Covid Quarantine, Day 34: Anxiety Persists

According to CNBC, an additional 5.2 million people filed for unemployment this week.

I lost my job in September 2019. I’ve been lucky to receive some unemployment benefits these past few months – before this mess began.

The state of unemployment processing in this country is appalling. You hear on the news about people who spend all day calling unemployment and can’t get through. The system in some states is so outdated, that checks are being held up because no one knows COBOL.

(For the record, in 2001 I took an AP computer science class when I was in high school. I remember reading about COBOL, and even then, it was considered an ancient programming language. 😳)

Which brings me to job searching in the time of Covid. Saying that it’s “disheartening” is an understatement. Job hunting is already stressful in a good economy. The combination of high unemployment claims, extreme competition for remote work, email and phone screens that yield nothing, and immediate hard passes makes you question your worth.

Right now, I’m feeling extremely cynical about my job prospects for the rest of 2020. At the beginning of the year, I had a professional goal to settle for more. Find a job that would pay decently, have good benefits, and at most, be 40 hours per week.

Now, I feel like I’m back in the trap of accepting the first job offer I get because I should be “grateful” that I beat all the other candidates in these unprecedented (goodness I’m starting to hate that word) times. Never mind that I’ll be underpaid, or have less hours. Something is better than nothing.

So that’s where I’m at on Day 34, folks. Sorry this post wasn’t as tasty as a homemade sourdough loaf or as fun as a viral TikTok dance. It be like that sometimes. 😐