My job search saga is so long that I’ll have to give you all the Reader’s Digest version or I might start howling at the moon. It still will be quite the story. After finally convincing my 90-year-old Mother to move out of her home and into an independent living facility, a story you’ll get to share soon, I became eager to find something to do other than spend my days sitting on my butt on the sofa. I had grand ideas of all the things I was brilliantly capable of doing.
After making an amazing resume, joining LinkedIn, and hitting the “networking” route with gusto, I finally came to realize that no one was even remotely interested in talking to a 66-year-old lady about employment. Heck, they didn’t even know about my bad knees and still put me on ignore. Why I didn’t figure this out before I went to so much trouble must be a sign of mental decline.
Then one day I was visiting a family friend who is in the end stages of Alzheimer’s so it wasn’t a very robust conversation. Her daughter came in and I mentioned my tale of un-hiring woes. Wonderful daughter jumped to text a good friend of hers who teaches at an RISD (Title 1) elementary and was desperately looking for tutors to work with the little darlings to prepare for the May standardized test that makes or breaks a school. Within minutes, I suddenly had a job!! Or, so I thought….
After all, I gave 34 years of my life to RISD and I knew they would remember my worth and roll out the red carpet to herald my return.
Here’s where some real summarizing comes in: the district suddenly decided THIS year that anyone wanting even a part time job had to go through the entire application, resume, references, etc., etc., the process just like applying to teach. The application, all done online, included around 20-25 questions that I called the “Mensa” section. There were all these “What number would come next in this series….” and “John and Robin had 12 apples….” and these puppies were hard. Dennis and I were both trying to do them while we were texting some to Craig. When you have three educated people, two with Master’s Degrees that can’t figure out what darn letter comes “next” on the list, you have a real (pardon the French) bitch of a question! There is no other word for them.
These went on and on and on and I was really getting stressed. The application was incredibly long. Then I picked three friends who I knew could/would use their computers early the next day, put them down to get the reference form via email, texted them to look for it when they got up and went to bed over two hours after I started that darn thing. I was still living in my dream world that this would all end soon. After all, I am a retired RISD teacher, not some rube just dragged in from the street! By the way — all three friends were early risers and had it done before I even got up! I taught with some classy people. (little pun there)
Then —lots of stuff happens and (mostly) doesn’t happen and I’m pretty well ready to not bother with this anymore but the school was pushing HR to get this done. My conscience got the best of me. To get a certified teacher to come as a tutor was great for them and they were willing to wait for me to jump through all the hoops to get approved. Finally, I got the call to go to the Ad. Bldg. for “Orientation” on Wednesday. Mind you I was being “oriented” by a district that I had just given 34 years of my life by someone who wasn’t even born when I started.
At the end of this fun experience, signing dozens of forms like I was some sports star being recruited by the major leagues, they discovered that the state did not have my fingerprints on file! Turns out that became a requirement to teach in Texas the year the year after I retired.
Sudden Halt.
Back home to my computer. Redo all my Texas Education Agency info since the last they had on file I was teaching in RISD, and even had an RISD email. Doing all this takes three phones calls to the state because nothing was going like it said in the instructions.Third lady finally figures out why. Another hour of fun on the computer that night and now I was finally allowed to sign up to be fingerprinted.
Guess what? There wasn’t a single place between downtown Dallas and Allen plus points east and west that had an opening to do this for over two weeks.
My parting shot to the Ad. Bldg. the day I left was, “I hope I can get this all finished before the test is over.” Little did I know then that it might take that long just to find someone just to do fingerprints. Yes, I need the FBI to get a third copy since I had it done when I got my concealed handgun license and again when I got my Known Traveler License… so why bother to check those when I can pay $47.95 to do it again?
Maybe sometime about mid-March — and this is a real maybe— all this will be done and I can go do my three mornings a week helping the little cuties practice their vocabulary, reading and other assorted test type things.
I’m still trying to figure out what I thought was wrong with sitting around on my butt all day.
Stayed tuned for PART 2 of the continuing story of: “Oh look, look. Cathey goes back to school.” It will be coming soon. Or, it won’t. At this point, even I don’t know.
Writes of Passage 
I enjoyed reading this, Cathey. It made me laugh out loud in parts of it.
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