Cleanliness is NOT next to Godliness

Day 118 with no job

Several years ago I was listening to a comedian who commented on the familiar phrase, “Cleanliness is next to godliness. He said, “No. Cleanliness is next to Cleavage; I looked it up in the Dictionary. Goggles is next to Godliness.” I thought he made a good point.

As a lesbian I have never really subscribed to “roles” but I have to concede that, as far as household duties go, I actually do all of the lawn mowing, trash dumping, toilet fixing and bug smashing. Sar on the other hand does the bulk of the cooking, shopping, dusting and social niceties. Then I lost my job . . . and my role changed. I was already doing the laundry and other odds and ends about the house (Sunday house cleaning tasks and dishes when Sar made dinner), but suddenly I had all of this extra time on my hands.

So, now I’m in housewife mode. Sarita gets up in the morning and heads off to work. I figure out what we’re having for dinner and go off to the market to get supplies. Instead of the Sunday morning cleaning I was doing while Sarita goes to Church, I’m cleaning something every day. This is really not my idea of fun and I’m looking forward to finding work outside of the house soon.

So, on that note, my first month of unemployment found me mostly looking at County jobs. A few of my friends had suggested I look into State jobs. I found myself wondering why I hadn’t thought of that before. After all, the State’s retirement plan is CalPERS as were my County jobs. It was time to expand my search.

Readers, have any of you attempted to apply for a State job in California? I quickly discovered that it is not for the timid or faint of heart. If you are not already a State employee, you need to become “List Eligible.” In order to do this, I had to register at their website, fill out an online application and upload my resume. Then, I had to find the job I was interested in and take an exam. Many of the positions I’ve been interested had online exams. However, there are some positions, that don’t and I have still failed to discover the secret to actually being able to apply for those jobs.

Going back to the online examination process. . . After completing the online exam and getting my score, I was taken to a window that explained that the Departments were not required to pull applicants from the online database where my resume, application and examination score resided. Therefore, if I was interested in a position I needed to print out the application, resume and exam score and mail it. Okay, so let me make sure I have this straight: In order to get a job with the State, I need to use their online process. They on the other hand do not have to access the information I’ve placed on their server, but rather expect me to print out and mail what they already have. Got it. There was one San Francisco based Department that DID access the database to find me. I received a letter in the mail indicating that I was eligible to apply for this job based on the information they pulled from my online application package. There was a list of supplemental questions that they wanted me to answer and mail back to them along with my printed out application, resume and score from their database. It boggles the mind.  

I learned an important lesson early on in this process. If you use the letter sized envelopes, postage is almost triple what it is if you fold up all those pieces of paper and shove them in a regular envelope. I mailed 25 or so applications off to various Departments at the State that had vacancies for which I was qualified. I placed one 44 cent stamp on each envelope. A few days later the 25 envelopes started trickling into my mailbox with a request for more postage. Some came back with “refused” stamped on them because they had actually gotten to the destination with postage due. I’m thinking, nothing says, “I desperately need a job” more than job applications arriving with insufficient postage.

Well, I should stop writing. The kitchen needs to be cleaned.