Embracing Job Limbo/ Life Path Postponement

I have been debating writing this post for a while, but now that I am officially in the midst of job limbo I feel I have to write about it.

Job limbo – The place where you can be unemployed while still employed, where you wait for the economy to turn around, or for that good job to materialize. The place where you look forward to the callback for the job where you are competing with recent grads and folks 20 years your senior for the part-time position that will pay your grad loans and car insurance for a few months longer.

I have been in job limbo for a while now. Having recently graduated, I managed to be lucky enough to get a part-time job immediately out of school as a university lecturer during the summer (read: July) and Fall 2012. While it didn’t quite fit into the dream of a full-time job in my field after graduation, it was a job in my field, that I got after graduation, and that some others have difficulty getting into. So, I can’t complain about that.

August and June (the unemployed months) whittled away my potential savings. I used the money I received from totaling my car to pay for things like food, fuel, and insurance for those two months and make up the deficit of the move. I was lucky enough to be able to use my parents’ jeep as my primary form of transportation. Despite the jobs, I effectively make a third less than what I made while I was in graduate school even with essentially no rent payments. I am simply glad I have a job in my field, doing what I love, learning new things, and contributing to the knowledge of others.

My run as a university lecture for the semester is now at a close with my students having handed in their final exams and final grading to do. I still have two pay checks left so I am contractually, still employed, although, I will not physically be at work. I am on the list for further interviews for two positions and am scheduled to teach again at the university level the following Fall semester, but currently I am in waiting mode – between jobs, while technically still employed.

Working a part-time job, I get asked by (mostly older) people what I do with the spare time. Some have gone as far as to accuse me of being lazy for not seeking out things to do (as if teaching isn’t hard and all I do is sit on the couch eating snacks).

So what do I do with the spare time?

Wedding planning with The Fiancée is one answer. I also search for jobs, prep for my courses (the life of an academic requires you to take work home from the office), and work on proposals for conferences to further build my resume. (I will being presenting my thesis paper in Boston in April 2012.)

The spare time has allowed me to begin writing fiction and poetry again and has also allowed me to connect with my family and friends who I really hadn’t seen in two years since I was off at grad school. I have also looked at how many part-time jobs I can stack up while still having time for myself and The Fiancée. I helped coordinate a conference between August and November on Latinos in Higher Education that had 300 attendees.

Overall, I have been networking, getting in touch with others and with myself, and creating new opportunities for myself. Some may feel this is lazy, but I feel I have managed to accomplish much.

Related articles

• 8 tips to help recent college graduates (and others, too) find a job (thoughtsonteaching.wordpress.com)
• Bleak job market could give next year’s grads lesson in unemployment (vancouversun.com)
• Employment Limbo: Three Jobs in Six Months (forevertwentysomethings.com)
• How can I leverage volunteer work on my CV? (career-advice.monster.co.uk)