You can skip this entire post. Job hunting angst. Lots of whine.

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Ug. I woke up at 9:00 am, which is way too early for a Sunday, thinking it was just because my allergies were stronger than the Benadryll. But I definitely have a cold. What my coworker claimed to be allergies last week was clearly a cold, because now I have it. I went to the diner for lunch with Joe, but other than that I have done nothing all day. I really want to just call out of work tomorrow, but I know my desk is a disaster. In all likelihood, I’ll go in with the intentions of taking care of a few things, and leaving early, and will wind up staying all day. And probably, after the virtual deadness of last week, this week will be insane. Murphy’s Law and everything.

There are a few jobs to put in applications for this week, but I’m not expecting much. This process sucks, and I am sure Joe is thoroughly sick of talking with me about it. I think that if I don’t find anything by September, I will seriously consider just taking the huge chance and moving to DC with no job. And then make job hunting my full time job, and also, probably try to get temp work at the same time, but with the lousy economy, that seems unlikely to pan out. This is all probably just speculation; I don’t think I have the guts to make such a move. I don’t have to move to DC. My emergency fund is supposed to be just that – emergency funds, should I lose my job, not luxury money to play with because I can’t stand suburbia another second.

Joe is trying to get me to think of it in terms of time as a valuable resource, as in, I feel like I’m wasting away my time here, and if DC is what I really want to do, I should just do it, and worry about rebuilding an emergency fund later. But I know myself. I am responsible about these things, perhaps to a fault, and perhaps out of fear. I am a Hobbesian. I value security, perhaps over all other things.

And I always do the safe thing. Always.

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I should get this in before the WordPress backend crashes on me again.

The day started off poorly (forgetting my travel mug full of freshly brewed coffee on the counter) and while it would be too much to call the morning a slow and steady decline, the plateau is not very pleasant. Actually, if you want to start my day by the clock then my after midnight check of my work email, the neurotic replies I composed in my head, and the junk food I ate can definitely be added to the column of “reasons why this is not going to be a banner day.”

I am currently attempting to compose a cover letter because “what else is new.”  What I really need is a means to concentrate on something for more than 30 seconds at a time.  Same old story; the situation is suitably bleak enough to sap your motivation, which is self defeating, because not doing anything is certainly not going to get you anywhere. David and I are currently having our usual conversation about bleakness and other career related woes that are too depressing to go into. David and I are both intelligent, talented people with (I think) a lot to offer, yet we both find ourselves unhireable.

We should go into business together, although doing what, I have no idea. We are the people that pull off the impossible and the incredible at zero hour, but we do it in situations and circumstances where there is no opportunity for recognition or reward. And yes, we have both tried the avenue of being your own advocate. Working for dying offices is not a place to nuture talent.

I get asked to do all sorts of crazy things, develop new skills on the fly, and I always pull it off admirably, with no time and no budget. You’d think that’d be something that’s valued.

Instead, I’m hiding out in my boss’s office, because my cube is in a high traffic area, and they’re loud today. Instead, I waste my mid-now-late 20s endlessly tweaking a resume that’s getting me nowhere. I know that this is the only subject I write about; that it’s boring, it’s endless, and that you all wish I would quit my whining.

I wish that too. But what I really wish is that I could find a place where I could be productive, where I could actually do something.  I just want to be found valuable.

I’m sure my therapist would have a field day with that one.

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Points if you get where my post title is from without googling.

I feel the need to clarify something from yesterdays post (she says, defensively). Much of my woe is coming from the fact that I can’t even get an admin assistant position in the field that I want to be in. Two commenters pointed out that this is the way to go if I’m serious about DC (and they are right) but I have applied for admin positions at every foreign policy, or foreign policy related think tank in DC.  As well as various other interesting places.

There are a number of places where I want to work where I don’t care what the job is – I just want to work there! These positions pay about half of what I’m making now, but I’d manage. Someone just has to hire me first. My fear is that in order to move to DC I’ll have to take another legal assistant job (or worse) which isn’t really my field and I’ll just get trapped in it because all my experience on paper is in it.

The other thing V and I were lamenting is “entry level” is both a misnomer and a double-edged sword. For example, these positions will claim to be “entry level” and they will pay entry level wages, but then they will ask for three years experience and in the end it’s basically an admin position. On the other end,  I have been viewed as “too experienced” for entry level. The number of times my snobby Masters degree has raised the eyebrows (and not in a good way) of the hiring person is astounding. They question why I’m applying to an “assistant” position and they question why I’ve been working in as an assistant.

Existential crises aside, do these people not understand having bills to pay? I’ve been at my current job for a year and a half. A year and a half ago, I was running out of unemployment and I couldn’t afford to shop around for the perfect job. Now that I’ve built up some savings (and I have the luxury of looking while employed) I can be choosier. But my experience, particularly my type of experience, is generally looked down upon.

I know that this all sounds defeatist and terribly know-it-all-ish. Who am I to claim that I know the workings of a hiring manager’s mind? I could be projecting, right? Thing is, I truly feel I’m being pragmatic and realistic with all of the above, and that if I let myself think otherwise then I’m being delusional.

Which perhaps is another puzzle. I believe I experienced this when I was job hunting immediately post-college. That is when I was interviewing for every receptionist/assistant position in NYC. Including one at a glue factory way the hell out in Brooklyn (seriously, it was a looooong ride on the R train) staffed solely by Orthodox Jew.

That was an awkward interview.

On the plus side I put $500 in my savings account this paycheck. On the negative side, I spent an obscene amount of money on clothing. On the plus side, I will be returning a large percentage of it, so no harm done. Mostly.

Now, to get a job in DC, so I have a place to wear all my cute clothes. Suburban Jersey + no dress code at work means I’m wearing jeans and plain sweaters everywhere.

I’m running on too much caffeine and not enough sleep, for no good reason. I could join the Facebook group “I’m Always Tired Because I Stay Up Too Late for No Reason.” I click mindlessly around the internet and have been known to hit “reload” on my email, even at 1:30 in the morning.

I drink a cup of coffee, and then pick up another on my way to a therapy appointment, even though that’s all I have to do today. Half of a large iced coffee remains on the table next to me. My hands are a little shaky from too much caffeine and not enough to eat. Pause to eat half a sandwich. Better now.

My neck and shoulders are cramped and sore from too many hours hunched over at a desk or laptop. I am grateful for the relief of the weekend (I spent nine hours on Friday formatting contracts) but impatient with the way it interrupts the job search – there are no new job postings on the weekend.

My therapist gently bridged the subject that eventually, I’m going to have to date again. I brushed that off, saying I’m not interested in dating now, and what’s the point of it, given that I’m trying to move to DC sooner rather than later.

His point, of course, was that I’m not going to meet any boys spending my time as I’ve been spending it. Abstractly, he’s right. Day to day, I’m not interested in doing that, not now. My desire to go on polite dates is in the range of zero to negative 10.

I have an application to craft, for THE organization I want to work for. The chances of me getting so much as an email rejection are practically non-existent. But, as with every application I submit, even to the less than perfect jobs, I can’t help the wishful thinking. I can’t help but start to do the mental financial planning on how I would survive in DC on about half of what I’m making right now.

So it’s been a really long time since I’ve been on a date (or even done some making out. There is a definite lack of making out in my life) and I don’t see that changing in the near future. And I’ve only been at the search for a career change for a few weeks, really. It’s far too early to get frustrated because I haven’t submitted enough applications to be a contender in the number games.

Besides, all my personal experience shows that job offers, like boys you want to make out with, come along when you are least expecting it, when you’re at the rock bottom of frustrations and shattered expectations, and when you can’t picture how things are ever going to go right.

That’s when you get the phone call. That’s when you realize he’s deliberately sitting closer to you than he needs to.

I don’t mean to go on blogging breaks, but work has been insane, and then, what do I have to say, really? I am still stuck. Oh, and it’s Saturday night, and I have no plans besides picking up some sushi, doing some laundry, and the SVU marathon.

I have basically become ok with the fact that my weekends are like this. I have gotten past judging them as “pathetic” and making self deprecating comments about them. I would just rather be spending my weekends doing nothing in DC (or NYC) and then I would have the option to do something that wasn’t nothing.

I think I might want DC like the way I wanted New York when I got out of college. Back then, I was also craving independence and the opportunity for a social life, to be sure, but I wanted New York because of HWSNBN. I think I want DC, and there’s not even a boy there. I suppose my therapist would say this is progress. Of course, it’s entirely possible that I have just forced myself to not want NYC, because I know that career wise, DC is the only place that makes sense right now. And, given that, there’s no use wanting what you can’t have, or torturing yourself with what cannot be.

HWSNBN still texts me very occasionally. He asked back in September when I’d be in the city next. I said December. He told me to let him know when, but I never did. I didn’t see the point, really, and also all the vain, shallow reasons like I want to be nothing but 100% together if I ever see him again.

So for now, I’m not quite sure what I’m doing. I have a phone interview on Monday for an organization that pays probably half of what my current job does, and who’s political orientation is possibly opposite of my own. Still, they do some interesting work in the security/foreign policy realm, so I’ll give it a chance to see what happens. Already, in my head I’m making excuses for why this is a terrible idea to even consider, and of course this is mere projection, because the phone interview hasn’t even happened yet.

When I moved to New York, I was actually pretty gutsy. Despite growing up 30 minutes away, I didn’t know the city, and I certainly didn’t know the boroughs. I spent the first half of the summer of 2005 job hunting and apartment hunting in the sweltering heat. I learned the neighborhoods of Brooklyn (where I never wound up living) by google map directions and walking. I learned the subway by following the colored lines on the map with my finger. HWSNBN and I were long over, and I didn’t have any friends in the city. I just did it.

“You have to take a step before you’re ready. Because if you wait to be ready, you’ll never take that step. “

Perhaps I would do well to remember this.

A ridiculously overwrought reflection on NYC

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Work got busy the end of last week. Quarterly reports and such. A co-worker and I  were about equally disgruntled and loopy, so we laughed over incredibly stupid things for most of Friday.

I managed to do laundry this weekend, and get rid of some junk as part of my continued attempts to not be such a pack rat. This is fairly impossible – I am a 3rd generation pack rat, and my parents attic is filled with boxes of my stuff. My nostalgia will not let me throw anything out, although I bet I wouldn’t miss it if I actually did. But, it’s in the attic, so it’s more trouble than it’s worth to drag boxes down a ladder.

The phone interview is tomorrow. I’m not nervous about the actual interview; my biggest worry is what to tell my boss(es) about why I have to take a phone call that will last an indeterminable amount of time at 11am.

I am listening to the Kelly Clarkson song “Already Gone.” Every time I hear it, I wonder what my life would have been like if The Ex and I had broken up at the end of high school instead of making it almost all the way through college. Because that’s really what I want to be thinking of a Sunday morning.

I’ve mostly spent the weekend angsting over my application. This fellowship is the first thing I have wanted — really, really wanted — in a very long time. Yes, I wanted my current job – I wanted it to go from temp to perm, but if it hadn’t, it would have been due to bureaucratic issues and no reflection on my worth. Plus, there wasn’t such uncertainty – I knew I was doing a very good job, I knew my boss liked me, and so I wasn’t afraid to basically demand the company hire me. (In retrospect, I don’t know when/how I decided to grow a spine, or where that spine has gone since then)

Here, I have no idea if I’m doing a good job on the application. I have no idea if I am what they are looking for. I have no idea how I match up against other candidates.

I’m not good at admitting when I want something. But good lord, I want this. I want this because it would be my dream job in every sense of the word. I want this because it would force me to live in DC, the city I have refused to move to because it’s not New York, but would probably hold much better career opportunities than New York ever could. I want this because although I like my job I don’t want to be here the rest of my life. I want this because I need to get out of suburban Jersey.

I want this. And that in of itself is pretty terrifying to me.

What is the ideal role of the government in 50 words or less?

This is one of the questions I have to answer for my Libetarian Application. I have an answer in mind, but it might be a little too snarky. But the “safe” answer (“The ideal government is limited to common defense and arbitration of dispute between citizens”) is way too boring. Also, there’s one question that doesn’t have a word limit and so I’m writing what I guess is a “Statement of Purpose” except not really. I don’t know. At this point I want to give up on the whole thing because I feel like all my answers are garbage and I have no idea how to make them any better. It’s been a very long time since I’ve done an application.

Also, I never do anything risky, because I am a freaking Hobbesian, so I’m afraid to be even the littlest bit creative or snarky in my answers, even though it could help, if I am knowing my audience correctly, so to speak.

I guess I need to sucker some people into reading over my application. At least it is mostly short answer (as in, 100 words or less). I really need to get this in final draft shape so I can meet the first application deadline. Because really, hitting the early deadline feels like the only way in hell I’ll have a shot at this.

I adore alliteration, don’t you?

Kim at Perfectly Cursed tagged me.  I am terrible at tags, because I overthink my responses in hopes of saying something creative, but since I’ve been blog-stalking Kim, I thought I better complete this.

• Dave Matthews
• Michael Moore – I loathe Michael Moore and the noble lie that he’s the only one ‘telling it like it is’
• Julia Roberts
• Karl Marx – I would bring him back from the dead just to see him destroyed by vicious dinos.
• probably Sarah Palin. But then again, she might help contribute to further GOP-ist downfall, which would be good. Decisions, decisions.

Five drinks I love:

• Seltzer 
• Coffee
• Red Bull
• Coke, but only from a can
• Seltzer  

Five favourite quotes:

• “I build my peace through strength; that’s the best weapon you’ve got” – Dar Williams
• “The question isn’t “who’s going to let me”; it’s “who’s going to stop me?” -Dagny Taggart, in Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand
• “There is no reason for anthropological optimism” – Carl Schmitt
• “We all spend so much time not saying what we want, because we know we can’t have it. And because it sounds ungracious, or ungrateful, or disloyal, or childish, or banal. Or because we’re so desperate to pretend that things are OK, really, that confessing to ourselves they’re not looks like a bad move. Go on, say what you want. … Whatever it is, say it to yourself. The truth will set you free. Either that or it’ll get you a punch in the nose. Surviving in whatever life you’re living means lying, and lying corrodes the soul, so take a break from the lies for just one minute
  -Long Way Down (Nick Hornby)
• I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of the New York City skyline – Ayn Rand
• One more, as a bonus: “Laugh at the things that formerly bound you” – a college professor of mine, in our ‘Shakespeare’s Political Wisdom’ class

Five things to do before I die:

• Fall in love
• Live in NYC (again)
• Go to Russia 
• Have a research-y position
• Be part of the Libertarian Revolution (or at least live to see some substantial reductions in government – Pipe Dream, I know)

• Christopher Meloni as Elliot Stabler
• Jon Stewart
• Christopher Meloni as Elliot Stabler
• Hugh Laurie

Also, I HATE HATE HATE AT&T. I just spent an hour on the phone with them trying to get one of our accounts sorted out (for work) and it still is not solved. It is times like this that I am really glad I went to grad school…

Libertarian-esque-application continues to go slowly. I need a rough-final draft by this Thursday, I think. The problem is, the word limit is VERY low (we’re talking 100 words) and I don’t know if there is a danger in being too specific. Because while I would really LOVE to do A, I would also be perfectly happy doing B,C, and D. I’m afraid if I make my application too specific, they’ll think I can only do A, and if that’s not realistic, will cast my application aside.

I think I might be getting a cold, but it could be allergies or just lack of sleep.

After being so good about my spending in August and September I just went on a bit of an online shopping spree.  Money I don’t have on clothes I don’t need. And shoes. I bought 3 pairs of shoes. In my defense it was under $100 total for all 3 pairs.

Anyway. So this thing I’m applying for. It’s a year long program. No, I would not be collecting yet another degree, but it does have an educational component to it. The best description I can give is that it’s like an Internship for grown-ups. I believe you actually get a living wage. I actually applied to the Summer Internship version of this in college. I was a finalist, but didn’t make the final cut.

I’m struggling with the application and struggling more with the idea of potential rejection. First cut is finding out if I get a phone interview, and then the next step would be an in person interview, and if your interests match up with one of their partner organizations, then that organization interviews you. The website warns that its an extensive interview process, and I realized this weekend, that I could go through the entire interview process (which would require me to take vacation time from my current job and make an expensive trip to DC) and still not get a position. That is depressing.

Allegeldy, I’ll know whether I got a phone interview or not by October 31st. But first, of course, I have to finish the application. I no longer have any idea how to talk about my research interests, potential career path, and “what I hope to gain” out of a program, or how to make it relate to liberty/free market oriented solutions. Oh, and did I mention the answers are supposed to be 100 words or less?

The only one I have down is the ideal role of the federal government, and I just deleted my answer on the very, very tiny, tiny off chance that someone else who is applying for the same program stumbles across my blog, because I don’t want anyone stealing my oh-so-brilliant answer.  

It’s been a rough week. Work has been crazy busy (in a somewhat good way). I had a stressful week regarding ride arrangement and some massive Fail. Oh and then I screwed something up at work and nearly gave my boss a heart attack and have spent the last 12 hours obsessing about it. Of course, this screw up happened about 30 minutes after I told my boss of my plans to apply for Libertarian-esque Fellowship and asked if he would serve as a reference. My timing is impeccable.

I basically spent last night fretting over aforementioned work mistake and babbling about my work mistake to a couple friends. Diagnosis: “You’re just being Rachel.”

I admit, it makes me smile a little that there are people who know me well enough that “Being Rachel” is a catch-all for my delightful neuroses.  I am actually far better than I used to be. I was able to watch Flash Forward and L&O SVU last night when in the past I would deny myself anything enjoyable until I knew for 100% certainty that whatever I was fretting about was resolved.

And now it’s Friday. I would really like to do something productive this weekend. Or, just to be novel, something fun. I am so sick of suburban New Jersey and general isolation. I miss NYC. And while this Libertarian-esque fellowship I’m applying for would be the best thing in the world for me, professionally, if I got it, it would mean NYC is at least that much further away.

It is cold in my office. If I say that, than it really MUST be cold, because I am always hot. My toes are cold, but this is because I insist on wearing flipflops. This summer, I have worn the uniform of jeans + tshirt + flipflops to work nearly every day, because I have Old Navy flip flops in 6 different colors (a joke birthday present from my mother) and I have t-shirts and polos in those 6 different colors to match.

Matching flip flops to your t-shirt is, I suspect, not very high fashion. In fact, I think it may fall under slightly more insulting titles than merely “bad fashion sense.”

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I am kind of jealous of the people heading back to or starting school today. I love the start of a school year; new clothes, school supplies, and Promise.

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About a year ago, I thought I would be maybe, possibly applying for Law School this fall. It quickly became clear that my head was in no way clear enough to begin the process. And also, um…I’m not sure I want to go to Law School. I have moments where it seems like a great idea, but also moments where I think “why the hell would I want to go to Law School?” 

The problem is that Law School has begun to seem like an inevitable instead of a want. 

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For now though: Yesterday, just before I left work, I was informed of yet another Big Change that directly affects me. I won’t bore with specifics, but suffice to say it frustrates me to no end, and then it upsets me. And so it makes me question “Am I even happy with my job? At all?” And well, the answer is a resounding no. 

I love my co-workers. They are the best part of this job and always have been. And I go through bursts where I can get tons of non-work related stuff done at work, but then I burn out and I just don’t care and so I basically do nothing all day. Too much nothing is bad for the brain. And I’d been keeping this job with the understanding that it was only going to be through September, and now that’s not happening so…

So I don’t know. I’m overeducated and/or underqualified for just about everything. So I don’t know what I’m going to do. But I am taking the step to admit that I am Not Happy with this job. For some reason, that helps.