I applied for another seventy-odd jobs today. I did get one response from a h00man – someone at an agency noticed that I was systematically applying to each listed postition on their intake board that matched my skillset (which is unusually broad, driving the large number of positions I’m submitting for) and dropped a polite little note asking me to cool it.

When I first moved here, I would scour the want ads in the paper and enter the contact information into a database for each position, as well as the title, a note, and the date I saw the ad. Then I’d do a mail merge and print off a cover letter and resume for each job listing, using dbase II and WordStar on my old Kaypro. I had a nightmarishly loud teletype-style printer (a Juki) that took about two minutes to print each sheet of paper. I believe I averaged about forty jobs a week, so each print run went on for about two-and-two-thirds hours.

Eventually I upgraded to a little dot-matrix printer.

As I recall, I got one interview, which led to a job as an art historian, of all the crazy things – actually using my degree! – with a startup that was attempting to develop an automated insurance-and-collatteral vaulation system for art collections based on scanning and databasing the art-auction results for everything, everywhere, since the beginning of time.

Extrapolating from that experience, I’ll keep my seventy-a-week average – maybe even expanding on it – going for about four months, and I expect one inteview to result. Bear in mind that Viv has actually laid down the law: I have to get a job. Just lookin’ doesn’t produce revenue.

UPDATE: Crazy, I already have a phone chat request. Cross your fingers!