First of all, In Search of a Job Title was not necessarily what I wanted to call this blog. I played with Being Unemployed, While Waiting for Employment, the Rules of unEmployment, Career Interrupted, etc. I ended up with Search by accident. I’m so used to hitting the RETURN key in certain softwares that I hit it without thinking while checking in WordPress about the availability of the phrase. At the time I was free associating titles. I guess I’m fortunate that at least I spelled it correctly.
Serendipitously choosing the title/url this way is symbolic of the way I’ve been employed my entire career. It’s been an ongoing series of chance meetings, handoffs, networking, and dumb luck that’s propelled me for 30+ years. A non-Machiavellian opportunism has taken me from the hills of Tennessee to the interior of Brasil. From the Palace of Westminster to a Medici Villa. From being my own boss to being buried so far down a Byzantine maze that I had to dig my way up to the basement of decision-making.
But, I never really noticed the patternless pattern until recently as I passed my 2 year anniversary of unemployment on February 23, 2014. In the last 2 years of existence as I now know it, I have noticed that life as the unemployed is fundamentally different from what came before. I have crossed the bourn into the undiscovered country and can now only hope to return. (Second reference to the bard’s work. Did you catch the first?)
This blog is my working out of life on the other side of the stream and my haphazard attempts of refording.
In Search of a Job Title 