I don't know whether to feel happy or sad
Dec. 4th, 2025 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shivverBeen a kind of up and down last two weeks.
As you might know, I was laid off from my job a year ago November. At the time, my husband was still employed and we're nearing retirement, so we decided that I would be "retired" as long as he was still working. Then, he got laid off in May. Though we're secure enough to just retire now, we'd feel better if one of us got a couple more years of income, so we decided that he would take off the rest of the year and start looking for work in January -- that would give him some rest time and would keep our total yearly income low enough to get a good health insurance subsidy. I would also start looking for a job in January as well, but more to qualify for unemployment benefits and less to actually find a job; we're still considering me to be more or less retired, but if a job did land in my lap, that would be great.
Two weeks ago (the week before Thanksgiving), a friend of ours who just landed a nice job told my husband about an opening for a QA engineer at his new company and said that if either of us wanted to apply for it, he'd want to put in a referral, because that would earn him a bonus if we were hired. Looking at the posting, my husband determined that it was a perfect for me, and much less for him. The posting listed the skills of a QA analyst (meaning, not someone with coding and automation as a focus) with some automation experience, and that's me. Moreover, my husband hasn't actually worked as a QA analyst in years, having spent the last five years at least in lead and management roles.
So, of course I said I would apply for the job. As I noted, if a job did land in my lap, great! Honestly, though, I really don't want to go back to work, ever, and I certainly didn't want to start looking before the planned January job-search date. But I put on my happy and eager face, said yes, and started working on the application.
However, my husband said he wouldn't apply, which I have to admit, pissed me off quite a bit. Part of it was that I was enjoying being retired and did not (and do not) want to work again, and that the plan had been for him to go back to work. However, the greater part of it was the feeling that he wasn't making a good faith effort. Yes, I'm a better fit for this position, but there is always the possibility that they might look at his resume and realize that they need what he can offer, either in this position or in another one that they haven't posted yet.
I'm also still a bit tetchy about the last time a job posting came his way. Last year, an old friend contacted him about a job at his company, that fit him very well and if he could land it, would have lasted him into retirement. (The problem with the work we've had is that the companies have been small and never had a guaranteed future. When this opportunity came in, in summer of last year, we already knew that our current company wasn't likely to last another year. However, our friend's company is a media giant that isn't going anywhere.) My husband was excited for the opportunity to lock in a good job, but when it came to creating his resume, he spent three hours on it (writing it from scratch, including having to go look up all his old jobs for their start and end dates), declared "I hate this! This is good enough!" and sent it in. No cover letter, either. Sigh. All I wanted was a good faith effort.
Over the last two weeks, he wavered back and forth between applying and not and spent a couple of hours working on that resume to update it for this new application, so there's that. But still, bottom line, I'm pretty annoyed.
Anyway.
I started working on the resume and omg, it is difficult! All of my jobs since 2002 were obtained through networking, so I haven't had to write a real one in over twenty years. I had a couple of token attempts that I needed to turn in to HR when I got my last two jobs, in 2016 and 2018, but they certainly had no effort put into them. I did a lot of research into what should be on a resume in the tech sector and it's very different from what I remember from the 1990s. Go figure. :P Also, resumes nowadays go through ATS, which is a system that checks your resume to verify that its applicable before any human actually see it, so you have to make sure that your resume's format can be read by it and that it has all the keywords that it'll look for -- a 'no' for either gets your resume chucked in the bin.
I was able to find some examples of QA engineer resumes (and cover letters), which gave me some ideas, but also made me scratch my head in many instances. Some of it was just stupid, and some of it was obviously "Someone advised me to do it this way." Some examples:
Example 1: They say that you should include measurable results, like "95% test coverage". One cover letter said this: "Having led the QA team at (company name), I was instrumental in reducing bugs by 30%." Yes, there's a number in that sentence, but you can't actually measure the reduction in bugs. You can't measure how many bugs there are in a program -- you can only measure how many you've found. Maybe you've found 30% fewer bugs because your testing is poorer. A more telling statistic is reduction of escaped bugs, that is, the bugs that made it to the consumer.
Example 2: "In this position, I tested a number of key and existing software products to determine if they were working properly, had been configured correctly, and were as good as they could be." This sentence means nothing. It just says, "I tested things to see if they worked." Yeah, dude, that's what we ALL do.
Example 3: And then my favorite: "You will find that I have a track record of exceeding deadlines..." (In Fezzik voice) I do not think that phrase means what you think it means.
I spent the rest of the week before Thanksgiving (about three days) working on the resume -- multiple hours a day gathering all my information, trying to think of things that would look good on a resume, and trying to figure out how to write them without demonstrating that I'm a complete idiot.
Then, on Sunday, while I was downstairs, I heard dripping in the wall. We did a few tests and determined that the drain of the upstairs sink is leaking; the dripping only occurs when it's being used, and not when the bathtub, toilet, or shower is being used. On Monday, I called a plumber to find out what would need to be done, so that we could prep the house for them to come over, and they said they would need access to the crawlspace. Well, guess what? The only entry to the crawlspace is in the fully-packed closet of the room that's holding all the crap that's been piling up in our quest to clear out our junk.
SOOOO...
I spent the early part of Thanksgiving week working on both the job application and trying to clear the path to the crawlspace. (Hubby is also working on that second part; I'm not doing it alone.) I got the resume done early Tuesday, but it was pretty clear, after working on the cover letter for the rest of the day, that there was no way it would be ready for applying on Wednesday, especially considering that I had to contact my friend so that he could refer me and then he would have to contact people in the company to do so and people would be leaving work early for the long weekend. I decided to use Thanksgiving weekend to write the cover letter, as well as working on the crawlspace. Top pirority was the cover letter, though, with the aim of applying first thing on Monday.
That was also tougher than I had imagined it would be. You're supposed to introduce yourself, state why you think you're perfect for the job, and show your enthusiasm. I read tons of examples, and they all sickened me. Most started with a sentence like "I am excited for the opportunity to bring my unique blend of skills and experience to (company name) as a (position name)." I think it's the adjectives and adverbs that are poured onto these things that bug me the most: "excited", "unique", "fascinated", "consistently", "keen", "relentless", "significantly", etc. No one is "excited" to apply for a job. No one talks like this. No one feels like this. I felt like if I were to write like they suggested, I'd be lying.
After picking at this for a couple of days, I realized that the people writing this stuff were tech workers who didn't know what to write or how to write, so they copied other people's stuff and changed the details. They did this because they aren't skilled in expressing themselves in words, and they aren't able to recognize that these things they're writing mean nothing. But you know who is? Me! I write! I should be able to express myself in this cover letter without looking like I'm using a template or like I'm lying.
It took me a couple of hours, but I produced a cover letter that I'm pretty proud of. Rather than just listing my accomplishments, I told a very short story (three sentences) of why I work in QA and why I love it, and then followed up those reasons with examples from my work history. Will it get my foot in the door anywhere? No idea, but I'm pretty damn happy with it.
That was Sunday night. I got the docs together, then on Monday morning, I texted my friend to ask him to submit his referral form. We started chatting over text as we were preparing what we were going to send in, and he goes, "It's not available." What? I checked the website and the posting was there, but if you clicked on the submit button, it said it wasn't available. Then I refreshed the screen and then there was a message in red, "This position is no longer available." Then I refreshed it again and the posting was there but the form was gone. Over the next two minutes, bits and pieces slowly disappeared, and then finally it disappeared from the "Open Positions" list.
I actually got to watch the thing I'd been working on for 1.5 weeks disappear.
Like the title says, I don't know whether to feel happy or sad. I didn't really, truly want the job; I want to stay retired. So, happy? But it was a good job and I was a perfect fit for it, so if I have to get a job, that's the one I would want. So, sad.
There's also the realization that it really is all my fault: I really should have worked harder and gotten the application in before Thanksgiving. At the time when I decided to use the weekend to work on it, I told myself, "That opening is SO going to close on Monday morning." I really feel like I used the excuse of "I can use the weekend to make it great!" to delay applying long enough so that I'd miss the window. Not a great feeling.
So yeah, I feel a bit happy, but mostly sad.
As you might know, I was laid off from my job a year ago November. At the time, my husband was still employed and we're nearing retirement, so we decided that I would be "retired" as long as he was still working. Then, he got laid off in May. Though we're secure enough to just retire now, we'd feel better if one of us got a couple more years of income, so we decided that he would take off the rest of the year and start looking for work in January -- that would give him some rest time and would keep our total yearly income low enough to get a good health insurance subsidy. I would also start looking for a job in January as well, but more to qualify for unemployment benefits and less to actually find a job; we're still considering me to be more or less retired, but if a job did land in my lap, that would be great.
Two weeks ago (the week before Thanksgiving), a friend of ours who just landed a nice job told my husband about an opening for a QA engineer at his new company and said that if either of us wanted to apply for it, he'd want to put in a referral, because that would earn him a bonus if we were hired. Looking at the posting, my husband determined that it was a perfect for me, and much less for him. The posting listed the skills of a QA analyst (meaning, not someone with coding and automation as a focus) with some automation experience, and that's me. Moreover, my husband hasn't actually worked as a QA analyst in years, having spent the last five years at least in lead and management roles.
So, of course I said I would apply for the job. As I noted, if a job did land in my lap, great! Honestly, though, I really don't want to go back to work, ever, and I certainly didn't want to start looking before the planned January job-search date. But I put on my happy and eager face, said yes, and started working on the application.
However, my husband said he wouldn't apply, which I have to admit, pissed me off quite a bit. Part of it was that I was enjoying being retired and did not (and do not) want to work again, and that the plan had been for him to go back to work. However, the greater part of it was the feeling that he wasn't making a good faith effort. Yes, I'm a better fit for this position, but there is always the possibility that they might look at his resume and realize that they need what he can offer, either in this position or in another one that they haven't posted yet.
I'm also still a bit tetchy about the last time a job posting came his way. Last year, an old friend contacted him about a job at his company, that fit him very well and if he could land it, would have lasted him into retirement. (The problem with the work we've had is that the companies have been small and never had a guaranteed future. When this opportunity came in, in summer of last year, we already knew that our current company wasn't likely to last another year. However, our friend's company is a media giant that isn't going anywhere.) My husband was excited for the opportunity to lock in a good job, but when it came to creating his resume, he spent three hours on it (writing it from scratch, including having to go look up all his old jobs for their start and end dates), declared "I hate this! This is good enough!" and sent it in. No cover letter, either. Sigh. All I wanted was a good faith effort.
Over the last two weeks, he wavered back and forth between applying and not and spent a couple of hours working on that resume to update it for this new application, so there's that. But still, bottom line, I'm pretty annoyed.
Anyway.
I started working on the resume and omg, it is difficult! All of my jobs since 2002 were obtained through networking, so I haven't had to write a real one in over twenty years. I had a couple of token attempts that I needed to turn in to HR when I got my last two jobs, in 2016 and 2018, but they certainly had no effort put into them. I did a lot of research into what should be on a resume in the tech sector and it's very different from what I remember from the 1990s. Go figure. :P Also, resumes nowadays go through ATS, which is a system that checks your resume to verify that its applicable before any human actually see it, so you have to make sure that your resume's format can be read by it and that it has all the keywords that it'll look for -- a 'no' for either gets your resume chucked in the bin.
I was able to find some examples of QA engineer resumes (and cover letters), which gave me some ideas, but also made me scratch my head in many instances. Some of it was just stupid, and some of it was obviously "Someone advised me to do it this way." Some examples:
Example 1: They say that you should include measurable results, like "95% test coverage". One cover letter said this: "Having led the QA team at (company name), I was instrumental in reducing bugs by 30%." Yes, there's a number in that sentence, but you can't actually measure the reduction in bugs. You can't measure how many bugs there are in a program -- you can only measure how many you've found. Maybe you've found 30% fewer bugs because your testing is poorer. A more telling statistic is reduction of escaped bugs, that is, the bugs that made it to the consumer.
Example 2: "In this position, I tested a number of key and existing software products to determine if they were working properly, had been configured correctly, and were as good as they could be." This sentence means nothing. It just says, "I tested things to see if they worked." Yeah, dude, that's what we ALL do.
Example 3: And then my favorite: "You will find that I have a track record of exceeding deadlines..." (In Fezzik voice) I do not think that phrase means what you think it means.
I spent the rest of the week before Thanksgiving (about three days) working on the resume -- multiple hours a day gathering all my information, trying to think of things that would look good on a resume, and trying to figure out how to write them without demonstrating that I'm a complete idiot.
Then, on Sunday, while I was downstairs, I heard dripping in the wall. We did a few tests and determined that the drain of the upstairs sink is leaking; the dripping only occurs when it's being used, and not when the bathtub, toilet, or shower is being used. On Monday, I called a plumber to find out what would need to be done, so that we could prep the house for them to come over, and they said they would need access to the crawlspace. Well, guess what? The only entry to the crawlspace is in the fully-packed closet of the room that's holding all the crap that's been piling up in our quest to clear out our junk.
SOOOO...
I spent the early part of Thanksgiving week working on both the job application and trying to clear the path to the crawlspace. (Hubby is also working on that second part; I'm not doing it alone.) I got the resume done early Tuesday, but it was pretty clear, after working on the cover letter for the rest of the day, that there was no way it would be ready for applying on Wednesday, especially considering that I had to contact my friend so that he could refer me and then he would have to contact people in the company to do so and people would be leaving work early for the long weekend. I decided to use Thanksgiving weekend to write the cover letter, as well as working on the crawlspace. Top pirority was the cover letter, though, with the aim of applying first thing on Monday.
That was also tougher than I had imagined it would be. You're supposed to introduce yourself, state why you think you're perfect for the job, and show your enthusiasm. I read tons of examples, and they all sickened me. Most started with a sentence like "I am excited for the opportunity to bring my unique blend of skills and experience to (company name) as a (position name)." I think it's the adjectives and adverbs that are poured onto these things that bug me the most: "excited", "unique", "fascinated", "consistently", "keen", "relentless", "significantly", etc. No one is "excited" to apply for a job. No one talks like this. No one feels like this. I felt like if I were to write like they suggested, I'd be lying.
After picking at this for a couple of days, I realized that the people writing this stuff were tech workers who didn't know what to write or how to write, so they copied other people's stuff and changed the details. They did this because they aren't skilled in expressing themselves in words, and they aren't able to recognize that these things they're writing mean nothing. But you know who is? Me! I write! I should be able to express myself in this cover letter without looking like I'm using a template or like I'm lying.
It took me a couple of hours, but I produced a cover letter that I'm pretty proud of. Rather than just listing my accomplishments, I told a very short story (three sentences) of why I work in QA and why I love it, and then followed up those reasons with examples from my work history. Will it get my foot in the door anywhere? No idea, but I'm pretty damn happy with it.
That was Sunday night. I got the docs together, then on Monday morning, I texted my friend to ask him to submit his referral form. We started chatting over text as we were preparing what we were going to send in, and he goes, "It's not available." What? I checked the website and the posting was there, but if you clicked on the submit button, it said it wasn't available. Then I refreshed the screen and then there was a message in red, "This position is no longer available." Then I refreshed it again and the posting was there but the form was gone. Over the next two minutes, bits and pieces slowly disappeared, and then finally it disappeared from the "Open Positions" list.
I actually got to watch the thing I'd been working on for 1.5 weeks disappear.
Like the title says, I don't know whether to feel happy or sad. I didn't really, truly want the job; I want to stay retired. So, happy? But it was a good job and I was a perfect fit for it, so if I have to get a job, that's the one I would want. So, sad.
There's also the realization that it really is all my fault: I really should have worked harder and gotten the application in before Thanksgiving. At the time when I decided to use the weekend to work on it, I told myself, "That opening is SO going to close on Monday morning." I really feel like I used the excuse of "I can use the weekend to make it great!" to delay applying long enough so that I'd miss the window. Not a great feeling.
So yeah, I feel a bit happy, but mostly sad.
