Public Meetings

Dear my non-existent readers:

As you may know, I was unemployed for a short period of time.  I use the word short because that period of time represented less than 5% of my life.

Prior to that, I was working full-time in a micro size company.  Gone were the days when you get to gather in the gymnasiums for public announcements from the principal.

As I was unemployed, I submitted the necessary paperwork to see if I was eligible to receive employment insurance.   I was so I was summoned, along with other people eligible to receive employment insurance, to listen to the one hour presentation delivered by some government employee (most likely younger than me) about my responsibilities as I receive EI.  I have never applied or recieved EI before so this was all new to me.  I don't know how familiar everyone else in the room was with the EI process.  All I remember about the presentation was that we have to look for a job everyday and submit resumes and etc.  The presenter even said we are allow to leave the presentation anytime; for example, if someone calls us to give us an interview.  The presenter understood that we may all have diligently been applying to jobs prior to attending to his presentation (which I believe the presenter probably thought was unimportant).*

At the end of the day, I didn't take the presenters advice because looking at job advertisement actually made me felt stressed and inadequate.  They were either too detailed or lacked information.

Thinking back, I wish someone sat with me and spoke to me about my last job.  What did you liked about it, what did you not like about it, what do you want in the future, what went wrong, etc.  I went to other places for help but no one spoke with me.  I ended up having the conversation with myself.  It is an ongoing conversation still.

I guess when you are first out of a job, it's a good time to sit back and think for a little before diving back again.

I am envious of people who are more confident than I am and won't feel as much stress as I would in the same situation.

*During the presentation, I also learnt that they were phasing out SIN number which was new to me and I think to a lot of employer as well because I still see job ads requesting applicants to bring their SIN card.