MICHAEL & HEATHER COLLETTO

“Can I get you a sedative? Or a Rubiks cube?”

This to me as Mike tried to crawl out of my desperate grasp on the couch. It has been a particularly slow day in the job-hunting world, which led, as usual, to EW.com browsing, which, at its worst, leads to some juicy celebrity gossip at popeater.com That’s usually about the time I say, “Mi-ike…” and plead with him to regale me with tales of his oh-so-productive workday.

Somewhere in the last two weeks, I official hit an Unemployment Wall. And it has not been pretty. I’ve been officially looking for eight months and had four interviews in less than two weeks. They were exciting opportunities and the interviews were unbelievably affirming. I left each one walking with my head held high. But almost none of them called. Or returned my followup calls and emails.  I’m fairly sensitive–at this, I think my friends will laugh and say, “Ya think?!“–and it hasn’t been easy to handle the endless ebb and flow of hopefulness and disappointment. There were some bumps and bruises along the way that were both a part of the game (I can’t believe I wrote that in my first cover letter!) and deeply personal (I’m looking at you, Jackets). But I’ve learned a lot about myself, my goals, and my “strengths and weaknesses.”

If you know my husband, Mike, you know he is the frustratingly perfect picture of patience. He sits next to me when the rejection emails come in. He sits next to me when they don’t. He smiles patiently as I read the job description aloud before each interview. (And only mentioned this “adorable” nervous tic of mine in Month Seven of the search.) He edits my cover letters. He listens to me go back and forth with each follow-up: “Should I call? I should call. I called on Tuesday. No, it’s too soon. I won’t call. I’ll email. No, a call would be better. Okay, email is it.” The other day I was walking out the door for another interview after a particularly disappoint letdown the day before. He grabbed my shoulders and said, ‘Heather, you just work too hard and care too much,” and it made me laugh so hard I smiled all the way into the interview.

My Unemployment, by the Numbers

8 – number of months on the hunt

51 – cover letters & resumes sent

6 – pounds I’ve gained from emotional eating

7 – number of cities I interviewed with: NYC, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Minneapolis, San Francisco, Cedarville, Grand Rapids

1 – interviews in Philadelphia

5 – number of weeks that passed before I finally figured out my personal recruiter had been fired from the company and was not applying me to all those jobs after all

$273.56 – dollar amount of fraudulent charges on our credit card shortly after I applied for a job on Craigslist

1 – number of interview outfits I have post-Thailand

1 – number of interview outfits I daydream about burning in a trash can when I finally land a job

1 – number of interview outfits I probably won’t burn because I need that outfit for my new job

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