I'm supposed to be looking for a job. I've been looking...for the last year and a half. It's not going so well. It doesn't help that the economy has tanked and everyone and their uncle are looking for jobs. I have gone from being a college educated working citizen to a stay at home mom. And all that previous work experience? Worthless to me now. I haven't worked for 8, almost 9 years. That is not to say I haven't volunteered, worked for no pay, learned things I never did in my working life.
But these things aren't quantifiable.
You can't say "I've learned to be a good mediator when my son cut all the hair off my daughter's favorite horse and she wanted to kill him on the spot." Do you know how much self restraint it takes to not strangle one child and keep the other one from doing the job herself? A lot.
"I've learned patience from constantly repeating myself, not being heard and then saying it again a few more times for good measure." Here's the litany...'wash your hands, put the toilet seat down, leave the cat alone, pick up your coat, put your book away, don't put THAT in the toilet, leave your sister alone, leave your brother alone, stop hitting. It takes an enormous amount of patience to repeat yourself over and over again without going insane. I know, I've done it.
"I've learned how to budget my time." When you have a house to clean, laundry, a grocery trip, a birthday gift to pick up, Doctor appointments, painting (and not the fun kind), volunteering, soccer practice, club meetings, phone calls, cages to clean, rooms to pick up and only 7 hours in which to do that before the monkeys come home and make it darn near impossible to finish without whining, arguing and mayhem, you learn to budget your time.
"I'm a better employee now than I was before." Better how? Well, if you tell me that you are going to give me a job to do, and I have four hours in which to do it, and no one will bother me with "she hit me, he's reading too loud, she's being mean, he's singing too much," and at the end of that four hours I will actually accomplish something...damn, I will kick some butt and feel so good about doing it that I will happily come back the next day and do it again. How many of your employees can say that now?
"I don't have to work, I want to work." Why is this a big difference? Because I'm not working to pay the bills, although it would certainly make it easier to buy new furniture whenever my son decides to stop ruining everything I own, I WANT to be there. I want to be working. I look forward to going off to work, getting things done, being helpful, being recognized for my work. That says a lot. I will be a happy employee. Happy employees work harder. It's a fact.
"I won't live for this job, but I'll do my best work and you won't have to pay me any extra." Whatever I find won't be my reason for living. But I can guarantee that I will put my heart into it when I am there. And just being paid for working is such a bonus that I won't be looking for raises or bonuses or any of that stuff.
I'll keep looking. And at this point, I'm about ready to start putting some of that stuff into my cover letter. Honesty is the best policy. Let's try that.
"Frustrated and annoyed SAHM looking for work. Will do a damn good job at whatever you give her to do, because she's a mom and she's used to juggling 40 things at one time without messing up. She's laid back, easy to work with and just happy to be out of the house. Pay is negotiable, but appreciated."
I'll let you know if that works.
DO IT! Did you hear about that mom who auctioned off on ebay the pokemon cards her kids smuggled into her grocery cart? She wrote a really clever description of why she was selling them, and I think she got something like $300 dollars for the $5 pack of cards. So you never know what a little wit and honesty will do for you.
ReplyDeleteWill they hire both of us??
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