Freedom in the Hills of New Hampshire

We’re approaching the sixth month of Lasse being in the US, he’s still unemployed, and the clock is ticking. Not the baby clock–we’re fine on that one. It’s more the “Family is coming to visit in 3 weeks and we don’t have our own apartment yet because we don’t know where we’ll be living” clock. Gah!

The good news is that he has employment possibilities. There are about three positions that look promising at the moment. The first one he did a phone interview way back in March for, but the company appears to be moving at the rate of frozen molasses when it comes to actually hiring someone. They’re a non-profit and get a lot of funding from New England state governments, so I guess that explains that. They’re located in Concord or will be. The second one is an econ job also located in Concord that definitely plans to have someone hired by early June. Lasse hasn’t had an interview with them yet, but when he called up there Monday before last they recognized his name, said that his resume was good enough and they had forwarded it to their hiring staff. They then asked him to submit some examples of his economic writing, which he did and they told him he would hear from them “in the next few weeks.” Hopefully for an interview, because he would be absolutely perfect for this job.

Then last week he got an interview for a job that came out of the blue and the company was absolutely eager to interview him and wanted to set up an interview THE VERY NEXT DAY. So, Lasse went there without much time to prepare and came home absolutely embarrassed and said it didn’t go so well. I think it went better than he thought it did, but I still don’t think he’ll get this job. He applied for it with a bachelor’s degree and left off his two masters but then told them in the interview he had two master’s…way more than they wanted and they immediately concluded he would get bored doing that job. It’s located in Merrimack.

This week he got a call and did a phone interview with a company located in Lebanon, NH and he feels that that interview went extremely well. It’s for a market analyst position and the really great thing about this job is that not only does it pay well, but they’re also willing to pay to relocate the right person AND they have an apartment set up for this person. Whoa, right? Hopefully his interview went as well as he thought and he’ll get another one. The lady said he should hear from them by next Friday. So…we’re waiting. Again. For another position.

It’s the waiting, really, that’s the worst. The fact that we’re finally getting all these leads is great, but the fact that they’re all coming now when we have 3 weeks time to actually get something settled and all of them involve someone contacting us in the “next few weeks” is positively nerve-wracking.

The sad thing is that every time my husband gets an interview or something positive happens in his job hunt, he gets really happy and excited because surely it won’t be long now! We’re going to know where we’re going to live! We’ll have his income! Things will be settled! Horray! And then…nothing…happens…and he slowly descends into a semi-depressive “I’m never going to get a job, everyone else finds a job faster than I do, you’re not  going to be able to work much longer, we’re not going to have an income, we’re going to eat up our savings, and once that’s gone we’ll just be poor, and living on the streets.” Seriously. He was like this in the morning before he got the call from the company in Lebanon. I looked at him and said “How long do you think you’re going to be unemployed??” “I don’t know! 3 more months? 6 months? A year? Two years!” And then he got that call and was on friggin’ cloud nine the rest of the day while I spent half of the rest of the remaining time brooding over the fact that I’m the pregnant one, and his mood swings are worse than mine.

In any case, hopefully he’ll get the econ job in Concord or the analyst job in Lebanon. The econ job would be great because it would be in Concord, would be in economics and would hopefully enable Lasse to launch a career as an economist. The Lebanon job would be great because it pays well (t’s, oddly enough, the only job that has mentioned what its pay rate is…the rest don’t even bother), they would pay for relocation and apparently have an apartment lined up. The downside is that it’s in Lebanon and if you’re not familiar with New Hampshire, let me show you why:

Lebanon is 1.5 hours from Manchester. I currently live 30 minutes away from my job. No big deal: he could always move to Lebanon while I finish up the last few weeks at my job. The bigger problem is the midwife. It’s 91 miles away…almost 2 hours driving time. Hmmmm. Guess we’ll have to see about that one…

In any case, I hope he gets one of these jobs…and soon. Maybe I should start a pool? “When will Lasse get a job…and where?”