What to do, what to do, what to do?

"He who would search for pearls must dive below." (John Dryden, All for Love)

I’ve been unemployed since the beginning of the year. One of the first questions I asked myself was am I ready to retire?

After looking at the finances with my husband Mark, we decided I’m not.

Sigh.

I’m a senior technical writer, or content developer, who has also done significant editing. You know what a technical writer is...someone who writes what you never read: the instructions that come with your electronics, the recipes on soup cans, your car manual, etc.

For the last 10 years, I’ve been working remotely out of my home office. This made sense because the people I’ve worked with have been globally dispersed (US, India, China, Europe, Canada, and Latin America).

Mark immediately signed me up for a few job sites, and I immediately started receiving daily lists of possible opportunities. Working my network, friends started contributing additional sites for me to check.

On occasion, I would go to other sites and search on my own. In all of my searches, I would use either technical writer or writer. The good news is there are many opportunities all over the US for people like me. I know this because I had one more criterion for my search: I wanted to continue working at my home in Georgia, as I’ve been doing for almost a decade.

One of the first opportunities I saw came from a company based in San Antonio, Texas. That was enough for that website to automatically update my profile to indicate I was looking for jobs only in San Antonio. Not only that, this information has been picked up by other job sites. Though I changed my profile early on, even today I can receive up to a dozen emails for jobs in San Antonio.

Some job sites make it easy to find remote or telecommute work. Others need some help. On one site, I chatted with a support agent, who, in an odd interpretation of what I was asking, advised me to enter Relocation in the field. Since I was never interested in moving, I pushed back forcefully. He then suggested I search in each city for work at home jobs. How many cities are there in the US and how long would it take to search every one of them? The thing I suspected is he worked from home. He must have relocated for that privilege.

I finally realized all I needed to do was to add Remote/Work at home/Telecommute in the same field. (Did you know there is a Remote, Oregon? I'm sure it's a lovely place, but I'm still not relocating.)

I had managed to figure out to search more efficiently, but then I noticed odd things happening in my inbox.

Jobsite1 started sending me a daily list. Then Jobsite2 (who the heck are they?) started sending me a daily list. And then Jobsite3, and so on. Finally, I noticed Jobsites2-23 all had “(via Jobsite1)” in their header. How helpful. Additional sites also joined in to help me find jobs in San Antonio. Joy. To be fair, the listings weren’t all identical, but there was a lot of duplication in their offerings.

I guess after a time, even job aggregators get tired of sending you the same opportunities. Here are some jobs that are, at least, possibly in my circle of colleagues.

• Administrative Assistant – I love admins. They are invaluable, but not at all close to what I do.
• PR Specialist – This must be one of those jobs anyone can do if they’re offering it to me.
• IT Audit Manager – This would be a stretch for someone with my resume.
• Cylinder Filler – Unless I’m filling a cylinder with wine, I’m not sure what this job is.
• Graphic Designer – Uh, no.

And then there are some of my favorite “opportunities.”

• Junior Flight Test Analyst – I’m not even qualified for flight test dummy.
  
• Sexual and Reproductive Health Officer – My reproductive skills might be a bit overestimated.

Finally, there was this inspiring email: Technical Writer Job Leads You Should Apply To Now: “Make Up To $35/Hr Plus Tips. Start Driving with Lyft.”

In the end, the good news is that interviews are starting to come in.

And so far, none of them are from Lyft.