I went to a job fair today, one in the city adjacent to the one I live in. My expectations were I would go in, wander around talk to a few people, drop off a resume or two. The reality was close to that. The one main difference was there was a line out the door of people looking to get in. The people running it were doing a fairly strict count and only letting a few people trickle in as others trickled out. It blew my mind and was good for me. I hadn’t realized how bad things had got. I’ve been working off and on for a year while I look for a ‘forever’ job; I’m grateful I had the option to write a couple/three books and rely on help from others. Still it is heartbreaking to see this. I spoke with one of the people running the fair, a government employee and they confirmed every month 3 to 4 hundred people show up for the fairs. Employer wise there were 18 there today, with most listing (aside from the USPS and government) offering 3-20 openings. Some were manufacturing roles some were, well, a bit scammy. Out here in Colorado we have a lot of door to door people pushing solar on people, the work has a reputation (deserved or not) of being not good and NOT paying for it self along any of the schedules the sales people show you when they come to close a sale. Two of the companies were solar companies looking for door to door salesmen. There were a couple places looking for IT, color me surprised and I dropped off resumes and scored a couple of sticks of chap stick, I do love chap stick.

Tomorrow I have more positions to follow up on. One is positive, like the company sent me a questionnaire after looking over my resume, nice! The others are more building toward a potential interview. Something will turn up, and if it doesn’t, well I’ll be in good company with Janice and Hank, the people in front and behind me in line. Oh, and Indira, I think her name was, she had come to the job fair for one specific company that had 3 open positions, the only company not to come, to say she was disappointed, would be glossing over the sadness I saw on her face when the guy minding the line (so we didn’t all rush in and grab those jobs all at once) told her they had cancelled. I’ve got nothing left to prove in life, some of these people have families, kids, people who rely on them. None of them deserve to have their dreams crushed. Who is to blame. Call me old school, but I’d point to the tax ‘reforms’ under Regan. How is trickle down working for us? Hah!

It has been a super fatiguing day too, it started with an ‘Oh Shit’ moment of me waking up and realizing I had an optometrist appointment in 20 minutes. That took far longer than anticipated and left me with dilatated eyes cursing the glare to paraphrase and old song I used to know. From there it went to dogs, literally, playing fetch until their ‘friend-beast’ tossed the ball into our neighbor’s yard, there’s $3.50 I’m not gonna get back…. Then a quick cat nap before the job fare, then home to do a little quick follow up, laundry, dishes, maintenance on the washer-dryer (don’t ask) and finally staring a screen debating doing a two page questionnaire or going out to kick it at karaoke, ending with Kava. Spoiler I’m drinking kava now. I’ll get to typing a bit tonight too yet. I have some guys going up to Quebec on a mission from God, that needs to be typed up. “Zombie Fantasy”, which sounds a tad naughty in my mind, is over eighty thousand words and hurling toward completion at a rapid pace. I’d like to finish it off in March, here’s hoping…

Take care of yourself and others, amigos, we’re all we got.