This icon was the best choice I ever made
I never wanted to be one of those LJ people who do nothing but complain about their lives and their petty problems and end up sounding like high-strung, narcissistic, immature nutjobs who are incapable of focusing on the positive, but it occurs to me that I am, in fact, a high-strung, narcissistic, immature nutjob who is physically incapable of focusing on the positive. So LJ was made for people like me, apparently.
So, for those of you who are unaware, I moved up to Boston on the 25th. That was well and good. I have my room set up and decorated, I can get to the two nearest squares and I have a CharlieCard for the subway. Hannah's bro is moving and sent us boxes of live blackberry and lily plants, and Yiwan was up last Thursday and helped me plant the poor things. The side garden with the good light belongs to the upstairs neighbors, so I feel like I'm stealing a bit of earth from them and they'll stone me if they ever catch me using the hose to water my poor, sunlight deprived blackberries along the back fence, but they (the plants) look like they're doing OK at the moment. I also spent the weekend at Beth's for the 4th, and we had a rollicking good time which included making gumbo that would have been delicious if it hadn't blistered our lips, accidentally renting a soft-core porn flick featuring George Takei, watching Casablanca instead, and using Beth's neighborhood contacts to sneak into the Historic Society and look at the pretty antiques.
That's not what I'm writing about, of course. Why would I write about the fabulous memorable times I had with my good friends?
I'm writing because I am unemployed and confused and frustrated and sick of it.
Last week I applied for part-time work at a Japanese bakery. We happened to be there because I find their baked goods delicious and affordable, and they were looking for help, so I applied. They called me up and I had an interview with the owner on Wednesday. I liked him a lot, he's really nice. (He was appalled when I asked if they wanted 25-hour-a-week part-time or 38-hour-a-week-part-time. Apparently he did not realize that a lot of places hire "part time" workers to avoid paying benefits. Yeah. Super nice.)
I think he'd be willing to hire me, but they want a small-ish commitment because they have to train people and all that. Like, 6 months or so. They asked me to consider if I was likely to get hired by anyone in that space, and if not, to email them back.
This is where my thought process goes to hell.
-Everyone (by which I mostly mean Hannah's dad and grandma, who are the only people I talk to because I am alone in a strange city 800 miles from home) is constantly giving me job-search tips, repeating the same "you should try networking. I know someone who does XYZ and I'll talk to them"...which is what networking is, so I *am* networking to the best of my ability.
-I talked to a few people (OK, really just Alisa and Hannah's dad) about taking this job, and they both agreed that I should take any job I can get and then look for work from there... which tallies with the advice I kept getting earlier about job searches in general.
-I looked into the other jobs I've applied to. It's not looking good for any of them. Not going to even hide how depressing this is, especially since I thought I had a pretty good application/cover letter/all that for some of them. Basically, nobody wants me. I'm really flattered that this job thinks I might get hired somewhere better, in that way that I was flattered when the Australian who showed me his dick told me I was easy to talk to/strip around. As in, I know they're lying, but it's nice to hear, anyway.
-I thought the bakery would be a good in-between job with people I like, and it would be better than McDonalds and I wouldn't mind postponing my job search by a few months since I'm sick of the whole goddamn thing anyway. So I sent in an email saying that I'm available.
-Everyone I have told about this AFTER sending the email has told me that this was a HORRIBLE idea. Everything from "Well, have you talked to X like I suggested? Here, I'll call her for you." to "...can you make rent with that?" to "well, that friend I told you about was going to call you next week and I think she'll get you a place" to "Hopefully you'll find something worth your time soon". So it's all "take what you can get" until I actually do that, then it's "why aren't you being more ambitious?" Also brought up: all my moral qualms about not being able to actually commit to this job.
So, yeah. Now I feel like I shouldn't take this job and I shouldn't have applied in the first place because I should have been better at looking for jobs.
The job search is just an exercise in making me feel like a silly, worthless, helpless, incompitent fuckwad. I can't even spell incompetent right. FUCK.
I am applying to jobs as a lab assistant. I am NOT doing it because I want to work in medical labs. I am not looking for labs that match my interests. I do not even know what my interests ARE at this point. All I want is a steady job in something related to the field that I put myself into serious debt to get a degree in. And yet, when people ask me what work I'm looking for, and I tell them, they want to know 1) why labs? are you interested in doing medical research? 2) You're interested in plants? What do you do with that? Of course there are tons of jobs in plant ecology! And that's the only thing you could possibly want experience in, because it's the only part of bio that you're interested in, right? 3) What will you be studying in grad school? You are going to grad school, right? What do you mean, you're not sure? SURELY you know exactly what you want to devote your life to studying! I thought you got a degree in biology for a reason!
Dad contributed to this, of course, by calling me up and asking how the job search was coming. He's one of the people refered to in the "after the email" section. He also asked what fun activites I was doing in Boston, his old town, where he was so convinced I would have the time of my life and be so happy. I had to reply "Well, I spent the last two days sitting in my room, on the computer. Not writing or anything. Just playing dress up doll games. No, I haven't been to Harvard Square. There is nothing for a lone girl to do there but shop. No, I didn't go to a kooky coffee place and people-watch. I can't afford coffee shops and I don't like people. So yeah, your daughter has no job, no spirit of adventure, and is wasting her life on the internet. Not so proud of me now, are ya?"
Almost immediately after, my mom sent me an email with links to jobs in Athens, OH, telling me that I could come back and she could drive me in every day and that way I could save up money and be near my friends and if I really wanted to see Boston, I could fly out once in a while. I know she just misses me, but... maybe I shouldn't've moved out here. Maybe I should have just tried to find a job in Ohio. I mean, for all the good it's doing me living somewhere "with jobs". I'm basically just using up my pitiful savings until they run out and I starve to death, as compared to using up my parents' pitiful resources and not starving to death. Why was I in such a hurry to get out here? Ahahaha, that's right, Kallie, you'll go to Boston and then it'll be way easier to find work and you'll have so much to do what with being in a major city and on your own. Sure. Dumb bitch.
I can't do anything right. I should be looking for different kinds of jobs, and I should be applying to more jobs, and I should be applying to the right types of jobs, and I should be doing that the right way, and it's my own fault that I haven't done any of these things. Literally any other person my age would have done these things. People with IQs half of mine would be happily established by now. Clearly I am not worth shit in the real world, so probably nobody would hire me even if I was doing things right. You couldn't spoon-feed me a good job, I would just fuck that up.
Yeah. That is how job-search advice makes me feel. It is just a way of letting me know that I am a failure and they are judging me. And I have not spoken to a single person in the last four days who has not given me job search advice. (Except for the people in my RP, but as we talk about nothing but escapist fantasy RP games, you can see how that doesn't count.)
So, for those of you who are unaware, I moved up to Boston on the 25th. That was well and good. I have my room set up and decorated, I can get to the two nearest squares and I have a CharlieCard for the subway. Hannah's bro is moving and sent us boxes of live blackberry and lily plants, and Yiwan was up last Thursday and helped me plant the poor things. The side garden with the good light belongs to the upstairs neighbors, so I feel like I'm stealing a bit of earth from them and they'll stone me if they ever catch me using the hose to water my poor, sunlight deprived blackberries along the back fence, but they (the plants) look like they're doing OK at the moment. I also spent the weekend at Beth's for the 4th, and we had a rollicking good time which included making gumbo that would have been delicious if it hadn't blistered our lips, accidentally renting a soft-core porn flick featuring George Takei, watching Casablanca instead, and using Beth's neighborhood contacts to sneak into the Historic Society and look at the pretty antiques.
That's not what I'm writing about, of course. Why would I write about the fabulous memorable times I had with my good friends?
I'm writing because I am unemployed and confused and frustrated and sick of it.
Last week I applied for part-time work at a Japanese bakery. We happened to be there because I find their baked goods delicious and affordable, and they were looking for help, so I applied. They called me up and I had an interview with the owner on Wednesday. I liked him a lot, he's really nice. (He was appalled when I asked if they wanted 25-hour-a-week part-time or 38-hour-a-week-part-time. Apparently he did not realize that a lot of places hire "part time" workers to avoid paying benefits. Yeah. Super nice.)
I think he'd be willing to hire me, but they want a small-ish commitment because they have to train people and all that. Like, 6 months or so. They asked me to consider if I was likely to get hired by anyone in that space, and if not, to email them back.
This is where my thought process goes to hell.
-Everyone (by which I mostly mean Hannah's dad and grandma, who are the only people I talk to because I am alone in a strange city 800 miles from home) is constantly giving me job-search tips, repeating the same "you should try networking. I know someone who does XYZ and I'll talk to them"...which is what networking is, so I *am* networking to the best of my ability.
-I talked to a few people (OK, really just Alisa and Hannah's dad) about taking this job, and they both agreed that I should take any job I can get and then look for work from there... which tallies with the advice I kept getting earlier about job searches in general.
-I looked into the other jobs I've applied to. It's not looking good for any of them. Not going to even hide how depressing this is, especially since I thought I had a pretty good application/cover letter/all that for some of them. Basically, nobody wants me. I'm really flattered that this job thinks I might get hired somewhere better, in that way that I was flattered when the Australian who showed me his dick told me I was easy to talk to/strip around. As in, I know they're lying, but it's nice to hear, anyway.
-I thought the bakery would be a good in-between job with people I like, and it would be better than McDonalds and I wouldn't mind postponing my job search by a few months since I'm sick of the whole goddamn thing anyway. So I sent in an email saying that I'm available.
-Everyone I have told about this AFTER sending the email has told me that this was a HORRIBLE idea. Everything from "Well, have you talked to X like I suggested? Here, I'll call her for you." to "...can you make rent with that?" to "well, that friend I told you about was going to call you next week and I think she'll get you a place" to "Hopefully you'll find something worth your time soon". So it's all "take what you can get" until I actually do that, then it's "why aren't you being more ambitious?" Also brought up: all my moral qualms about not being able to actually commit to this job.
So, yeah. Now I feel like I shouldn't take this job and I shouldn't have applied in the first place because I should have been better at looking for jobs.
The job search is just an exercise in making me feel like a silly, worthless, helpless, incompitent fuckwad. I can't even spell incompetent right. FUCK.
I am applying to jobs as a lab assistant. I am NOT doing it because I want to work in medical labs. I am not looking for labs that match my interests. I do not even know what my interests ARE at this point. All I want is a steady job in something related to the field that I put myself into serious debt to get a degree in. And yet, when people ask me what work I'm looking for, and I tell them, they want to know 1) why labs? are you interested in doing medical research? 2) You're interested in plants? What do you do with that? Of course there are tons of jobs in plant ecology! And that's the only thing you could possibly want experience in, because it's the only part of bio that you're interested in, right? 3) What will you be studying in grad school? You are going to grad school, right? What do you mean, you're not sure? SURELY you know exactly what you want to devote your life to studying! I thought you got a degree in biology for a reason!
Dad contributed to this, of course, by calling me up and asking how the job search was coming. He's one of the people refered to in the "after the email" section. He also asked what fun activites I was doing in Boston, his old town, where he was so convinced I would have the time of my life and be so happy. I had to reply "Well, I spent the last two days sitting in my room, on the computer. Not writing or anything. Just playing dress up doll games. No, I haven't been to Harvard Square. There is nothing for a lone girl to do there but shop. No, I didn't go to a kooky coffee place and people-watch. I can't afford coffee shops and I don't like people. So yeah, your daughter has no job, no spirit of adventure, and is wasting her life on the internet. Not so proud of me now, are ya?"
Almost immediately after, my mom sent me an email with links to jobs in Athens, OH, telling me that I could come back and she could drive me in every day and that way I could save up money and be near my friends and if I really wanted to see Boston, I could fly out once in a while. I know she just misses me, but... maybe I shouldn't've moved out here. Maybe I should have just tried to find a job in Ohio. I mean, for all the good it's doing me living somewhere "with jobs". I'm basically just using up my pitiful savings until they run out and I starve to death, as compared to using up my parents' pitiful resources and not starving to death. Why was I in such a hurry to get out here? Ahahaha, that's right, Kallie, you'll go to Boston and then it'll be way easier to find work and you'll have so much to do what with being in a major city and on your own. Sure. Dumb bitch.
I can't do anything right. I should be looking for different kinds of jobs, and I should be applying to more jobs, and I should be applying to the right types of jobs, and I should be doing that the right way, and it's my own fault that I haven't done any of these things. Literally any other person my age would have done these things. People with IQs half of mine would be happily established by now. Clearly I am not worth shit in the real world, so probably nobody would hire me even if I was doing things right. You couldn't spoon-feed me a good job, I would just fuck that up.
Yeah. That is how job-search advice makes me feel. It is just a way of letting me know that I am a failure and they are judging me. And I have not spoken to a single person in the last four days who has not given me job search advice. (Except for the people in my RP, but as we talk about nothing but escapist fantasy RP games, you can see how that doesn't count.)