Photoessay #964 - Mary Gates Hall

In case anybody noticed, I'm currently unemployed. So, what next? I'm not paniced, for right now, we're ok. It's more about how I want to spend my time in these last several years of the working career. Since my previous job didn't particularly fall into an easily described 'occupation', everything is a career change. When talking to one of the Worforce staff, she asked what I mostly did. I said Sales. But she could not understand that I would not be looking for a straight sales job. I did sales mainly because nobody else wanted to do it. So I just started doing subscription sales. This counselor didn't look like she could shake the idea that I should look for a conventional sales position.

One thing that interests me is academic advising. Or something, in general at the University of Washington. I have a friend in academic advising. She had let me know previously, that (really obvious) that one didn't just waltz into a job at the UW without first starting out somewhere else. Also, I'm not the strongest candidate without appropriate education or experience. Oh right, that. Plus I look like somebody's mom. Because I am somebody's mom.

Other than that, it should be fine :)

So I decided to do a little investigation. I went to the UW campus, to Mary Gates Hall, home of undergraduate advising. Just to see the scene. About a 20 minute drive. Walked into a contained waiting room with walled off offices out of view. Picked up materials. Two young people at the desk pleasantly asked if they could help me. Asked for general information. Which they provided. At this point, no reason why I should be loitering around. Peeked into the Career Center where a talk about job-seeking was going on. But, again, I was pleasantly asked my business.

Nice digs though. Photo shows Mary Gates Hall. Used to be a physics building. Satisfied, I went home. Later I spoke with my friend on the phone. I really should have called her, we could have had lunch! She said you should have your Masters but it didn't much matter the subject. But no hiring right now. Faced with budget cuts on top of the last round of painful budget cuts. She said that, in the past, they've had two paid internship positions available. And not just for young people, usually they also consider 'career changers' (hey, that must be me). But she really doubted that these positions would survive this next set of cuts.

I would like this job, I think.