. My loathing of my current job is eclipsed only by my fear of being incapable of paying the rent, so I must use a considerable amount of willpower each shift to prevent myself from either walking out or saying something that will get me fired. Or both at the same time.

Looking back, I can pinpoint just when the job became unbearable for me. You've heard the expression "listen to your gut," right? It comes down to trusting your instincts and listening to that tiny voice in the back of your mind that speaks legit advice. You know, that part of your brain that is getting an atomic wedgie from the bigger, stronger, stupid part of your brain that watches Fox news and believes that politicians have our best interests at heart.

My gut warned me from the get go that I could very quickly be burnt out if I over did it at this job; my original shift was only 24 hours a week, which amounted to three 8 hour shifts. From there, I had plenty of time to relax and distance myself from the stress and B.S. of the job. And between August 2013 and January 2014, that worked out splendidly. But then the added expenses of student loans reared its ugly bucktoothed face, and suddenly I found myself needing more money.

"Where's my money?"

Logically, I did what most reasonable, intelligent people do: I requested more hours. And for anyone else, that might have been fine. But not me; that precious little voice in the back of my mind was overruled by the rest of my brain and  getting a swirly of epic proportions.

It was a mistake to start working full time at this place; I knew the added stress would get to me, but I foolishly ignored my gut and jumped in the deep end, not realizing I wasn't wearing any floaties. Now I know that logically, I did the right thing; I gots dem bills to pay, ya'll.

But wasn't the right move.

My inclination was to get a second job. Why? Because then I could have a second source of income that was not dependent on one employer; if holding two jobs got to be too much, or if I found the other job intolerable, I could just quit and find another. It brings to mind that saying "don't keep all of your eggs in one basket." It would have been tedious and time consuming, but I likely wouldn't be in my current predicament had I just done that. But I was lazy and said "fuck it," and went along and moved to working full time. Which brings us up to date. All of my eggs are in one basket and in danger of some asshole fox snatching them from my coop.

Look at him. He's just waiting to fuck me over.

So now I'm job hunting once again. I've updated my resume, and will now spend much of my free time filling out application after horrendous application, all the while dealing with the stress and frustration that my current employment brings me. Honestly, if I wasn't such a manly man, I'd break down and cry.