Chinks in the Armor

March 3, 2005

I'm starting to get concerned about the chances of finding a job in DC before the end of my lease. It's been two months now, and I've found three jobs I'd want to apply for -- and one of them vanished from the washingtonpost.com site before I had a chance to submit a resume.

With things turning out that way, odds are I won't even get an interview until May. That's pushing things kind of close to the lease-end date of June 30th (unless I can extend it month-by-month for some unknown cost), and also close to the end of my unemployment benefits in mid-July.

I've got freelance Web work coming in erratically, like I said before, and right now it's the difference between whether I make money or lose money in a given month. But I don't see enough coming in to completely cover my monthly expenses, so when the UC benefits run out, I pretty much have one option left: Move back to Akron.

I'm still carrying a lot of debt from the last time I was unemployed (it lasted 13 months that time, and I'm starting to think that may repeat itself) so I can't just live off credit cards and hope everything turns out OK. I could possibly move to DC with the money I have saved right now and start temping, but my cost of living would go up by at least $500 a month just from rent, and who-knows-how-much-more for utilities, gas and food. Even in DC I doubt companies are willing to let someone net $600 a week just to answer phones and file things.

Oh, and one of my freelance projects is for a set number of hours, and I'm halfway through them now. It'll probably end well before June.

So, that's that. I've got three months before I really need to panic, and four months before the drop-dead date. Things aren't falling apart just yet. I'm just not liking my chances, is all.

March 1, 2005March 4, 2005