I really liked the people there, and I thought it was a good fit technically, and I like the area (seacoast!), and, finally, I think that what they do is pretty darn interesting!

I had an idea… what was it? Oh, yeah! I’ll have to email that one to myself for later!

I’m hoping to relocate down there before the end of the contract. That will be dictated primarily by my financial health, so we’ll see how quickly I can put down this ungodly beast! It shouldn’t take much longer than six weeks for me to do so.

It seems fair to say that I’ve not had a lot of luck with employment–certainly, I’ve made less than optimal decisions! I remember at least two times in my career, I’ve taken positions with employers in which my stomach fell through the crust of the earth during the interview. I took those jobs, however, and I was miserable through and through.

The only thing that makes any sense with that reaction (taking a position that my intuition was warning me against) is that I had been trained to ignore my gut feeling about things.

I haven’t documented my intuition, but I’ve certainly felt on numerous occasions that when I’ve had a negative feeling and ignored it, I have regretted ignoring that crucial signal.

So, I took what felt like a pretty big risk with a recent interview and followed my gut (not difficult, you say? I do plan on losing weight eventually! haha), and you know what? It felt pretty damn good to trust myself. So good, in fact, that I intend to continue doing exactly that.

Yeah, money is definitely tight (some may aptly say, “non-existent”) and it’s already getting to be pretty difficult. I was not able to transition directly from my last role into another one, so I’m finding it necessary to “double-time” it. Today felt productive, however, so that’s good. I was able to make positive impressions and I may very well have at least some work in a short while.

It wasn’t all fun and games today, however. I left my last role for a number of reasons, the most egregious of which was non-payment of services rendered. Earlier today, I complained about not receiving a check that they promised to send, they attempted to intimidate me despite the fact that they could not possibly follow through (but they could really give me a hard time).

Personally, I want this to be over and done with. While I’d definitely like to have that money, I really have to wonder, how much trouble am I willing to go through to get it? What actually bothers me more is the threat that was made against me–I want to get corrupt people out of my life as quickly as possible. I can’t do it by being a pushover, obviously, but I don’t want to bring week or months (or even longer??) of irritation and bullshit and all that stuff into my life. I want to do whatever it is that will end this stupid charade.

I feel like I’m circling the drain, career-wise, and that I’ll never ever really get up to the point where I’m successful and I’ll feel proud of a long line of career accomplishments.

I have good rapport with interviewers, generally speaking, but after talking a while, it becomes obvious than I’m far more “hat” than “saddle” and they pass me over.

Surely being in depression for the past fifteen or so years of my life hasn’t helped foster an internal environment of success (or at least having the ability to learn from my failures)… so now I’m 28 years old and I really feel like I’m stuck.

I cite my age only because it seems to me that, by now, I ought to have accomplished something with my talents… but it seems that all I take on are the easy jobs, the frustrating jobs, the jobs that do not advance my career and leave me with an ever-shrinking window of marketability.

In all of this, there’s probably some underlying core belief that’s driving these feelings, something that I’m only tangentially aware of, if at all.

I suspect it’s something along the lines of the feelings of worthlessness that were imputed by my parents… but I don’t know if it’s that simple. Even if that is something to be considered, I don’t know how to go about fixing it so that I can just get on with my life.

That’s what I want to do. Get on with my life, and I just feel like I can’t, which is, I’m sure, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I think I sum it up best when I say, “Argh.”

I had been looking for a job, so it must have been 2003 or 2004 or something. I guess I must have been getting desperate, because I responded to a ad for sales-types.

I had spoken on the phone with this one guy who screened me, and I guess I met the criteria (whatever it was). I was asked to attend a meeting with a follow-up interview, I think.

The meeting was much less informational than I would have liked and was far more “sales pitch.” I felt incredibly uncomfortable at one point when slogans were being bandied about at the head of the room and the “audience” responded as a church congregation.

The guy who spoke with me on the phone was too busy to see me at that very moment and, as I was feeling uncomfortable, I left. I had managed to talk to some other guy, who I told that I wasn’t interested any longer.

I did some more research on the particular job offering, and it seemed like there was a much greater emphasis on recruitment than on selling product. Whether or not this was true, the fact that sales reps are encouraged to do any recruitment was somewhat troubling to me, especially given what I knew of pyramid schemes that operated in the same fashion.

Shortly thereafter, the guy who I spoke with initially called me up. I told him that I wasn’t interested, and he pressed me on it. I told him that I had done a little research and was unimpressed with Primerica and had concerns that it resembled a pyramid scheme. He started to get angry, basically telling me that I couldn’t possibly know what I was talking about because I had never been a part of Primerica, or something like that. (This is far from verbatim, but that’s the sentiment that I picked up.)

He kept giving me the hard sell for the “job,” at which point I thought things were more than a little weird. I hardly thought I was especially qualified for the job, and I felt I was being treated as a means to an end (which, if recruitment was the main focus of a sales position, is a rather accurate read of the situation).

What also made me feel uncomfortable was the request to turn over the contact information of 10 or so people that you knew. Not only was this about recruitment, this was also about farming for contacts. I wouldn’t be able to profit at all from selling to those initial ten people, either, if I remember correctly.

Aside from all of this, there was some sort of certification requirement was was apparently legally necessary, but I didn’t have the cash to outlay, nor was I willing to attend some sort of class to achieve this document. That, combined with the necessity to basically dime on my friends and family (thus subjecting them to hard-sell pitches, ensuring a severe blow to my trustworthiness) made me say, “It’s better being unemployed.”