Day One

The first thing I should begin with is a slight correction on the accuracy of the dates behind this inspiration to document.

I was going to do this on a day-by-day basis, though not necessarily daily because, let's face it, one can only scour countless job postings for hours on end maybe every other day. Though the key here is persistence, so maybe I will start out (or continue out) with my own odd form of vengeance. Fingers crossed.

What you need to know is, when I begin here with DAY ONE, I’m merely admitting that this is only the first day that I’ve begun to document this ongoing quest for some level of employment that doesn’t reek of humiliation and/or after-school job and/or minimum wage and/or coffee. Trust me, there are only so many years you can be a barista, short of owning your own cute, super-cool, and preferably earth-conscious and locals-supporting shop. Otherwise, shit gets old, folks, and people get mean.

Just a side-note, already: Anyone can do anything that makes them the happiest, and should that be some form of customer service, let alone customer food service, if that's what really makes you get up and go, than not only do I bow (slightly) in your presence, but dear heavens, what a patient person you must be. Bless you, and I'm sorry, only because that is not a path meant for everyone, at least not in any permanent stance, and may you always find fulfillment in such.

But back to the day-by-day basis plan: where that starts to crack just a smidge is when I admit that I did not just graduate from college a week ago. I did not just start looking for employment yesterday. This is not, I need a summer job so I can afford movie tickets and cute sandals.

More precisely, I first started looking arounddd ... April 2009.

And I graduated in May of that same year.

Most people would define that as a late start. Or procrastination. Honestly, I was just busy. It was my last semester, I had classes, I was working, I had relationships to foster. I wasn't worried. This really isn't where the problem began.

I majored in Writing, more specifically focused on the creative end of the spectrum, though I took many classes geared towards journalism, literary criticism, and editing. I went to a basic, no-name liberal arts school. I'm not saying that in a poor-me-I-didn't-get-into-Harvard way. I'm also not saying it was a bad school. I earned a BA in Writing, a bachelor's degree, the standard. That was the point, right?

Right. Sort of. I wasn't massively concerned with a job in my field. I enjoyed the classes, the subject, the process. I liked the idea of being a crazed insomniac, spending my evenings hunched over a typewriter, feeling inspired in the latest hours of the night. Occasionally I could picture myself writing articles for an interesting magazine, researching, walking through a swanky, artsy building with an introspective look on my face and a pencil behind my ear.

So, I looked for a job. A little, sometimes. I googled things and I heard (some) advice from my professors. Persistence, they said, a strong will. A stronger sense of self. An ability to take criticism. Write a book, they said, find a literary agent. Tell your stories, send out resumes.

Yeah. Yeah, that's true, I'd say, I'd nod along. I nodded all the way to the stage to receive my diploma, which looked a lot smaller and cheaper than I'd imagined. It was just a piece of faded paper, if you want to know the truth. It was printed nicely, don't get me wrong. I wasn't sure what to do with it. It's in my sock drawer, buried in the back in the dark, next to the pairs I tend to ignore for their discomfort or awkward color.

I earned it, of course. I took my classes. I studied. I read a lot. I wrote and rewrote and rewrote. I threw away entire papers and stories in frustration and then frantically penned original scripts the nights before they were due, in a panic, but smiling at finally finding some real revelation.

And then summer came. And I'd taken a trip to Europe, and I'd thought a little bit about myself, and I got home and I stood in my high school bedroom, boxes everywhere, and I looked around at the mess and I froze. Just for a moment, at the time, just for a second, just a slight wave of anxiety, just a small tug at the corner of everything. I knew I had to find a job quickly, any job, make a little money, move out, get out. It wouldn't be so bad, and I could do it easily, I imagined. I wasn't looking for anything permanent at the time, because that word didn't exist to me, and I was only here long enough to blink, and I'd be gone, doing bigger things, fighting a bigger cause, seeing the outside world.

Without getting too far ahead of myself, that is when we cut to present day, two years gone by, with the only thing to add to my resume being 2+ years of retail experience in corporate America, a stack of perpetually dirty black clothes, and the faint smell of espresso beans lingering on just about everything I own.

There's a little background on the situation, there's a goal in mind, there's a form of keeping myself accountable to continuing this search with a better purpose, to striking out some options, to listing my pros and cons, to moving forward.

So here's the plan:

1.Being as honest as possible about my consistency in what most or all post-grad (and even moderate professionals) would shudder at and call a “job search.” I search a lot, and often, I guess, but I hate every minute of it, and it usually doesn’t bring me any real luck. I'm going to keep doing it, though, because I'm the only one that can bring a real change to this situation. A job fairy or Jesus isn't going to show up, equip me, hire me, and send me on my way. I will do something about this, and I will do my best to share with you what I find helpful and what is downright useless.

2. I will do my best to not let this become a massive bitchfest of "Nobody's hiring" or "Everything sucks" or "Screw my current job" (though, really, screw it, if you must know) or "I don't know what I want to do, sob-cry-wail." All these things are unfortunate facts and pitfalls of this situation so many of us are finding ourselves in. Essentially, it blows. But what WON'T help is a big fat commiseration. I've already dug myself a pretty comfortable pit so far. I don't want it going any deeper. And ...

3. I'm not going to pretend this process is easy. I'll talk about where I apply, where I look, who I do and don't hear back from, what I do and do not qualify for, freelancing, permanent positioning, other alternatives ie. more school, training, transportation of self, owning a business options, starting from scratch, saving etc. I'll tell the truth. It's difficult to tell as much as it is difficult to hear. Finally,

4. Despite all of this, I won't ever pretend that a good job is the end-all answer. It's a hope, perhaps, since it tends to be where we wind up devoting a lot of our personal time. Our lives are short, in the big scheme of things. I'm not saying this is a reason for us to toss it in and forget our sense of responsibility. There are things we are good at. There are things we enjoy. Should we be able to use those things occupationally, swell. But I will constantly remind myself, and therefore you, that while everything is not simultaneously falling into place, because things can't roll quite that smoothly (telling the truth, remember?), there are other ways to enjoy your life. (Really.)

So that's it. That's where this all starts. I hope, in the process of figuring out my own situation that this can prove helpful to someone else in the same boat in the same ocean in the same storm in the same winter as me.

It's a new season, and the search (re)begins.