A month

As I've said before, everything seems to be moving slower in this economy. It's been slightly more than a month since Trillian received notice about being laid off, slightly less than a month since she went off payroll.

I've been subbing when I can for most of that time. I managed one solid week, which was exhausting but not too bad. And then I had a week where I could only get one assignment. On the plus side, I'm making enough to pay for our utilities and food for a month--and I've gotten in good enough with one of the secretaries at the high school that she was telling me about part-time openings for next year.

We've spent most of this past month waiting to see if the big firm her friend works for would make an exception to their hiring freeze for her or be willing to hire her once the hiring freeze was lifted. Technically, her friend's business unit received approval for the position before the freeze expired, but the bureaucracy and paper pushing means that they haven't really moved forward in filling it. Frequent reassurances that they will hire her soon. Unfortunately, corporate soon is a bit different than our soon.

In the meantime, her previous company has made overtures about hiring her on an hourly basis for 1 1/2 to 2 days per week. At the hourly rate Trillian is requesting (or even a couple bucks less), we could cover 60-75% of our monthly expenses; if she could get more like 2 1/2 days, our withdrawals from the emergency fund would be negligible. Her previous supervisor wants her full-time, of course--Trillian had been scheduled for more than 40 hours per week at the time she was laid off and everybody else on her team is fully booked, so the work just hasn't been getting done. This remains hypothetical, as the work has not actually been approved yet.

More waiting. Always more waiting.

Trillian is giving either position one more week to materialize. Then she's going to start looking at companies in the metro area where we used to live, staying with family or friends in that area.

I remain fairly optimistic. I'm not always sure why, but I keep finding myself thinking, "Soon enough."

In the meantime, we're getting to the end of school for Scooter (and me), taking advantage of the free movie tickets we get with credit card points, looking forward to the local pool's opening (and a warm enough day), and making good use of what we already have.