So, here is a little career update on the COVID timeline from me.

I was super lucky and was employed until the end of June, unlike so many I know. My luck was compounded because I had been trying to buy a house and it hadn’t worked out yet. So when I moved in January, I only had a six month lease.

This was lucky, because my lease ended two weeks after my employment contract did, so that took care of my largest bill. My dad said I could move back in with him for a while, so I did.

I have spent the last six weeks largely doing very little. I took two classes online for my accounting studies – one of which is statistics. I’m not sure I’ve ever hated anything more and I’m also not sure how anyone ever took that class while also working and taking multiple classes. It is trying to kill me. But this is the last week of the summer intensive courses.

I have been trying to sort out an unemployment claim that is not on week four of pending, so that’s been cool.

I did work for a week as an usher at a local college’s outdoor graduation ceremonies (which I would love to tell the unemployment people about as well, if I can ever talk to a human).

I’m also excited that later in August there might be a couple of days of crew calls for maintenance in that theater. I don’t think I’ve been so excited to clean a theater.

However, after that, back to no shows for the foreseeable future.

And then this week, the internet hit me with this gem and I felt all the feels:

It was a well-timed gem because earlier that same day I thought, “alright, well… what else is out there?” in a big career pivot kind of way.

And then I got stuck mulling over the idea of am I just looking for something right now to get by or am I looking for a whole new career?

And if I’m looking for a new career, what do I want out of that career?

And do I even get to be picky about it right now?

I don’t know if there are right answers to these questions.

Because as much as I sometimes complain about parts of the stage management life (mostly the ridiculously long hours and sometimes multi-week stretches without a day off, as well as general lack of any work/life balance until very recently), it is really my favorite life. And it is what I would prefer to still be doing.

But here we are.

And I don’t see general theater jobs coming back for like 6-12 more months.

It is a weird amount of time.

So do I just try to go get a job at CVS or Wawa?

I’ve decided to spend this week looking for jobs I actually want.

At the top of my current list are digital event jobs. There do seem to be digital production manager and AV tech positions at some of these companies that have pivoted online.

Along with that are online theater adjunct jobs, though I feel the competition for those is going to be super fierce right now. Also, applications for education jobs are flipping insane and become multiple day projects.

Second on my list are remote project manager positions, though project management, while it seems super related to stage management, when I read the actual job postings, it’s like, “what the heck are these acronyms?”

There’s actually a pretty popular project management certification, but it takes like two tests and $1200 of investment. This is actually a thing I would kind of consider if I were working, but that’s a lot of money at the moment, especially on top of tuition for accounting classes.

Third on my list are pretty much any remote jobs, since I absolutely hate commuting and touring for a living has ruined me on that front.

As a semi-related side note, about two years ago, I did this one second every day app project where I filmed a second of my life every day for a year. It was crazy to me how many unexpected things happened during that year when I watched the film at the end.

It was kind of a hassle filming a second every day, so I didn’t do it for 35. But I decided to do it again for 36, because I feel like…. who knows what this year will be? I certainly don’t. It might just be 365 seconds of Zoom meetings, new candles, and my dog.

But maybe something awesome is just around the corner. I like to hope it is.

So, theatre friends, what are you all thinking about work these days?