Initial Assessment

Today I had to present myself at the New York State Department of Labor office for my "Initial Assessment." This is done in a small group (mine had eight) and involves going over the paperwork that the state sent us about our special skills, work history and career goals.

My group had two people for whom English was not their first language — one woman came with her daughter, so she could sort things out for her. One man who looked like maybe he was laid off from the Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue and four others who maybe lost jobs at a construction site or hotel.

After we turned in our paperwork, we met individually with a...well, I guess they are some kind of career counselors, I'm not sure. My person was named Bridget.

Bridget took a look at me, looked at my paperwork, looked back at me and then said, "I'm so sorry about your job." She sounded so sincere. I said, "Yes. I'm sorry about my job too." And then she said, "I loved your column." So I guess she really was sorry I'd lost my job and not just saying that because she was trained to. Maybe I should have directed her to this blog. Anyway, she asked me where I was looking and I answered that I was looking mostly in New York City since that's where all the media jobs in this area were and out-of-state. While all the other counselors seemed annoyingly upbeat with their people, Bridget just seemed depressed — like our H.R. director was when she told me I was being let go. She told me, "Something will come along for you. I wish I could say how soon, but don't worry. Something will come along." Then she gave me a sheet with some job search sites and said, "You probably know all of these, but here you go;" added that my resume looked find and I was free to go.

Everyone else was still meeting with their counselors, so I guess they needed more pointers on where to look for jobs or what to put on their resumes. But for me, the whole thing lasted about 30 minutes. Of course, because it fell in the middle of the day, I've done absolutely nothing productive by way of job search. Oh well, better luck tomorrow.