• I do not want to teach any longer.
• However, I want to be employed more than I want to not-teach.
• However, if I have to teach, I would prefer to be outside my current district.
• However, I tried this last summer and it didn’t exactly work out, and I think people can smell burnout on me regardless of how hard I try to conceal it.
• However, I’m fully expecting my entire district to go bankrupt next year, and it’s probably better to take a salary hit now then have my paychecks start bouncing in April.
• However, that might not happen.
• However, it’s entirely possible that it won’t matter because I’ll have killed myself/others by the time April rolls around anyway.

It seems, given those facts, that I might look at jobs outside of education!

• I am good at many things.
• However, few of those things will be immediately apparent on a résumé, and “trust me, I can handle this” is hardly a winning schpiel at a job interview.
• However, letters of recommendation are good!
• However, I don’t especially relish the idea of telling my boss I’m going to do my best to bail on him this summer.
• However, he’s not an idiot and he knows full well that it’s time for the rats to desert the ship, and he’s likely looking for a job himself.
• However, every time I look for other jobs, I’m reminded that I don’t really have any sort of concrete idea of what else I might do, and jobs that my current skill-set clearly qualifies me for frequently don’t meet salary needs.
• However, see above regarding salary needs, because again, making $IOU in April is a distinct possibility this year.
• The word however is getting old, so we’ll point out here that I actually don’t know what the hell people do to find jobs nowadays.  Finding teaching jobs is pretty specific and simple, but when you’re in the situation I’m in (“I want at least $45K a year so that I can keep paying my bills, and don’t much care what I’m doing so long as it’s not teaching or illegal”) the actual search process can be kinda difficult.
• LinkedIn appears to be useless, and their dedicated job search app worse than useless.  I searched for nonprofit jobs yesterday and received several screens of jobs at Taco Bell.  A search for education jobs suggested that I apply for a job as a surgeon for the Army Reserve.
• You may recall that a manager at Taco Bell makes considerably more than South Bend will pay a teacher.

I really loathe the adage “Those who can’t do, teach.”  I can do.  What I’m not sure about is convincing people to hire me for jobs that I’m not immediately and obviously going to be a good fit for.  I have to get my foot in the door, and I just don’t know that my résumé is going to do that– and that’s after the important “what the hell am I even applying for?” step happens.

Ugh.

Buy some fuggin’ books.  Once I’m independently wealthy I ain’t gotta worry about this nonsense no mo’.  🙂