Thursday, December 16, 2004

Eric's runs lasted a good week. They called me on Friday to pick him up right before I had a meeting that I had gone through hell and earth to schedule with people from different time zones and competing interests. As usual, my boss kindly covered for me. It's very good to work her most of the time. It's just the creeping feeling that I'm not on a career path that has me gnashing my teeth.

Then on Saturday and Sunday night he awakened repeatedly with sharp cries. He had a fever. On Monday morning, I said to Rich. "He can't go to school. He's got an ear infection. Take him to the Doctor." Rich who never gets sick, nor goes to the doctor was concerned they'd think we were "crying wolf." We'd each taken him in once over the past week because we were worried about his bowels. Each time they said not to worry, it would just run it's course. So, I talked him into it, and lo and behold, he had an ear infection. 12 hours of antibiotics later, the fever was gone and we had our happy boy back, and I was doing the happy dance.

I'm exhausted at the moment. I'm having trouble sleeping. Last night was particularly traumatic. Rich had driven 8 hours in one day for a job interview in Burlington Vermont. The interview seemed to have gone fine. He was pretty excited about it. But last night he got a form-letter rejection e-mail from some random HR person he never met while he was there. So, the trip was a waste, and they don't even have enough balls to tell him why he didn't get the job, or qualify for the next round of interviews. I think if you're coming from out of town the deck is stacked against you versus local candidates.

We also worry that the reasons he left his last job were fairly complex and people may feel like he's hiding something, or that he left on bad terms. I don't know how you communicate to an interviewer that he spent two weeks having meetings with different employees at his old job. The sole purpose of those meetings was to get him to reconsider, or to convince him that if he wanted to go back that there would always s be a job for him there. It sounds kind of arrogant, but that's exactly what happened. The even offered him a 'leave of absence' where they'd keep a job for him while he did his search. He has stellar references from current managers there as well, but they never seem to get that far.

So, I was worried about him. He had this manic gleam in his eye that men get when they're trying to rationalize hurt feelings. Me, I would have had a good cry. But he's not so much about the crying these days. Anyhow, I think he's feeling better. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed. I worry about our dwindling savings account, but I'm much more worried about his self esteem. Allthough his period of unemployment is completely self-inflicted, rejection is still a tough pill to swallow. I've been very lucky with getting jobs since I went into IT. I have the rare gift of good communication and writing skills combined with technical abilities. Although, my technical skills are slipping away from me lately as I become more of a project manager and less of a Sysadmin.

We're plugging away at making some final decisions for our addition at Harrison Street. I'm really excited about it. Last night we visited a family in Cambridge who had a contractor we're looking at redo their kitchen. It was nice, but it wasn't fabulous construction. I'll have to think about it more. But we have the name of another contractor. So we'll talk to him as well. Why are all contractors men? I'd think women would be better at managing the projects than the men...