Room with a View

Back in the day (three years ago), the job hunt began by searching job-listing sites and firms for open positions (which existed) and lobbying for them by sending out your portfolio, calling the firm, inquiring about projects, what they need and how your skills fit (it was a two-way street back then). When a firm was interested in hiring you (had made an offer), you were often flown to out to interview. Maybe you had to foot that bill yourself but with the prospect of a salary down the road, and at the very least a nice lunch or coffee on the firm, it seemed like the future was bright and health insurance was on the horizon.

Yesterday, as it began to hail on Highway 15 heading north, I searched for a place with wi-fi so I could check on the 15 or so firms that I’d sent inquiries to in the last month. I knew that none of them had positions but I have made a checklist of all my potential employers (they all have said they envision openings in six months or so) and am religiously touching base with them, flirting with being annoying, sitting on the knife edge of persistent/obnoxious, hoping that the moment a position opens they think of me. This means that in Elko, Nevada I sat at a table near the biker gear at the Flying Jay (even truckers need the internet). I pulled into a parking lot at a Best Western in northern California that advertised “wi-fi” and had to ask someone unloading their car if they knew the password. I poached a computer at the Idaho State University campus in Pocatello. And when a firm says “sure, we’d like to see what you’ve got”, I either send them a digital copy of my portfolio or I find the nearest Kinkos/Fast Copy/small-town-copy-shop and print one off. If they say, “sure, come on in, we’d love to talk to you”, I route myself wherever it may be to do that.

My dad called the other night and ran down the list of opportunities and firms with whom I’ve been corresponding.

HIM: “How about VWA?”

ME: “They aren’t making decisions until the end of August”.

HIM: “How about the Fulbright?”

ME: “They won’t know until the end of September”.

HIM: “How about the fancy-firm-in-Boston?”

ME: “Even though I had a great conversation with the principal about the big, new project they are starting, I haven’t gotten even an iota of response since”.

I appreciate that my dad is engaged with this process. I’m not annoyed by having to report my rejections, whine about my dwindling savings account or revise my strategy on simply keeping my head above water (maybe being a CAD-monkey wouldn’t be so bad… maybe getting part-time work with the retail shop I worked at in college would be a way to get by… oh, they’re not hiring either? Maybe I’ll put my name in with a temp agency”. My dad’s supportive of whatever I choose and as I drive around the West. When I almost ran out of gas in southern Montana (my gas gauge is broken so I flirt with this possibility often), he called back a couple hours later to make sure I wasn’t stranded on the side of the road. He knows there’s nothing he can do about my job search or my gas tank. As my excitement about the independence of the open road (literally and figuratively) starts to feel like loneliness on this journey, he’s not reminding me of the seriousness of my unemployment. He’s just supportive.

“What’s that noise Rach?”, he asks as I stand and pace the top of a picnic table set up on my friend Mark’s front porch. I’m camped in Mark’s living room for a couple days. Mark works for the Parks Service in Teton National Park and his porch faces the snow covered Grand Teton as it rises out of the Wyoming plain. The noise my dad’s hearing are bison who are roaming the aspen at the end of plain just below me. They are snorting. The baby bison that were born this summer often sit in the road next to Mark’s house (as do the tourists who line up to photograph the apathetic animals).

“You should tell fancy-Boston-principal that life as an unemployed landscape architect isn’t so bad right now. You’ve got ‘neighborhood bison’ in your front yard”.

My dad is right. In fact, as I write this, I’m sitting in the front room of generous family friends Kim and Al. They built a straw bale house in the mountains around Missoula. They happen to be in Seattle right now but have graciously allowed me to stay. A deer wandered in front of the window this morning as I drank coffee and contemplated the job hunt strategy for the day. I am going to contact the Forest Service, I’ve decided. There are a handful of temporary job openings around the country and Vic Lyons (Forest Service dude in the Tahoe basin) said it makes all the difference to find out WHO is responsible for filling those positions and getting in touch with them. So that’s what I’ll do. Then I’ll go for a trail run.