Round and round I go…where I’ll stop, nobody knows.

Because: it’s not over yet. The job hunt continues.

There has been a lot of activity on the job-search scene in recent days, but I’m still looking. I heard from the Oregon community college I’d been waiting on, receiving the rejection call last Thursday. It’s not anything to feel particularly upset over, though, since the comments I received during the call indicated that it simply was not a good match. Of course, where I am a good match is anybody’s guess!

The good news is that I keep getting the invitations to interview. So, in the near future I’ll be traveling to Vancouver, Washington; Kentfield, California; and Burlington, Vermont.

The emotional and physical toll this process takes is pretty amazing. I would certainly like to find someplace to land, but there’s no way to tell when that will happen.

I keep telling myself to trust the process. What else can I do?

As noted in the previous post, this week I interviewed for the position of Campus Executive Officer at a college in the Southwestern U.S. [This job is at a two-year branch campus of a university; it would bear the title of “president” at just about any other two-year college.] Although I was pretty positive that I would not be considered further in this search, the next morning (i.e., yesterday) I received a phone call inviting me to campus to interview as a finalist!

Ohmygod! (I said to myself…) How can this be?

THEN, came the rest of the news: I was being offered a maximum of $750 in reimbursement for travel expenses (airfare alone would cost over $600), which would not be paid at all if I either withdrew from the search or declined an offer of employment.

WHAT!?!

I called and wrote back to them expressing my interest in being reimbursed actual expenses (100%) and in having them drop the “terms.” The final offer from them was a maximum reimbursement of $1,200, under the original terms. (My expenses would have been, I think, a little over $1,400.)

This is how you hire a president?

I don’t think so.

Sorry, Bobbi Jo…nice to have met ya…

Oh, what an experience! This job-search life is such a hoot sometimes!

Today I had my first-ever interview for a campus presidency. There’s no way that I’ll ever be hired into this position, though, so I thought I’d make mention of it (and make fun of it) here.

I’ve only ever applied for three jobs at this level, and this is my first interview. So, in that way it’s kind of a milestone. And, it’s difficult to believe that this campus will actually find someone really desirable with the process that they’ve put in place.

Last week, a woman from that campus’ HR department called and identified herself as Bobbi Jo. She told me where she was from and then said, “we was wonderin’ if you’d want to interview for the campus executive officer position.” Yes, Bobbi Jo (what is this, Petticoat Junction!?) actually said, we was wonderin’ – when calling to set up an interview for a presidential candidate. (She phrased it this way two different times during our conversation.)

Well, I talked this through with her and set up a phone interview for today, scheduled to last (a mere) one-half hour.

So: I got the call today at five minutes past the scheduled time. The person on the phone identified himself (by name, not position), indicated that the interview committee was gathered, that they were going to tape the interview with my permission, and jumped right into the questions. He asked them all himself. Totally without inflection or trace of any personality at all. As soon as I provided one answer, he jumped right in with the next question. I had no sense of the group, only this task-oriented, humorless person on the other end of the line.

This is how you hire a president?

I don’t think so.

During the period of the 1980s and 90s I was a runner. Well, maybe it would be more accurate to say I was a jogger, but I actually did participate in several “races” during that time (namely 5Ks, 8Ks and some 10Ks). (And, really, I, myself, never actually raced anyone…) I think the largest event I ever participated in (on one hot August night in the late 80s) was when the Seattle SEAFAIR 10K race drew over 10,000 runners. (That’s the memory I have of it now, anyway). I see that, these days, the SEAFAIR event is an 8K run, and that last year it drew a mere 2,700 participants. Ah, I guess the glory days of running are over…

But, why do I speak of this?!

Because: during the last several days, I’ve been feeling healthy enough to think about running again. It has been almost ten years since I’ve done this, having severely aggravated my left knee during an intense August 1997 hike in Glacier National Park. The arthritis that was discovered in the aftermath of that vacation led me to, practically immediately, drastically curtail my running activities. Lately, however, with this renewed path to health that I’ve been on, I’m toying with the idea that my body may be able to tolerate this kind of exercise again. Even to be THINKING of this, of course, feels great. And, during three of my walks in the last few days, I’ve broken into a jog (for, like, a quarter mile or so).

Now, I don’t really have the stuff of a marathon man, but… can't I dream?

Where is my head at these days? All over the place, it seems. I’ve been finding it difficult to find a focus, what with multiple areas of life all demanding my attention. I’ve been so scattered that even to sit down and compose a little blog entry has been an over-the-top challenge.

I guess I have to admit that my primary mission in life lately (given that I’ve returned to, and am maintaining, an acceptable level of health) is conducting my job search. It goes on and on and on…

For example, I interviewed at another Oregon community college just over two weeks ago. This happens to be a position and a place that, at least on the surface, feels like the perfect fit for me. I thought the interview day went quite well and had hoped to hear something (e.g., a job offer!) by now. No such luck. I received an email from the college’s VP a couple of days ago informing me that the search committee was “gathering more information” and that she hoped there would be a decision sometime in the next three weeks.

Holy Ambivalence, Batman! Three WEEKS more!

It sure has me wondering what’s up, up there!

For now, all I can do is continue with the process and, to the best of my ability, trust it. I had a phone interview with a college in the Northeast U.S. this morning, and have another one with a campus in the Southwest next week. I feel like a politician repeating his stump speech over and over and over again. I need to keep reminding myself no matter how familiar my stories are to me, that this next interview group has never heard them before.

Another thing constantly on my mind, that is when I’m not obsessing over the fact that I don’t know where I’m going to be working in the near future, is my photography. As you have learned, I have an entirely new primary camera body and lens these days and new software to go along with it. I’m trying to be patient and teach myself Nikon Capture NX, which actually seems to be going well. However, my patience with the other Nikon product, PictureProject, totally ran out some time back. I think that, basically, it’s pretty worthless. Fortunately, I found a replacement that I’m entirely delighted with, namely Photo Mechanic. This is an incredible piece of software that is going to make managing my ever-growing collection of digital photos much easier.

And, then there’s getting out of the house to actually take photographs. I’m continuing to make time for that, and though I’m tightly scheduled, it feels really good to be back “out there.”

Of course, I haven’t even mentioned that I still am required to show up at a real job every day and expected to make a difference. To the best of my ability, I’m attempting to do that. Just today we finished the first week of spring term, my last full academic term in this location…and it was intense. There were lots and lots of fires to put out, so I ran from one to the other as best I could. Whew, am I glad this week is over with!