Preface: As things stand right now, I am in a waiting phase.  I had a total of 4 interviews within the last 7 days.  One turned out to be for a position that was not for me.  The second one did not work out.  I feel the other 2 went well, but as of this writing, I am still waiting for an offer.  Of course, I will follow up with them in the upcoming week, however I have found that employers have a schedule of their own, and I doubt very highly that it will even come close to matching my schedule.

Onto the business at hand. I also spent some time with some of my former co-workers last week, who are also a part of my network.  We were talking about the nightmares that we had; both when we found out about our pending job loss and during our unemployment.  I believe I set the record for nightmares, with 3 in a single night.  As I started writing, I realized that this was going to be too long to print at one time.  I looked to shorten it, so I read it to my wife and asked her what part(s) I should eliminate.  Her response was to leave it as it is.  So I will submit this article in 2 parts.  The first, as always, is below.

-Howard K. Young

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Job search is just part of life, and in life, there are ups and downs. Marriage, children and work are constants. In most cases, family and steady employment brings stability into one’s life.

When other things go awry, those constants are factors that smooth out those ups and downs.

I am fortunate to have a great family, however the fact that I am in between jobs tends to make the ups and downs more dramatic. Without stability, the mind tries to find other ways to balance itself.

Last week, I had a number of interviews and a damaged computer to keep me busy. This week, with the computer repaired and the phone silent again, I knew I needed to follow up on my interviews and continue my job search.

As I write this it is late at night. This is a demanding time in my life and it seems that whenever there are dramatic ups and downs, I tend to have nightmares. My mother often said that when life gets tough, dreams are the pressure valve that help us keep our stability. Strange and scary as it may seem, the nightmares are just one thing that keeps me moving forward…

They push me to do better at my job search. Speaking of my mother, she is currently in a nursing home. Her ability to survive her infirmities are nothing short of amazing, however all our family knows she is living on borrowed time.

It is now getting close to 1AM and I need to be up by 7AM so that I can get my exercise in before starting my job search. I made a promise to myself that, until I found another job, I would maintain the same schedule I followed when I was working. “Are you still at the computer?” my wife quietly asks as she briefly awakens. “I’m done for now, sweetheart”, I answer as I shut down the laptop, turn off the light and try to get some rest.

The next thing I know, I am in a dark room, next to a man who has a badly placed toupee and an argyle suit. He sounds like a game show host from another era. Suddenly a dim light shines on three doors which are directly ahead of me. “So you sold the box!” the man announces as if there is an audience watching. “Now, will you take door number 1, door number 2, or door number 3?” For some reason I am drawn to door number 1. “I’ll take door number one”, I answered. “That is your path”, said the man, “so let’s see what you’ve won!” I walk to the door, open it, and I find myself in a living room with a middle aged woman running towards me, with disdain written all over her face.

“ANOTHER BAD REPORT CARD!” she yells. I do not quite understand what is happening so I run towards the door with a sheet of paper in my hand, that I did not know I had before. I opened what appeared to be the door to another room, and I found myself in the same room, with the same middle aged woman running towards me. This time the paper, previously the size of a small post it, grew to an 8” X 11” sheet of paper. “ANOTHER BAD REPORT CARD”, she yelled as I tried to find another way out of the room. I noticed that the sheet of paper in my hand had in fact, become a report card, and was littered with “D”’s and “F”’s. I had to get out of the room!.

I managed to find another door just before the woman grabbed me. As I opened the door, I found myself in the same room again, this time my shoes were surrounded by metal fittings which made it much more difficult to move. In addition, there were now 3 middle aged women running towards me, complaining about my report card, which had now morphed into a python, which was poised to attack me. It was the last thing I remember before forcing myself to wake up.

I had awoken with a start. My wife was still sleeping. I had learned that if I take long deep breaths, it helped to clear my mind. Going back to sleep was the last thing on my mind, but I knew I had to get more rest. My mind turned to the follow up calls I needed to make. I found myself concerned that the job interviews I went on the previous week might not yield an offer.

My mind was racing! Several thoughts popped into my head: “I had put so much effort into researching those companies!” “My performance was flawless!” “What could have gone wrong?” I found my head was hurting. It was warm outside when I went to bed, but now I found myself shivering, Sometimes when there is a sharp drop in the outside temperature, I tend to get a headache. My mother told me that it ran in the family, and that both she and grandma would get headaches whenever there was a significant change in temperature. I thought about her condition as I ran to the medicine chest for some ibuprofen. My mother and I used to have talks about life over coffee. “I miss those discussions”, I thought sadly. Then I heard footsteps. It seems my daughter inherited the same sensitivity from me and was also heading towards the medicine cabinet. “You have a headache too?” I asked. “Yeah dad” she drearily answered. Her medicine of choice was aspirin, which I handed to her. We both went to our respective bedrooms to try and salvage a decent night’s sleep. I looked at the clock and it was almost 3:30. At first I could not fall back to sleep. It took about 15 minutes for the ibuprofen to take effect. With my head feeling much better, I managed to fall back to sleep.

I found myself in a small passenger plane. I had given up on e-mails for the moment and decided to enjoy the view. We were flying fairly low, however if you really want a dramatic view of Egypt’s pyramids, it is best to fly low. Don, my pilot, was a friend for several years. “How do you like the view, Howard”, he asked as we were nearing the Sphinx? “Excellent view” I answered. At that point I noticed that there was some turbulence. “Don. What’s going on?” I queried. “I don’t know”, Don answered. “I can’t seem to control the aircraft!” At that moment I looked out the plane’s window. The Sphinx appeared to be in much better shape than I thought it would be. It’s face did not reflect the thousands of years of wind damage, and ….it was moving! It was if a force field was drawing us closer to it. In fact, we were flying directly towards it! “Brace yourself!” Don yelled in panic, “We are going to crash!”

The next thing I knew, I was inside the Sphinx. Don was gone and I was in the lower portion of a long stairway, which led to a window in the far distance. I looked to the bottom of the stairway and noticed that, after the last step was a huge pool or sand. The sand started to stir, and a head began to emerge. I noticed its features and it seemed like the half human, half lion head on the Sphinx itself. Its mouth emerged from the sand and it let out a huge roar! I knew this was not good. The creature opened its mouth and started consuming the steps that I stood on, eating several steps with one huge chomp of its sharply pointed teeth! I knew I had to start moving, so I started running, however as I was running the staircase started to change. The stone steps developed the same characteristics you would find on a modern day escalator. I started to move faster. As I moved, the “escalator’s” steps started moving downward, to the creature’s mouth. I started running, however the best I could seem to do is stay the same distance away from the creature. Shortly I found myself on the last step, with a huge precipice between the step and the window. It was impossible to jump, as the steps started moving faster towards the creature. whose appetite for the steps was insatiable, As the steps moved closer towards the creature, I began thinking to myself that I did not expect to lose my job, or my life on a business trip.

I forced myself to wake up. Even though it all felt very real, I knew, somewhere in my mind that it was only another bad dream. I took a few more deep breaths. I had once heard that if I change my sleeping position, I might be able to avoid another nightmare. I turned to face the window. I was hoping that might help. I laid awake for several minuted before I decided to hook up to my I-pod. Music often helps me to fall back to sleep. Little did I know, the strangest dreams were yet to come.

Next week — Nightmare: Part 2.
Good Hunting!

-By Howard K. Young, Contributing Writer & Member of The 405 Club.

View all of Howard’s posts here.