Thursday I was feeling desperate. I must have applied to more than a dozen jobs in the last year. I kept my summer schedule open for interviews and nothing. I know the market's tough right now, but I thought I had amassed enough education and skills to beat it. My dream job was still keeping me waiting, but I thought I might as well do something else in the meantime. Nope. Just part-time work at the UM Library which is fun, but not exactly career-enhancing.
So Thursday night I prayed for a sign. I wanted to know for sure if this Foreign Service thing would become a reality. Although I am on the register there are still people ahead of me and who knows if they will get approval for the 5 IROs they'd like to train in October? I wanted a definitive sign and I wanted it on Friday by the end of the work day.
By the afternoon I was restless and called my human resources representative. Voicemail. I didn't leave a message. I sent him an email message. No response. I took a leisurely walk to the mailbox and in it was an envelope from the State Department. Nah, I'm not that lucky. It was just my old, expired passport and a copy of my marriage certificate they returned to me. So I went downstairs to put my documents away and decided to look through some old business cards I had collected over the years. As I looked through old IDs and library cards from my Fulbright year in Romania back in 2003, I found a State Department business card with the handwritten words "Information Resources Officer" and "Look up Foreign Service Specialist." That was my sign!
Hi there!!
ReplyDeleteSo nice to "meet" you. Thanks for leaving a comment on my blog. Funny that our husbands have been speaking in German for weeks, isn't it? I hope there is some movement in the process for your family.