Get A Job!

When I completed grad school last fall, I was proud, happy, and content. The thing I’d been working diligently toward for three years was over — woo hoo! Also, big bummer. Before, when people would ask me what I’d been up to, I could always say that I was studying for school, working on a research paper, blah blah blah. Now I look them in the eye and say, “Searching for work.” There is a certain level of eye glaze that results from such an utterance. Not the complete doughnut glazing, maybe just a scone-size drizzle, but it’s there. Sometimes I get, “Oh, you still haven’t found anything?” Or “It’s a really tough economy to be looking for work!” (As if I have a choice.) And there’s “Don’t worry, you’ll find something soon,” or even, “I thought you’d have found something by now.”

Looking for work is a job in itself. I don’t think there was ever a time when good jobs were falling out of the sky, but there does seem to be scant few these days. I wish I could hire an unpaid intern to help me. (Not a bad idea!) He or she could take over the endless internet searches, cover letters, follow up phone calls, and filling in of old school applications that require job history going back years. (Remember: Neatness counts, so does spelling.) I’d let the intern deal with the rejection and subsequent self doubt that comes with every unanswered submission. The high school date excuses: maybe they lost my business card, maybe it went into their spam folder, maybe they’re just really busy, I know they’ll call back… I thought that phone interview went really well — should I call to remind them to check the spam folder, or would that be too pushy? Sigh.