Brother, can you spare a job?

In this blog, I've posted more than a couple times about my need for a new and better job. Something in my field, preferably, but something better than where I'm at. Until recently, it wasn't imperative that I find something. While the current job sucks more ass than an extreme corporate brown-noser with middle-management ambitions, it paid the bills and kept food on the plates of the cats.

Times have changed, however, and a new job needs to happen. Soon. Very soon. Within the next two and a half months, to be precise.

You see, that's when my wife and I will be relocating to Ann Arbor. She will be attending the University of Michigan this fall, starting in their graduate program to get her MFA in sculpture. I, on the other hand, will be working for a living - provided I can find gainful employment, that is.

In the past two weeks, I've submitted applications to over twenty places, humbly requesting - and sometimes begging - for a job. The majority of these places have been design or advertising firms, but there have also been run-of-the-mill office places, too. While I want (and need) to work in my field, I'll take stability and the ability to pay the rent over endlessly searching for a graphic design job.

And herein lies the conundrum. I need to work in my field. Not want. Need. I'm too old to have a "job;" I need to have a "career." I'm a graphics geek. I love mucking about with Illustrator and Photoshop. I can identify nearly every typeface I see. I spend more time looking for widows and orphans in the paper than I do actually reading it. To relax, I'll put together comps and mockups. Sounds strange, doesn't it? But that's what you do when you have that kind of passion for something; it becomes part of your daily life.

Would Ohio have presented better opportunities? Maybe. Wisconsin? I don't know. I do know that Michigan is where I am, and I need to make it work in Ann Arbor. Or Brighton, Detroit, Farmington Hills, Novi, etc. I'm not picky.

All I ask is that if you visit Ann Arbor, keep an eye out for me. If I'm looking slightly bedraggled and sitting on a stoop, throw me a buck or two. If I'm looking really bedraggled and holding a mug of what appears to be very strong coffee, then I'm working in my field. You'll know by the slight smile in my bloodshot eyeballs.