An Update on the Job Front

I guess if you would like the quick update “I still have no job”. If you are one, who likes all my little details then I will give you the two-page update. So grab an ice tea and get comfy, we could be here a while.

So first, as some of you might know my husband is an autoworker (I can hear the collective ohhhhhh), yes ohhhhhh is right. He has been working for Chrysler for 22 years and at this time is on a layoff. Now understand we have been through layoffs on and off for years, for the first six months after our first child was born he was home with us on a layoff. The difference now is the way the media carries on, putting so much fear in everyone and also I am not working. And of course our expenses are much higher now.

He has been home since the May 4th and is hopping to go back in July. The one great thing with him being home is our front and back yards look amazing! He now has the time to get every weed before it even has the chance to bloom. I wish you all could see the yard it is green and weed free. It looks great and he is doing an awesome job.

Now enough of him and back to me (it is my blog after all). I went yesterday and spoke to the principle at our youngest daughters school about setting up a sandwich bar for the students and teachers in the 2009/10 year. She goes to a school that is kindergarten to grade 12 and they have no food services in the building but a few vending machines. At this time they are in the midst of adding a new wing to the school, which will be the new home for the high school, new senior level gymnasium/auditorium and a commercial sized kitchen. The hope is for it to be complete for September 1st.

I have had friends in the past suggest I do something with the school along this line. I am a confident cook and have worked in food services in the past even managed cafeterias back in my day. I now do a fair amount of cooking for the school for fundraising events, staff meeting, and school events. The principal and I talked I made an informal proposal (really to find out if it is worth my time even bothering), he liked the idea and felt it would be a great and a much need service to the school. We talked about what the school numbers are looking like for next year and a timetable. Sunshine’s husband has offered to help me with the proposal as he has extensive knowledge in this field in exchange I will cook the family dinner on Sunday.

But you all know me I just don’t know about all this. It scares the crap out of me, I did a little research on the Internet and spoke to board of health and kinda freaked myself out. I think if I could have someone else do all this pre-work and I just have to come in and run the day-to-day then I would be good, this unknown stuff is scaring me. Sunshine’s keeps asking me what I want out of it? What am I looking for in this opportunity? That woman always makes me think about stuff I don’t want to think about. I guess… what I want is to be able to keep my daughter at this school (is a private school, in which we pay for her to be their) and make a living that covers the cost of tuition and helps to pay off some of our personal debt. The plus with this job opportunity is the hours would work for the family, and I would still be available for the school holidays. I would be around people I already know as we have been with the school since the teenager was four years old. I would be doing work I enjoy (always like being around food) and I have experience in this field.

What freaks me out is #1 the threat of REJECTION, #2 the start up cost and #3 the big one for me, the unknown. But as what has been pointed out to me, what do I have to lose, I can’t find work anywhere else, the most the school can say is NO. And in either case means we are going to have to pull ‘the little one’ out and send her to a public school. I just don’t know maybe when Sunshine and her family come on Sunday and we crunch some numbers and put stuff down on paper I might feel not so scared.

Now on to other developments, I got a phone call this morning from a headhunter. My husband spoke to her as I was at Louise’s eating quiche this morning. He gave her our email address and she sent me an email which I replied to and attached my resume (new revised Jingling resume). So I don’t know what will happen with that, probably nothing.

Sunshine’s says I am all negative today, and she is right. It has been a rough week for me, I actually broke down in Church this past Sunday crying (felt like a fool). But it is so much work trying to stay positive all the time. I’m not supporting the family, he’s on a layoff and the industry is so uncertain, is the teenager getting out of control, will the little one be able to stay at her school, do we need to sell the house etc…. and I don’t see any end is sight. I am afraid to go online and check the bank balance as ever time I do I have to transfer from the line of credit to the chequing and then I feel like a bigger loser. I feel, though my husband has not ever come right out and said it, that a lot of our money issues now are my fault because I didn’t want to do daycare anymore and wanted to go back out to work.

I have tried to look at this time, as an opportunity to do things I could never do before like class trips, be on my own, write the blog, etc but it has now been over 8 months and I don’t know how much longer we can hang on. I am not sure what to do keep the ‘little one’ in the expensive school, sell the house and move to something smaller, or crawl under a rock and hide. Now if I want to get myself really worked up, I can think that we only have one more year of high school left for the teenager and then university starts. Where is that money going to come from?

Well I have almost filled up two pages of my negativity. Kids will be home from school and I need to start, pretending anyway that I am great and wonderful and happy, happy, happy!