So frustrating…yet another instance of Saving Advice eating my entry.

Short version here…..

Lo and behold, my recruiter friend somehow managed to get me an interview with this employer I was telling you about this Thursday. It’s an online retailer specializing in high end home furnishings and furniture. Retail. I’ve always worked in a corporate or journalism-type environment. But somehow he did it.
Frankly, while I appreciate fine design, I know nothing about it, so I really don’t feel qualified. And in this high unemployment environment, most employers can still demand a near perfect match for jobs they seek to fill.

The pay would be great…$35/hr. It’s a full-time job, but a contract job. They already turned down several people the recruiter referred to them. Term is sort of unclear. I think at least through the summer. My friend emphasized more than once the possibility of it morphing into a perm job, but of course many recruiters routinely say that to entice job candidates when there’s really no suggestion of that being the case. Just a hunch on my part.

But since the recruiter is a friend of mine that I worked side by side with for nearly two years in 2008-2009, I don’t think he’d feed me a line if it weren’t true.

The biggest downside right now is the commute. One hour and considerably more in traffic. Funny thing is I will only need to travel on a total of 3 roads to get there: there’s highway #1 (a traffic-clogged 2-lane highway), then the Interstate (also notoriously traffic-clogged most of the time) and then the employer’s road, right off the highway.

I noticed they list their “studio” hours as being 10 to 6. Many employees in this city and in Hartford stagger their work hours to relieve some of the congestion on the main highways. It would also be great for me since I wouldn’t have to stagger out of bed at some unearthly hour. It would be so civilized, even if that meant I got home that much later at night.

If I got an offer for the contract job, I would quit my p/t proofreading job which I started in November. Even though it might not last beyond the summer, it’s a risk I’m prepared to take. I mean, we’re talking the difference between $1400 a week and $240. If nothing else, I believe it would also reset the clock for COBRA and allow me to get my health insurance that way through year’s end, until I started up with a new healthcare exchange via Obamacare. Right now, my COBRA is due to end June 30, at which time I’ll have to go on the state’s last resort plan and shell out even more per month than I’m paying now.

I wonder if my immediate manager has guessed that I’ve been doing a few job interviews here and there when I told her I’d be in late due to an “appointment” I had.

Another thing I'd like to do if I got this job is go ahead and buy that new car I've been thinking about. It's a lot of driving to do with an old car. But there probably won't be time to do it beforehand. Sounds like they'd want a fast start.

I had to cover up all my lettuce, peas and tomato plants in the garden as we’re expecting widespread frost tonight. I used an assortment of plastic sheets, buckets and plastic pots to do it. Kind of a big pain. I hope the many flowering shrubs around here weather the night ok.

I re-erected the bluebird box today in a new location after having taken it down when some undesirable English sparrows began nest-building. I hope they have since moved on and can lure the bluebirds back. It’s in a new location in the front yard that’s not quite so close to brushy, overgrown areas, which is good, but I can’t monitor the box from the front stoop, which is not so good. I’ll need to keep an eye on it to see who shows interest.

Well, for the past 1.5 weeks or so I've been taking this nasal spray medication (twice daily) to see if it improves my cough, which doc thinks is probably silent post nasal drip. I can't honestly tell any difference but i'm beginning to wonder if this is one of those situations where the meds are worse than the symptoms. I cough maybe an average of once an hour, which isn't terrible-terrible. But these meds really seem to make me groggy in the morning and sort of in a brain fog all day. Like, I can function, but I just feel like I'm struggling to focus and stay sharp becus of the meds, and I don't like it.

I had WANTED to give it some more time, only to be able to diagnose my cough issue decisively, but now with this job interview coming up on Thursday, I think I'm going to stop taking it now. I need to be alert for that interview.