If you want to eat, you've got to earn a bob
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![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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.)
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.)
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For you, what about seeing if there's anything at any of the museums that you could do? or in libraries? I know you don't have a library science degree or any museum-related degree, but maybe your knowledge of latin and greek would help you in either of those sorts of jobs? Help cataloguing or indexing things, or something? Are there assistant TA-type positions open at any of the areas colleges that would be limited enough, timewise, that you could do them? I know Harvard used to hire people to teach expository writing on a sort of adjunct basis--that might be something. What about substitute teaching in the public school system? How about something relating to film? Does the Harvard film archive need anyone? … I'm not sure what you would do for them, but maybe something? Or at Coolidge Corner? (I mean something other than selling the popcorn… I guess I'm imagining there'd be something that would involve helping management--maybe writing a newsletter or something.) How about proofreading positions at any of the local artsy-papers? There are bunches of think-tanky type places and interesting NGOs in the area--would the Union of Concerned Scientists need anyone to manage a newsletter, say, or Cultural Survival? You can go to these places' websites and see what things they have available.
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As far as library jobs go, there are jobs in libraries that don't require you to have a library degree and some of them may find Latin or Greek useful. However they'd almost certainly want you to work a set schedule, especially while you're in training, and you'd also be competing with all of the library school students. I did have one job where after I was trained said that as long as I worked a fixed number of hours a week could get them in however I liked while the building was open, so some jobs might be flexible enough for you and might be worth looking into, but it's not something you'll be able to count on. I don't have any experience with museum work, but I suspect it's similar.
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In sovay's neighborhood the scarcity issues may be less dire (more colleges, and colleges draw a wide variety of individuals), but then, there are also more libraries around....
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Though for copy cataloging transliteration charts for Greek work reasonably well, unlike, say, with Hebrew, which often lacks vowels. I've successfully copy cataloged books in Greek. With Hebrew, I can only match consonants. (I can copy catalog Hebrew, albeit painfully slowly, if it has vowels (which kids books do and not much else) and doesn't require me to create subject headings.) Arabic would be a super useful language to know and most of the people who study it aren't doing library work; I worked on a project that had a bunch of Arabic language material and no one knew Arabic (I assume I got the job because I knew how to catalog and no Arabic-proficient person applied.) and I utterly failed to match up anything on the transliteration charts with what was on the page in a way that let me find records so yeah, we didn't finish the Arabic materials.
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Unfortunately, I don't know Arabic, and I read Yiddish better than Hebrew. I can offer rock-solid Greek, though. (And Akkadian, although cuneiform in the stacks would really surprise me.) Do you have any idea where I would start looking, if I were to throw my hat into the ring for a library?
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Dammit, that job wants a fusion of
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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.
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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.
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I'm actually not going to argue with you. I knew Tiny Wittgenstein had to bottom out somewhere.
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I had assumed libraries were off limits without a degree, so this is actually useful to hear. Thank you.
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Cool. I didn't know that site existed. Thank you!
I know you don't have a library science degree or any museum-related degree, but maybe your knowledge of latin and greek would help you in either of those sorts of jobs? Help cataloguing or indexing things, or something?
I am fairly certain that I do not have the training or experience for a museum to want me as anything other than customer service, but based on the conversation above I am no longer writing off library work without consideration (I had assumed it would require a library science degree).
What about substitute teaching in the public school system?
I worry a lot about teaching based on my stamina. I can have days when I walk all over a city and I'm fine and days when being on my feet for more than a few hours wipes me out completely. I don't want this job search to be a process of committing to things I have to renege on. (If nothing else, that will look really dumb on my resume.)
There's also the fact that I haven't taught a class since 2006 and I don't want to add to the number of bad teachers in the world. Tutoring, I feel less like I'd screw up.Does the Harvard film archive need anyone? … I'm not sure what you would do for them, but maybe something? Or at Coolidge Corner?
I wish! I've never seen them post job listings. I would love to be paid to program a film series, but I don't know how anyone makes that happen.
There are bunches of think-tanky type places and interesting NGOs in the area--would the Union of Concerned Scientists need anyone to manage a newsletter, say, or Cultural Survival? You can go to these places' websites and see what things they have available.
And that's something else I hadn't thought of. Thank you again!
[edit] It is extraordinarily difficult to respond to these comments without seeing Tiny Wittgenstein everywhere.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Anyway, good luck!