Keep Fishin’
I woke up this morning in a bitchy mood. My cheeriness left me around 4pm yesterday and continued well into the evening. You’d think the end of the workday would’ve brought about a wonderful mood punctuated with lollipops, rainbows, and sugary gooeyness from yours truly, but alas. I was in a foul mood up until this morning, when I proceeded to pound out 5 miles instead of a scheduled 3.5. Pretending I was stomping on all of my quandaries and confusion helped a great deal.
What put me in a foul mood? Something of little consequence, but it bugged me nonetheless. A friend and I were discussing my efforts to find a job in relocate. At one point, she says to me, "Maybe you can save up money and MAKE it happen." Emphasis on MAKE is not mine.
It bugged because I am doing all that I can to make it happen. I am also saving up money, as much as I can, but my paltry salary versus living expenses in an expensive city without a steady income makes for one suicidal move. The implication was that a) I wasn’t doing enough and hadn’t explored all my options and b) I was neglecting my efforts to move in favor of blowing my money on Ann Arbor comforts. Um, no. If I can’t afford an apartment on my salary here, what makes her think that I can move without a job and afford an apartment elsewhere? The comment just reeked of privilege. I pointed out that I had student loans to worry about, and that I already was doing all I could to effect a move. I logged off shortly thereafter, saying I had to make dinner. True enough, but I no longer wanted to discuss it.
My friend is very nice, but comes from a pretty rich background in which practically everything has been handed to her on a silver platter. That’s not to say she’s lazy–she’s not, she would love to open her own business–but the comment was an open mouth, insert foot event. If she wants to open her business, she can – she would get support from her family and anyone would fund her given who her parents are in their community. When she marries, she plans to have 300+ people there, all paid for by her family. If I marry, I’d be doing it on the cheap – no way would I want 300 people there, and there’s no way I’m going to be able to afford that. My parents have promised to buy my dress–it can be as expensive as I want–but that’s it. Nor do my parents have any plans to help me set up my own business anytime soon (though the bakery idea still lingers).
It made me feel, well, bad. Everything I’ve wanted I’ve had to work for, and that includes an undergrad and grad education. Nearly all of my friends are debt-free – their parents either had a fund set up for their college, or they were simply rich enough to take care of an education in the thousands. If there’s one thing I am insanely jealous of in my life, it’s people who have no educational debt. I’ll be paying off my loans for years to come, but they’re able to start out their careers without owing the federal government money. I worked throughout college, both in terms of studying and plain old employment. I have been working since I was 15. I’m no slacker, I do everything I can to make things move in my direction. But sometimes you just get bogged down by the overwhelming crappiness of life. Having someone imply that you’re not doing enough just needles me in the wrong way.
Nothing has ever come easy to me. My first year of undergrad was an unmitigated disaster from which I barely recovered emotionally. Nothing but my drive made it better, and no one in my life knows all the details of that year. Getting to Toronto was hell and a half – I missed out my year of admission, nearly missed out my year of deferral. Finding a job that matches my talents has been so far seemingly impossible – nothing is easy, and it gets so fucking frustrating that all you want to do is scream and run far, far away forever. Add to that the fact that I owe people so much for an education that has done nothing for me, and you start to get one very bitter woman on your hands. I often think that, if December 31 rolls around and I’m still stuck in this job and in this state, that’s it, game over, man. Might as well toss in the towel because nothing will get better. That’s the darker side of me – the darker side that wants to give up if I can’t do anything in a whole year’s worth of trying. At that point, after all that struggle, I’d start to wonder, "What the fuck for?"
But of course, as exasperated as I am, I’m not one to give up, at least not immediately. If December 31 rolls around and I’m in this same situation, I will be crying my eyes out, but I’ll get up January 1, 2006 and keep on trucking. I will be in a horribly foul mood, ten times worse than yesterday, and no one better try to cheer me up, but I will continue to try. However, slogging through 2006 here is not an option. It’s either a new place, a new job and apartment here, or I’ll find a reclusive hut in Mexico and live out my days as the wild woman of Zacatecas.
In the end, I will MAKE something happen. I WILL – there’s just no bones about it, dammit. I have stopped saying if because I’m sick of being cautiously optimistic – it’s self-defeating for me to say that. But no one better dare say that I’m not trying hard enough, or so much as imply it.
Actually, what your friend proposes (moving without job in hand) would not only be incredibly foolish, it would also be extremely difficult no matter how much money you had saved up. What I encountered last week were income requirements for virtually every single apartment I looked at, plus a requirement of demonstrating employment. The only way around these requirements is to have someone who makes substantially higher vouch that they will pay your rent if you can’t, which may be realistic for some people but not for most. I wonder also what it would accomplish. Would it be SO much easier to get a job if you lived there? I highly doubt it. But if so, once I am there you can take days off and come visit for employment expeditions, rather than for road trips. You can even come while I am at work.
I have no idea what your friend’s intentions were, but maybe she was just trying to sound optimistic – her comment made in ignorance of 10,000 realities but intended more as “pep talk” than to put you down.
Meanwhile, the key is patience. As far as I know, you have only been looking (and I mean REALLY looking) for what? A couple of months? Job searches always take time, unless you are just willing to accept anything.
But the paradox is that once you start looking and pondering the possibilities, your current situation becomes even more frustrating than it was before. I remember many a day sitting in my “office” in ehbeeoh and just wanting to pound my fist on the desk. “This is it! I can’t take it here one more day. Something has to happen, and it has to happen NOW!” I would try to channel those energies elsewhere (more applications, exercise, etc) but you can never completely get rid of them. You just have to be patient, and don’t set deadlines (like Dec 31) for despair, or you’ll drive yourself crazy. It takes as long as it takes. You do what you can do to look, but at a certain point circumstances beyond your control take over.
Also, don’t forget what I told you a few months ago about how hard it is to get set on a career path. It’s just as true now as it was then, except now you’re actually doing something about it. You should be proud of what you’ve accomplished just in the past few months (how many apps? and an interview already?) It took me more than six months to get a single phone interview, and EIGHT months to get an offer (and ten months to get the offer I accepted!).
And anyhow, if this is the friend I think it is, she is hardly one to be giving out advice about searching for jobs or making big moves.
Oh, but I’m not frustrated at my job search. I really did only start searching since I got back from our vacation with a serious resume and good cover letter in hand. Like I said, I do think I will find something, but the implications of “MAKE it happen” just annoy me to no end. I am trying. Maybe it was said in encouragement, but it wasn’t like I was down – I was just saying that I wanted to be out before our “raise reviews” (which is another thing you haven’t heard about). I mean, seriously, there’s NO WAY you can move there and not have a steady income unless you have a private one. I can’t MAKE it happen any faster than it’s going to.
December 31, while a firm deadline, seemed appropriate in the new year. It’s a resolution, just like the half-mary. And while I’ve signed up for the half-mary, I can’t sign up for a job or an apartment just yet. As I settle into my late 20s and blaze a path to my 30s, it’s getting imperative that I get out – the sooner the better – before I shrivel up into an old woman.
The above didn’t make me sad last night – just mad. Like I said, the comment reeked of privilege, and the one thing that really does make me jealous of people is a debt-free education. I’d have SO much saved up by now if I didn’t have student loans to pay. In sum, the reality I face is something she’ll never deal with at all. What pisses me off is the complete inability to acknowledge differences in life paths.
I do think that I’ll win the job sweepstakes (at least a small sum if not the jackpot) eventually. I’m not too fussed right now about no phone calls – when I stretch into six, eight, ten months like you did, then I’ll be pulling my hair out and you’ll have to have me medicated, but for right now, I’m okay. Just immensely annoyed and sort of insulted. I injure easily sometimes, especially when it comes to the subject of my work and determination. I hate to say it, but stereotypes about what it means to be Mexican plays into it, so I want to contradict that as much as possible.
Anyway, there’s my rant. I will continue to be patient, just as long as you don’t mind hearing me vent about my stupid job once in a while over the phone!