Unemployable…Again?! (pt.2)

(Continued from Part One of Unemployable…Again?!)

…so now I’m left to wonder, what the hell do I do if I get axed?!

The majority of the job-postings I look at are for library jobs. However, if the MITs and Harvards of the world are going through hiring freezes, that’s a pretty good sign that all of the non-totally prestigious institutions are probably worse off and following suit…as such, libraries are pretty much out. Plus—as has been proven in the past—I’m not necessarily a lock for any library job…even one I’ve been doing on an interim basis for months.

Newspapers and televisions stations are almost always looking for people…but not in Boston. Boston is a place that you work your way up to in the media-game, not a place you get your feet wet. Plus, the majority of my interest would be in writing about baseball…and needless to say the Boston-market is already a little cluttered with established sports writers, thus rendering a mediocre blogger pretty much worthless. So I guess the whole journalism thing is out.

So what does that leave? Pizza places and convenience stores won’t pay my monthly student loan dues, let alone rent or utilities. There are no hogs to vaccinate here. I could try my hand at construction, but honestly the only two things I’ve done enough times to actually claim I’m skilled at are roofing and siding. And given the reason for this entire blog—the failing economy—most people aren’t in any position to afford new roofs or new siding.

I gave up on being a cowboy when I was like eight, plus I don’t think it pays much to ride around on a horse with no real purpose. I don’t think my body is in good enough shape to handle professional wrestling anymore. Plus after seeing “The Wrestler” I don’t think that’s a road I want to wander down anyway. And if professional wrestling is out, well that means joining the underground cage-fighting circuit is pretty much a non-option as well.

I’ve contemplated trying my hand at some freelance writing, but every time I do I can’t help but feel like I’m in way over my head. For years I’ve contemplated ordering the “Writer’s Market,” which is—essentially—the Bible for freelance writers. I ordered it back in November and have yet to submit anything. I wasn’t sure why at first, but I think it’s for the same reason I froze up when I checked out “elance.com” today.

I think that I’m a pretty solid writer, in terms of entertainment value. I know I get my verb-tense screwed up a lot and I don’t necessarily write in, what the big-wigs call, a “professional, neutral voice”…I write in my voice.

You read it the way I’d say it.

And I kinda dig that.

But when I look at some of what would constitute my “competition” in the freelancing world, I’m not bringing much to the table. I don’t actually write about “anything.” I don’t have a theme. I don’t have a general all-encompassing thought I want to get across. I just want to write what’s going on in my life, or what I’m thinking about or about my hatred for Carrot Top and know that a group of cool cats, that’d be all ya’ll—my Faithful Readers, for the uninitiated—are going to enjoy it or laugh at it or at least read it looking to see if I mentioned your names anywhere.

None of that translates real well into any sort of money-making venture.

As such, I find myself still employed…yet completely unemployable once again.

I guess the best I can do is keep rocking at my job (because I do—in fact—rock at my job) and hope that the oft-touted layoffs never take place and I’ll be able to look back at these entries as nothing more than some completely irrational worries that never turned out to be worth gettin’ my literary panties in a bunch.