I’ve been humming that for 20 minutes, I figured I might as well do the diary thing.

I sit here staring at one of 17 different ‘job’ sites that seem to promise hundreds of jobs, in anticipation of spending another 6 hours filling out applications and I realize, these are all listing the same jobs with different referrers. I do a little time cross referencing and I get a list of over 1100 jobs on 4 websites down to about 250. Multiple listings make it look like there is so much more available than there really is. I go through my remaining 250, knock out the ones that require experience or education I don’t officially have. I’m down to 20 in a few minutes. I check the ones that have pay under the level which can provide for my family, which knocks half out. I file these for later consideration. Desperate times.

I have 10 left, and 4 of those are so far away that the fuel costs for transport would be prohibitive, likely dropping potential earnings well below what it would take to make rent and bills. So I file with the remaining six. Meanwhile I ponder.

How many people are sitting here like me now? I estimate that with a 15-20% employment rate, that would statistically average to 500 people in my small town alone. a hundred thousand across southern New Jersey. Are all of us fighting for those same 6 jobs? Now I ponder the online applications. Under “Desired Wages” I put enough to skate by my rent and bills and gas budget in a week, with a small buffer. With 100K people looking for the same job, I might be in trouble – they could put a lower figure in the desired wages column and send me right up. Happened the other day with Home Depot. Happened with Wal-Mart too.

I also realize that doing all this cross referencing and comparison would qualify as work in any number of jobs….

Hire me. It’s a quarter to two now. Got plenty of time.