Jobs

One of the people that I talked to while I was deciding to do Peace Corps or not was woman who works in a large federal agency after having spent many years in Latin America. She asked me why I would consider interrupting my career to do something like this. She said I would need to start applying for jobs six months before I finished Peace Corps, because at age 35, to have a gap in my resume would be very risky. I tried to explain that learning Spanish and doing public health work in a developing country, albeit as a Peace Corps volunteer, seemed to be to be an enhancement of my professional skills, rather than a time out. (Although I must admit that my life here, getting out of the house at 10 am, scheduling endless coffees with friend beginning at 3 pm is terribly relaxed in comparison to working in a foundation in New York.) The idea was though that I would be prepared to do a wider array of international work, having been here, and that I would speak another language, a valuable job skill.

Blady blady blah.

Those of you who are following my process in the blog know I had a big interview, that is went great and that I was waiting to hear. I didn´t get offered that position and after the disappointment (it really would have been a coup) I decided to just chill out and wait. Gap on my resume or no, credit card debt or no, I decided to focus emotionally and mentally on closing stuff out here, finishing reports, curriculums, final meetings and the like. There will be time enough in September to circulate my resume to every person I can think of, haunt Idealist every morning, chat people up that I haven´t spoken to in two years or more.

There are friends to visit, elections to help out with, things to keep me busy. The job will come.

Of course ask me again in eight weeks if I am so tranquil. Then we will see.