If you want to eat, you've got to earn a bob

[sovay]

Dear internet, talk to me about jobs.

Please note that this post is not a request for money or offers of employment. The situation which I'm reviewing is the fact that my Nokia job is not sufficient income for half a household. I could afford last year's six-month apartment with adrian_turtle partly because it was a smaller place and partly because I had built up savings. It is in the nature of savings to be finite. As things stand now, we are secure only if derspatchel remains responsible for two-thirds of the rent and similar expenses, which is really not a long-term option. I had been meaning to ask for advice on this front at the beginning of the year, but the beginning of the year was rather more medical than planned—it took until this past week to feel that we were starting to stabilize again after the whole exciting bone-break experience—and now some developments have made the question particularly acute.

I have pretty much no fucking idea how to find a more than part-time job with my scattershot qualifications and physical limitations. I am aware that I am almost certainly overestimating the degree to which I am unemployable: I have two master's degrees and I'm very good with the written word, even if my resume displays almost as impressive a break after 2006 as Rob's ankle in January. I also have several chronic health issues: I fail to sleep on a regular basis: I have real reservations about any kind of work that requires me to be on my feet a lot of the time or holding down a fixed schedule. The Nokia job is great because it's work-from-home and doesn't care what hours I work so long as it's the same number every week, but it does not suffice. I have been recommended teaching and I worry about my stamina. I have been recommended editing and I don't know that my previous experience is professional enough. I'm sure there must be other options that are not retail, but I don't know where to start looking. I mean that almost literally.

And I know the economy is garbage right now, as it pretty much has been ever since I needed a job rather than a graduate student's stipend, but there must be something I haven't thought of. Hence leaving this post unlocked. I am trying to cast as wide a net of other people's opinions as possible. I will try not to bristle if you suggest things I have already thought of, or know for one reason or another will not actually work. Telling me that you would set me up for life as a writer if only you had the resources, however, is probably not very helpful to me.

(We will return to your regularly scheduled reportage of New York City sometime after I have slept and this migraine-like headache has stopped flickering at me. I am very pleased with how my portion of the reading went. It was cool to hear rinue perform and meet marlowe1 in person again now that his hair has changed color. Someone asked me to sign their copy of King David and the Spiders from Mars afterward and I had not been expecting that. There was currywurst. Definitely worth the trip.)

Comments

[sovay]

If you're of the disposition to hustle for it a little, my official income supplement is Elance.com.

Thank you. I'll check it out!

[sovay]

And I can't help feeling there's /got/ to be more /information/ out there on Latin and the tricks and quirks of using it, and I'd pay you to tell me what I need to do to figure out where it is.

Yes, there is, and I can recommend some textbooks (although when I taught Latin, I mostly made my own handouts), but do you live in the area? It's almost certainly easier for me to show you the language in person than to try to semi-tutor over the internet.

(I know I said this post was not for the purposes of being offered a job, but I can't walk away from someone who wants help with a dead language.)

[sovay]

Good luck, my attempts at finding work like that did not work well except nokia.

I'm going to try my damnedest. Thank you.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

There is definitely competition. I suspect, though, that most of the under-employed, overqualified students of the humanities flogging their services around town don't have your list of publication credentials, which will likely go some way toward convincing parents and/or students that you are more awesome than the other tutors.

[weirdquark]

If derspatchel is a registered Wikipedian and would be willing to let you use his account you could ask Houghton if access to someone else's account would be sufficient or if it needs to be in your name since you're doing the job. There could be reasons that wouldn't work, and if there are applicants with Wiki accounts than they'd probably get priority, but it would be worth checking.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

It occurs to me that I have a friend who faced a lot of similar challenges (and has a similar level of education) finding employment. It's a bit of a long-shot, but I could introduce you two over internets and see if she has any helpful strategies and advice. She got very good at applying for jobs, interviewing successfully and accounting for long work gaps.

Other than that I cannot think of anything of use I could add. I will continue searching my brains for something helpful.

[sairaali.livejournal.com]

Oh, I did that too to supplement my stipend in grad school. My only advice if Sovay goes this route is screen your clients carefully. No work is better than work that underpays with jerky clients.

[ratatosk.livejournal.com]

I should probably not try to talk in public when I'm this tired

I first interpreted this as "my Latin is really terrible when I'm tired". :P

[sovay]

How about writing manuals for software? These are almost always contract positions, which can mean you can work from home.

Thank you. As mentioned above, I had not been thinking in tech directions due to assuming it would require experience and proficiency I do not have; I appreciate counterarguments.

[sovay]

About 90% of the people I worked for eventually tried to hire me, but when I hadn't liked the job it was quite easy to use the defined end date as an excuse to get out of there.

I must tell you I am inclined to take this less as a vote for temp agencies and more as indication that you are very good at whatever you do.

Temping definitely helps ends meet, though it's not great for getting jobs that best use one's particular skills. And the other thing it does is pad the resume -- getting something current on there with skills similar to another thing you might want to pursue can be very helpful.

Check. I will look at local temp agencies, then, or at least keep them in mind as an option.

[sovay]

Oh and the guy that asked you to sign the book was Alex - aka the first reviewer on Amazon.

Cool! Good to know. I also met the author of "Chabad of Innsmouth."

And aren't you a freelance writer already? You definitely should get on that train.

Fiction and poetry. I have been paid for exactly two pieces of nonfiction in my life. (I've had other pieces published, but not so that it helped me pay the bills.) I would love to be paid for more of it; I am trying to figure out how to make that work. It seems to be a popular choice, which means a competitive one.

You know enough authors to interview for articles and review books which is usually the lower tier of freelancing. I can send you some more if you'd like (I usually suggest that people interview me, but it would be odd in this case since the main thing I'm plugging is the book).

Yeah, I'm not sure I should get paid for reviewing a book I'm part of.

[sovay]

It's a bit of a long-shot, but I could introduce you two over internets and see if she has any helpful strategies and advice. She got very good at applying for jobs, interviewing successfully and accounting for long work gaps.

It couldn't hurt. Her situation might not be reproducible, in which case the most I can do is admire that it worked out for her, but I won't know unless I ask.

Thank you.

[sovay]

My only advice if Sovay goes this route is screen your clients carefully. No work is better than work that underpays with jerky clients.

Understood. I don't have time to waste on the latter. (I'm pretty sure no one does.)

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

I sent it off to her (and you, at your taaffe.org email). If there is anything else I can think of, I will let you know.

[sovay]

I would bet good money you could learn Arabic, at least well enough to recognize characters and pattern-match words against a database.

I'm actually not going to argue with you. I knew Tiny Wittgenstein had to bottom out somewhere.

[selidor]

If you want any pointers on all things Wikipedia, I used to edit there extensively (only stopped because it started feeling too much like, er, my day job, ironically enough) and would be happy to walk you through things.

And getting a Wikipedia account is the work of thirty seconds, becoming one in good standing a matter of ten edits to fix punctuation. Building community recognition as a person who knows what they're doing can be done by as little as producing quality work on a single article.

[sovay]

And getting a Wikipedia account is the work of thirty seconds, becoming one in good standing a matter of ten edits to fix punctuation. Building community recognition as a person who knows what they're doing can be done by as little as producing quality work on a single article.

This is useful to know. I am afraid that by the time I have set up an account and messed around on some articles that require fixing, I'll have lost the window to apply for this particular job; but since it hadn't occurred to me that having a Wikipedia account could be a marketable skill, I am thinking I might as well try it anyway.

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

My experience in Somerville is years out of date, but I would recommend strongly against substitute teaching if you have stamina issues. (I do now, which is one reason I'm not doing it myself.) I mean, yes, it's flexible in that you can choose which days, if they call you, you choose to go in. But once you show up, you're kind of stuck for the rest of the day. You might luck out and get a well-behaved class whose normal teacher is on top of it. Or even if the normal teacher is with it, the class might be having an unruly day. It's kind of a crapshoot.

I don't know if you specifically have my trouble with being awake in the morning hours, but given what grade levels you'd be substitute teaching, that could be an issue too.

[sovay]

I don't know if you specifically have my trouble with being awake in the morning hours, but given what grade levels you'd be substitute teaching, that could be an issue too.

The insomnia is a major reason I try not to schedule mornings in the course of my ordinary life. I mean, on Monday I got up at five-thirty in the morning after two hours of sleep and ate breakfast and packed and worked a little and caught a train at eight-fifteen—and then I passed out awkwardly for the next four hours. That's not an option if I have to be somewhere at eight-fifteen and then mentally functional for the next eight hours. It's one of the things about a steady job that worries me a lot.

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

I have intermittent insomnia myself so you have my sympathies. But yeah, this would make teaching potentially rough--I mean, again, you can pick your days, but you also can't know in advance what days they'll call you. Also, I don't know about you, but I don't do well when my sleep (when I can get it) is interrupted, and getting morning phone calls on the days that I do need morning sleep is a pretty good way to get my sleep interrupted. (Agh, I have no idea if I'm phrasing this well.) Tutoring, besides being more flexible, also has the advantage of generally taking place in the afternoons or possibly other times during the weekends. (I've only tutored through college centers, not on my own, but the logistics are pretty inarguable.)

[sovay]

Also, I don't know about you, but I don't do well when my sleep (when I can get it) is interrupted, and getting morning phone calls on the days that I do need morning sleep is a pretty good way to get my sleep interrupted. (Agh, I have no idea if I'm phrasing this well.)

You are phrasing perfectly reasonably and I agree with you: I don't find it easy to fall back asleep after being woken by something as jarring as a phone call.

Tutoring, besides being more flexible, also has the advantage of generally taking place in the afternoons or possibly other times during the weekends. (I've only tutored through college centers, not on my own, but the logistics are pretty inarguable.)

Yeah. And I have tutored and I know I'm not terrible at it, so Tiny Wittgenstein applies less there, too.

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the deal with classroom management is besides taking practice, it seems difficult to tell who has classroom "presence" and with what age groups short of putting them in the classroom and watching what happens. Granted, substitute teaching (as opposed to full-time) lets you back out fast if it doesn't work out, so there's that. I'm good with high schoolers, middle schoolers drive me nuts, and I would flat-out refuse to teach elementary school unless there was an emergency.

Anyway, good luck!

[rosefox]

If you're interested in book reviewing, drop me a note at rfox@publishersweekly.com.

[sovay]

If you're interested in book reviewing, drop me a note at rfox@publishersweekly.com.

Done. Thank you very much for extending the offer.

Re: work

[fleurdelis28.livejournal.com]

The hard sciences also have a lot of people for whom English is a second language, and that can come out in odd ways in their writing even when they're completely fluent in speech. (One that stuck in my head from my lab days: knowing when to use "a" versus "an" in front of an acronym that starts with a consonant whose spoken name begins with a vowel.) I think my brother does a lot of editing for his friends on that basis (in his case for free, or for whatever random assemblage of pizzas and help moving you get in the grad-student barter economy, but that doesn't mean that there's not a market).