So, having bills to pay, and realizing that any return on writing for pay will be a while in coming… I am wading in the waters of employment again, after filing for unemployment benefits a couple of weeks ago. Texas is kindly but stern in these matters, insisting that good-faith efforts be made on a regular basis for remunerative employment. They are also enormously helpful to veterans; yesterday I had to go down to the state workfare center for a briefing, afterwards those dozen of us who were veterans had an opportunity to meet with a jobs counselor. I didn’t need to, as I had two interviews immediately after the briefing, blam-blam, just like that. Hence, I was in full interview drag; conservative suit, silk scarf, matching jewelry, stockings and shoes that matched the handbag, tasteful makeup and all. (My mother trained me well.)
The first was over at the airport, very much a last-minute thing; they called the night before, having pulled the resume I send them the day before that. It turned out to be a preliminary round. Full-time, two-weeks paid vac, salary OK, small office, varied duties. Additional amusement provided by the fact that it was a brokerage selling executive aircraft, and was housed among hangers on the east edge of the airport… with small aircraft coming and going, and being maintained in the same area where the employee parking was located. A single-engine AC yielded the right-of-way to the VEV as I left. This sort of thing would have made the commute rather interesting… if I had pursued it to the second round.

But I didn’t. I went on to the second interview. This was a referral, from the person who fixed my computer two weeks ago, to one of his regular clients who sells very specialized real estate all over South Texas out of a home office. The client has a need for a multi-talented office manager-assistant-secretary with a wide variety of sales-support skills and a facility with computers. It is part time, pays at the bottom of my range, is a small office and probably bound for a rocky ride… but it’s barely twenty minutes away, in a neighborhood I know and like, and I would be entirely in charge once I got up to speed. And I still owe the computer guy, anyway.
I’m a sucker. I accepted the offer, which was tendered about halfway through the interview. I start tomorrow. The fact that I am not the least bit interested in real estate, per se, is probably a plus, from my new bosses’ point of view; I am in no danger of going out and setting up on my own, once I have gotten experience of the field. I want to write, and this would let me do it, in the afternoons… and also pay the bills, until the latest book hits the big time.