So ... it appears we're not moving to Lakewood.

[unixronin]

Short version:  The Americorps program in Lakewood contacted us about a week and a half ago and offered us both places in a program teaching small businesses about computer security.  I, meanwhile, had just two days earlier interviewed with Yahoo, and had been told to expect an interview with UBS (think Gnomes of Zurich) within 48 hours.  So we said, "Can we have a couple of days to think this over?  I just had an interview with Yahoo and I'd like to find out how it went before we decide."

"Sure," they said.  "But we probably need to know by August 4th."  So on August 3rd, three busiiness days later, we sent mail back accepting the Lakewood offer, only to hear nothing for five more days and then learn that because we'd asked for time to consider instead of accepting right there and then on the phone, they'd gone off -- after telling us we had time to think it over -- and interviewed some more people and given the positions to someone else.

Yahoo, meanwhile, had decided (it appears) that I don't have enough NAS experience (which is to say, none), and UBS are still sitting on their gnomish hands in Connecticut and haven't interviewed anyone for the position I've been presented for there (for which, if you believe the recruiter, I'm an excellent match).

You know the job market is bad when it's an employer's market even for subsistence-level volunteer work.

And yet....  and yet the fellow geeks I know in Silicon Valley seem to be getting hired left, right and center.  (Mostly by Yahoo, ironically.  paeyl just got hired for the job I interviewed for.)  This makes me feel like an abject failure.  There is no future in being a polymath.  If there's a sweet spot between "You're overqualified for this position"/"This job pays $amount-you-can't-support-a-family-on" and "You don't have enough experience in $specific-field for us" in this economy, I have yet to find it.

Comments

Re: You said it,

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

HR departments actually seem to think that the people who were out of work in 2001/2002 were out of work because they were no good. Guess they missed all the reports of layoffs, startup failures, plummeting stock, and so on.

<HR> But ... that was then. What relevance does that have to now? </HR>