Eventually there will a come a point in your job search where you begin to wonder if you’ll ever see a light at the end of the tunnel. The tedium of hours of work filling out various job seeker profiles on countless websites, then their job applications, then adding a tailored resume and cover letter does take its toll. The anxiety increases, your sleep and wake hours are all out of whack, suddenly you’re able to relate to the depression medication commercials on TV (“Depression hurts“)… everything just plain sucks. This is when you need the equivalent of a good swift kick in the ass to jolt you back into reality (If you’re wanting a literal swift kick in the ass, this blog can’t help you).

Since my last blog post (sorry for the long lapse, faithful readers), I was going through the psychological “Ick” (I believe that’s the technical term) that I described above. As I’m now writing a blog post, you’re safe and correct in assuming that I received a figurative swift kick in the ass.

It started with a flight back home to surprise my mother for Mother’s Day by showing up on her doorstep unannounced (stay with me on this). It was a whirlwind trip with my arrival Saturday afternoon, May 10th, and a departing flight late Monday evening, May 12th, but it was well worth it for the look on my mother’s face and the tears of joy that followed. But I digress… over the course of my visit, my mom wanted to know what my “game plan” was for getting my shit together. Only my mom (or Dad) could issue a figurative swift kick in the ass with the two words “game plan”.

Ok, so let me explain this one. I was blessed to have 2 very unique parents in that my mom has a stronger connection with her inner 5-year old than anyone I know and my dad has severe A.D.D. which means that both of my parents like to make things FUN! If I’m having a day where I just can’t convince myself to get my lazy ass out of bed, my mom’s advice is “sometimes we have to be 6” which is just funny enough to get me laughing, nodding in agreement, and begrudgingly get my ass out of bed. Once, I was working a job from home answering Live Chat questions and was struggling with multitasking. Here my dad came to the rescue and advised that I accept the challenge as a game. At the time, my game obsession was with Rock Band – so I made a playlist on my iPod of all the songs I would typically play whenever I played the game. Sure enough, my productivity doubled and I was soon the star of the team (personal thanks to Iron Maiden for “Run to the Hills” which was particularly helpful with the afternoon slump).

So when my mom was asking what my “game plan” was – she wasn’t necessarily asking me what steps I was going to take to ensure my future was secure so much as she was asking how I was going to turn this task around and make it FUN! 

I haven’t worked out all the details yet (more to come) but I’ve begun with the dreaded task of looking at what I like to call the “Thanks, but No Thanks” emails from places I’ve applied/interviewed. These are the emails where they let you know they had so many applicants, you’re pretty good, but just not good enough, etc. Each view of my inbox is now a new game show. Cue dramatic theme music as the inbox loads, perhaps the Jeopardy theme song plays while I decide which email to open, while that email loads I’ll chant “big money, big money, no whammies, no whammies!”, and then the entire audience groans in sympathy with me when we find out that the email says “Thanks, but No Thanks”. At the end of the show (i.e. when all of those emails have been opened) the “fun” game show theme music is back, the host is thanking me and the audience is clapping wildly just as the host says, “We have some lovely parting gifts for you” and I play a Facebook game until my 5 lives are gone – as a reward for bravely facing the emails. Once the 5 lives are gone, it’s time to be 6 and go back to the job search drawing board.

Have any of you come up with creative ways to make the job search more fun? Share below!