Bush league performance
Today is a pretty big day. By my tally, the job application I just submitted marks 40 since I’ve arrived home. And I’m humiliated to say that I’ve heard back from exactly zero. Of course you get the customary email thanking you for your submission into the abyss, following by the glaring warning DO NOT REPLY BACK to this message. Evidently providing the status of an application is just too daunting a task for an HR department devoted to screening applicants. I did call on one occasion and was informed that a glorified secretarial position at a popular DC institute had received 400 applicants. So I guess I’m out of contention was her curt implication. I haven’t had an interview since April.
Batting 0-40 is usually grounds for being sent down to the minors, and I suppose my cashier job is the working world equivalent despite my college stats. Trying not to get discouraged, I constantly conceive of new strategies, new networking possibilities, and new career prospects.
D, all of the above
Most recently I’ve resorted to stalking my new neighbor under the suspicion that he has an eminent job at a national company headquartered in Rhode Island. Obviously (in my delusional mind) this particular company would be interested in hiring a female economics major and a product of the state public education system until college. Why am I pursuing this stranger so desperately? I don’t have any desire to remain in Rhode Island. Chalk it up to the thrill of the chase. Business, banking, writing, I can’t make up my mind and don’t have any offers even if I did.
This is a far cry from my pre-college dream of being a journalist, or an initial dalliance into anthropology that inspired me to become documentary film maker. Then I found economics, and was resigned to selling my soul to corporate, if only to cash out by 40. I tired of that route and considered teaching, then becoming a professor. When real internships were mandated by junior year, I circled back to the corporate world but tried consulting for its variety. That was acceptable for a summer, but restlessness in the cube thrust me into event-based marketing.
Somehow, a year into that job I was still languishing in the cube and reverted back to the aspiration of a PhD program and professorship. A few university tours later and I was back to sulking in my cube. My departure from corporate America and sudden evaporation of cash flow propelled me west, but a lack of opportunity still had me seeking adventure. I must have missed the press release that the new tag line for the military is “the few, the proud, the non-asthmatic” so my attempt to see the world and contribute to something significant was halted. This blog is a manifestation of my old journalistic tendencies, but my job applications are still filed for primarily analyst positions for banks I’ve never heard of in cities I’d rather not visit.
Casting call
My childhood dream of going to the Olympics still nags at me, and there are days when I want to abandon conventional society and live as a beach bum (until I realize I’d have to move to the South, immediately negating that prospect). I endeavor to go to London for graduate school but have no particular aim in doing so. It’s just a romanticized conception of becoming an ex-pat that soothes my disenchanted psyche.
Only a month into under-employment, I can’t afford to relent. I whip out my resume in public and unabashedly inform strangers that I’m seeking work to spark the realization that they need to hire a 2009 grad with a BA in economics and strong verbal skills. People get discovered for movie roles on the street, so why can’t the next person who walks through the convenience store door offer me a job commensurate with my abilities? That seems like a more likely plot than stardom. Otherwise, I will resort to trying my luck in L.A.
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