Burning Flares

“Is there gas in the car? Yes there’s gas in the car.”

                              -Steely Dan, Kid Charlemagne

On Thursday I’m scheduled for an interview with the County for an IT position.  That would be Placer County.  Placer County stretches from the Sacramento suburbs though the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the Nevada State line.  The position would be in Auburn, the county seat, which as it happens is just about 200 miles from my front door.  Thankfully the interview will be over the phone.

Should I be offered the position, and should I accept, although I don’t see myself turning down any offer at this point, either my family and I would move to Auburn like we did back in 2006, or I would move by myself and continue to look for employment closer to home, hoping someday to return.  My likely tiny apartment would serve as a weekend getaway for the rest of my brood, or I would make the drive to Fresno on weekends to try and retain the family unit.

            Does applying for jobs hundreds of miles away make sense?  Is it logically sound to apply for a job from so far away when it’s likely that there will be local applicants?  In this day when relocation assistance is so far removed to have dropped into fable, is it wise to apply remotely?  Would a business consider looking at an applicant from so far away, running the risk that after the entire hiring process the prospective employee might decline an offer, prompting said business to start over from scratch?

            Yes I’ve heard the “we’ll retain your application on file should another position come up,” but I believe that like I believe the check is in the mail.

            But back to applying remotely and back to logic.  Logically it makes sense to stay in my yard when asking for work, but perhaps there are times when acting illogical is the logical thing to do.  In an episode of the original Star Trek show a number of the crew, including Spock, Bones, and Scotty among others, were marooned on a hostile planet when their shuttle threw a rod or something.  After the red-shirt crewman was killed by giant cavemen, Scotty used the group’s phasers to give the shuttle enough power to lift off.  But once out of the atmosphere, it was determined that they could not achieve orbit and would fall back and burn up.  In a move that smelled of emotional desperation, Spock jettisoned and ignited the remaining fuel in what the others thought was a last ditch effort to break away from the planet’s gravity.  It didn’t work.  Bones said something about Spock abandoning his strict adherence to logic but just when it looked like the red-shirt guy had been given the easy way out, the Enterprise appeared and scooped (beamed) them up.  Kirk had seen the trail of burning fuel.  Spock made some snarky comment about acting illogical being the logical thing to do and everyone had a good laugh.  Star Trek, is there nothing it can’t teach us?

I have to write in the names and contact information of six businesses I’ve applied to every time I fill in the form for unemployment benefits, but other than that no one other than me is tracking where I apply for work (I’m doubtful that anyone at the unemployment office reads those entries but they are all true and verifiable).  But I’m ensnared in a no quit scenario where I must keep trying to find work because the alternative unthinkable.  But there are days when there is nothing, absolutely nothing out there locally.  So that’s how I ended up interviewing at a small Catholic College in Oakland, at a broadband fiber provider in Utah, at a world class aquarium in Monterey, and with, believe it or not, a telecommunication company in Illinois.  I was this close to moving to Champagne. 

Then there is karma.  Will the employment gods bestow upon me a cubicle and paycheck if I only apply within the greater Fresno area?  I’m not taking any chances.  So every day I search first in Fresno then I expand my search.  It doesn’t always reach to Illinois, but as far as the Golden State is concerned, I’ve got it covered.  Now if only a passing star ship would see my flare of burning fuel.