Dear Tammy,

October is here and I still haven’t found a job. This is the longest I’ve ever been out of work and I‘m starting to worry.  I’ve been thinking a lot and trying to figure out what is going on.

I’ve had a boatload of good interviews and I have to admit, I love it when they say nice things about me.  I asked one guy about my weaknesses and he had a hard time coming up with any!  Another interviewer had 10 years of experience, graduated from college magna cum laude, and then got a Harvard MBA.  She said I had an impressive resume.  I was like, ‘Who, me?  You have an impressive resume!’  A Harvard MBA is saying I look good?  I got a huge ego boost.  I felt like I was in one of those racing games when you hit the nitro button.  Whoosh!  I was feeling great about myself.  Sweet, the job is mine!  Every time I had that thought –and it’s been five times now, I got smacked with the news that I’m not getting hired. It’s a terrible feeling, coming so close to the finish line after so many interviews and still not getting a job.

One hiring manager said my career path took a detour when I took the support job at Riverbed; he thought I should have stayed on the sales engineering path.  I started working at Riverbed a year after Natalie died. I did take a different path and I did it deliberately.  We talked about both of us moving too quickly and wanting to give ourselves time to heal properly.  Your job has always been flexible.  My sales engineer jobs were demanding and required frequent travel. The gig at Riverbed required little to no traveling and eventually allowed me to work from home every other week. It was the perfect job at the time for our family because it let me be home more.  I don’t regret that time spent with you and Sean at all.  And it let us get Jirachi!  However, looking at that move from the perspective of a hiring manager in tech, I can see why that career turn looks bad.

I also have the challenge of not coming across as arrogant. I want an interesting and challenging job. I’ve also made it clear to numerous recruiters and hiring managers that I don’t want a job where I have to travel too much or have a long commute.  Maybe I need an attitude adjustment.  I could see why they would think that because you’ve told me my assertiveness can come across as arrogance.  And of course my arrogance can come across as arrogance.  In one interview, I went as far as asking the interviewer to convince me why I should want to work for them. I didn’t mean to say it that way, it just kinda slipped out.  I meant to ask him what he liked about the company.

How do I communicate what I really want to say? How do I tell them that after all we’ve been through with losing Natalie, I don’t want to be away from my family too much? I want a job where I can be home to have dinner with you and be next to you every night. Should I say I don’t want to be lonely?  I won’t tell my interviewers that because it’s not professional and nobody will understand why that is so important to me.  It’s the same reason why I can’t totally explain my career move to Riverbed.

We spent a good chunk of three years sleeping apart from each other, taking turns sleeping at the hospital with Natalie when she was getting treatment. I never want to be separated from you like that again. It was awful. I especially don’t want that to happen now in October. October is when our grief starts to hit us the hardest because it is the beginning of the holiday season.  We have the most painful flashbacks during the holidays.  All those happy memories are wonderful –and painful.  That’s why I had to say no to the job opportunity that required three weeks of training in Croatia.  Three weeks?  In a row?  No, thank you.

What should we do?  I want to find a job soon because you have been working way too hard this year.  I want to take care of you by taking the pressure off of you.  I definitely don’t want a job that requires me to travel every week. I’m thinking that if I expand my job search to working in Silicon Valley and say that I’m okay with 25% travel, I will get a job faster. I will have to deal with a brutal commute but we can probably eat dinner together every night. 

love,
-grant

 

 ===
Grant,

I didn’t marry you for your money or because you had a great job. I married you because I love you and I want to grow old with you.  I know it has been hard for you to find the right job. You are picky and I want you to be picky.

I don’t want you to settle for just any job.  I want you to get a job you love. What I really want is for you to work on editing our book and writing our blog.  I know you don’t think it is going to make any money so I’m not pushing you. And you know if I was in your shoes I would take the rest of the year off to write and pursue my dream.

I thought it has always been your dream to be a writer, which is why it is so confusing that you aren’t going after it now.  I can understand you’ve never made any money writing and so it is had to believe our book will lead us to financial success but I thought you would at least want to try.  I know we think about things differently and you are used to bringing in a steady paycheck for our family.

Our past has made us who we are today.  You grew up moving around so much it made you want to settle down somewhere and raise our kids.  And that’s just what we did!  In 2000, you chose to work at a mature and stable company instead of chasing a start up like some of our friends.  You stayed there for seven years because we had kids and bought our first home.  Then you waited until 2007 to change jobs because we wanted to make sure Sean was two and he could go to daycare.  In 2008, you were tired of driving down to San Mateo so you changed jobs and went to Emeryville.  When Natalie was in the hospital, it was especially hard because we were apart so much.  I understand why you want us to be together as much as we can now.

As each day goes by, I see your confidence going down. That is why I started going to the rock climbing gym with you.  As terrified as I am of heights, I wanted to do something with you to build your confidence.  I wanted to do something with you that you are really good at. You are so fearless and strong when you are climbing.  I wish you could see yourself hanging upside down or fighting with all you have in you to reach the top despite the difficulties. You told me each climb is a different puzzle and you love solving the challenges. I want you to feel strong like that all the time.  I want you to approach our life that way, to love figuring out how to get past the challenges no matter how hard they may be.

I want you to know I will totally support you in a great opportunity at a company, even a company that may take you away from me for a little bit, but it has to be something that will make you happy.

Love,
Tammy