Wow. What a weekend. Not in the intriguing, exciting, or even positive sense.
I kicked it off on Friday with a trail run/hike. My aggressively cranky IT band limits my running distance, but I was still able to enjoy the outdoors, try out my new hydration pack, and develop my first sunburn of the season.
Not a bad start, so, where did it go wrong, you ask?
It was a job announcement.
I can’t remember exactly which day I found it, but it was my functional area of expertise for the agency of my dreams with a job location in the Outer Banks. I’m not sure I could have crafted a more perfect one for myself, as it’s one of my favorite places on the planet.
Now, I know I’d promised myself an actual BREAK in employment where I would not be actively searching for jobs. I’m having a hard time shaking this guilty feeling, though. My husband seems overworked and stressed. If I’m honest, it sometimes comes off as frustration towards my current time away from work.
Between that and the job listing of the year (that he sounded excited about when I mentioned the location), I jumped into resume/application mode. If you’ve ever filled out a government resume, you know what an absolute chore it can be. I spent several days reviewing the announcement, making adjustments to my resume, and doing A LOT of research online to better my chances.
That all kept me pretty busy, and I ended up breaking another unofficial rule– weekends are for hanging out with my husband. I can get done the day-to-day home operations all week, but weekends are the only time we really have to go do fun things.
Fun things don’t happen when you’re obsessively trying to perfect a resume for the dream job.
You know what else doesn’t happen when you’re in job panic mode? Reading the fine print.
I ultimately wasn’t even eligible for the job, which I didn’t realize until yesterday afternoon. It was listed as “Competitive Service,” which means current and former federal employees can apply…. but sometimes there is a caveat.
Long story short, no, it wasn’t only available to National Park Service employees, but it was limited to Department of the Interior employees. So, not me. It might also explain why it was taking so much time to update– I was having a hard time making my work experience really “match up” with the announcement, even though the job title was the same as my last job. It’s because they had pretty specific requirements that I now realize one probably wouldn’t have without a DOI background.
Let’s recap what compounded at that point:
- Me, feeling stupid for not catching the fine print and wasting hours of our weekend for nothing
- Me, feeling lazy for not doing anything else around the house because of resume building
- Me, feeling deflated that I’d been so excited over something amazing that wasn’t even available to me
- My husband, feeling frustrated that I wasted time we could have spent doing something fun on his day off
- My husband, feeling annoyed at my subsequent bad mood, post- useless resume building
- My husband, feeling stressed about an overseas family emergency yesterday
In truth, I was in a foul mood after all of that.
Not only did I feel stupid, but I feel stir-crazy here in my hometown. I’ve never lived anywhere else, but my husband (not even from this country originally) doesn’t want to budge. When he was open to the idea of heading to the coast, it was exciting for those 2-3 days of resume work before I realized my idiotic mistake. Still learning.
So it’s been weird. I’m torn between wanting to truly take the time off and feeling guilty for not bringing much to the table at the moment.
I think it’s kind of ruining the whole thing. Since we’re almost halfway through April, I may try to just steer clear of job postings until May. I put my resume in last week with a small local business, letting them know my availability after 15 May, but I may just leave it at that. Oh, and I am in a trial run of LinkedIn Learning, so I’m working through some material there.
It’s such an amazing opportunity to take this time off, I really don’t want to ruin in by letting myself go into panic mode.
-K