Stuck

In theory, the local office of a well-known charity was to make a decision earlier this week about hiring its new staff accountant, who would do billing and act as liaison to their regional accounting operation. I interviewed for the job a few weeks ago. To date the recruiter who got me the interview has not given me a word of feedback - not in response to the interview itself or my call to her afterward, and not in response to the phone message I left on Monday this week.

It's nice to feel valued and wanted and appreciated. At the moment, as far as the recruiters are concerned, I'm none of the above. But I do think I'm entitled to a returned phone call, even if it's to say, "You didn't get it," or "They haven't made a decision yet."

It's likely at this point that I didn't get it. Drat. I'm back to being without so much as a nibble on a job, as stuck in place as the old soccer ball that someone jammed into a tree at the dog park a couple weeks ago. I'm still plugging away at my Auditing seminar and that's going well, unlike the Financial Accounting and Reporting one that I dropped a couple of times and will ultimately need to tackle again. But it will be a while before I even register to take the CPA exam. And even once I pass all four parts of it, I still won't be certified as a CPA, because for all my experience I've never gotten a piece of paper signed by a CPA I worked under for a year or more. I could have gotten one at First Magnus had I known. Ah, well. So actually becoming a CPA will have to wait until I'm employed again. Whenever that will be.

I recently got a letter from the Arizona Department of Economic Security, dated March 5, about a change in my unemployment compensation due to the economic stimulus bill passing. According to the letter, my benefit will go up $25 in Federal dollars as of the end of February. I checked, though, and as of last week I was still getting the same $240 as before. But I read the letter more closely today, and it says it will take several weeks to get the system updated to include the money. It will then be paid retroactively. Thanks, President Obama! I really do appreciate it.

One additional worry, though. The DES web page that tracks how much unemployment I have left is showing me just a few weeks away from it being all gone, 26 weeks from when I got the ball rolling after my last temp job (aside for the tax service debacle) ended. According to another page, it gets automatically extended if the state unemployment rate is over 6%, which it is. But I worry whether I read it correctly, and whether it will really kick in. I need to face up to researching it further.

Meanwhile the tax refunds have come in, and today is the day Pepper gets her first professional grooming since we got her. Cayenne, meanwhile, will get her nails trimmed. So I have something to look forward to, sort of.

Karen