The place where my head goes when I’m trying to fall asleep is not pretty. In the dark, before I’ve slipped into sleep I still have those thoughts where I remember embarrassing moments and cringe. I still catalogue regrets, going back as far as college. I find myself angry at myself. I am mad at me for not being able to “snap out of it,” for wasting those years, for missing the quintessential college experience. For not studying hard enough. For not taking advantage of every opportunity. For not even knowing I wasn’t taking advantage of every opportunity.

Even when I’m having these thoughts, I know that by the light of day I can attack them on several fronts. But that doesn’t stop the feelings of regret that bubble up at 1 AM. And then it’s 9:30 in the morning and I’m sitting at work texting with Michael, thinking that maybe I should go get another Master’s degree, to make up for the way I screwed myself out of opportunities with the first one. But as my aforementioned thinking of the college experience shows, in order to feel that I was truly rectifying past mistakes, I’d have to do college over.

See what I mean about this type of thinking being entirely unhelpful?

I know this, and yet sometimes it is still there, and denying that it’s still there dosen’t seem to be particularly helpful either.

I have always been the type to want to take back the past. Even when I was young, as far back as 4th or 5th grade, the things I wished for most vehemently were do-overs.  I used to be far more myopic, part of me convinced that the only way to avenge the old me would be to invent a time machine. Now there’s a part of me which manages to see that the best “revenge” is to live a good life.

But it’s still possible to get tangled up in the possibilites for a good life, or a better life that could have been, had I not done X, or if I had only chosen Y.

It’s too early in the week to be this much of a downer. I have no energy or motivation on the job application front. The enthusiasm with which I attacked Federal Job applications last month seems to have waned. Perhaps it’s another sign that I should not be frentically applying for jobs that I’m not thrilled with the prospect of, but for some of them, all I see is dollar signs, and really, there are worse reasons to do things. But I’m staring at pages of “multiple choice and explain your answer” questions on my experience communicating and scheduling and administrating and while I do have all the requisite experience and can give the clear examples they’re looking for, my motivation to write those perfectly worded explanations of my ability to be a glorified secretary is just not there.

I’d say the only thing I need is a break from the job applications, but I barely did anything last week and this week is going to be equally busy and I can’t get a job if I don’t apply and it’s already a week into March and I’m not closer than I was at the beginning of January.

And then I get this notice about bills that are overdue (at work. Not my own personal bills) from this vendor that keeps screwing up and it just sets off the annoyance.

I know I need patience and gratitude, among other things, but it’s 9:45 on a Monday morning and it’s not happening right now.

.

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.

One of the main reasons I haven’t wanted to get all angsty about the Great-DC-Job-Search (other than the fact that whining is not an attractive quality) is that I don’t want to listen to people tell me that I’m being fatalistic, or that I CAN do it, or making suggestions about what I should try.

Here are the facts: I never had a fancy (unpaid) DC internship when I was in college. I could have one summer, but it would have involved paying for houses and not making any money. I chose instead to go home for the summer and work. There were lots of factors involved in that decision, and at the time, I wouldn’t have been happy in DC, but I am paying for it now. I have NO DC experience, and this is somehow relevant even for non-Hill jobs (I don’t want to work on the Hill). The Libertarian Fellowship was so important to me because it was a back door into DC. A shortcut, so to speak. I knew that the chances of me getting a job in DC the old-fashioned way were/are very slim and that that fellowship would have given me an in.

The other thing is the type of experience I have. I have a Masters degree from a very good university, where I also worekd as a research assistant. But my resume also evidences that I’ve been a glorified (and at times, not even glorified) secretary since college. I was lamenting this with Virginia, a girl who graduated a year before me; job postings want you to have 3 years of experience, and the only experience you can get is admin work, and then that’s not good enough.

Do you know what I would have done, as an intern, in DC? I would have made copies and filed and answered phones. Yes, I recognize that location is everything and there’s more to it than just the clerical aspect. But I hate that that looks more important on paper than what I do now (and I do all those things and a whole hell of a lot more). I hate that my only option is a lateral move into another admin position – that that is my only hope of getting into DC, and that is still a small chance.

I don’t want to hear about how I just have to be patient and try and whatever (yes, I know I sound whiny) because these are not the off-the-cuff ramblings of a frustrated job searcher. These are just the facts. They are something that I have been painfully aware of for a long time. To an extent, this knowledge may have kept me from job hunting in DC in the past – fear of rejection/failure and all. I know the odds and they are not good. Add in the recession and they slip to sub-zero.

So I don’ t exactly know what to do. My motivation is sapped. Writing another cheery cover letter makes me want to stab my eyes out. I know that everyone searching for a job must feel the same way. It’s a disheartening process, to see these jobs that I would be perfect for and not get a resposne to my carefully crafted applications. And then I read the barrage of job hunting advice that’s on the internet about networking and promoting yourself and finding your job through twitter (and how you’ll never find a job the traditional way, not in this world) and it’s even more confusing about what to do.  What am I supposed to do? Blog incessently on my RealName wordpress account (I don’t use it, I just snatched up the name) about the places I want to work and why they should hire me? Because I do have 2-3 places in mind that I would LOVE to work.

I don’t know. I know that my frustrations are the same as almost everyone going through the job hunt. But I feel so trapped. I feel that the decisions I made five years ago are haunting me now and that this is my life. A future something great destined to spend her life answering phones and ordering office supplies. I like my job and for the most part I do way more than that, and there is nothing inherently wrong with those things.

But I want to be something other than a glorified secretary. I don’t want to have to answer someone else’s phone. That’s my dream. Right there.

I wound up leaving work early on Thursday. I woke up on Friday for just long enough to send an “I’m sick” email and then slept the rest of the day. After an incredibly lazy weekend, I woke up on Monday feeling much better AND I didn’t have to work. So I went shopping. I’m so glad that George Washington* did important stuff like beating the British, because it meant 40% off at GAP. Of course, due to my refusal to try anything on while in store, I now have to go return most of what I bought, but I am still satisfied with my indulgences.

I also spent part of Monday fretting about all I had to do when I got back to work. This, as usual, proved unnecessary because I got everything done before lunch.  There is nothing of interest on the job posts front today. It’s frustrating that the position at Coveted-Organization is still posted and it’s tempting to just send in a second application. I’m fairly sure they use an automated screening system.

It is also frustrating that Libertarian-Fellowship is still accepting applications, which means they haven’t filled their slots, which adds more WTF-ery to my rejection.

In other news, I don’t care about the Olympics.  I have also been zoning out on politics/the news in general the past week or so. Not that there was much happening since THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CAN’T FUNCTION WHEN IT SNOWS**, but I really should pay more attention, in general. Especially if I’m going to actively participate in Campaign for Liberty. Which is unlikely, but you never know .

I’m just unmotivated. I really want to write about some of the day to day-ities of work, but blogging about work in anymore detail than I already do just seems like a bad idea. It isn’t that I’m doing anything wrong or that I want to complain about my boss,*** but airing frustrations about a job that pays, and pays you well in a public forum is  a bad idea.

I know having yesterday off should make for a “short week” but the slowness of today is a bad sign.

*Presidents Day is obviously in between Lincoln & Washington’s birthday, but I believe I heard some bit of trivia somewhere that the official federal holiday is Washington’s birthday.  I have not verified this at all because I am lazy

**I am okay with the federal government not functioning

***My boss is actually pretty awesome. Still, paranoia = healthy.

Brent, Joe, and I went to Trivia Night locally last night and I had a ridiculous amount of fun. First, I laughed more in one night than I have in a month. There was competition for lamest confession and discussion of 90s music. Then Trivia began. We scored perfectly the first two rounds. And then we bombed the third round (stupid questions such as “Which slipper did Cinderella lose; her left or right?” and questions-we-should-have-gotten-right-but-second-guessed) and didn’t do much better on the fourth. We were resigned to losing, and then the final bonus round was geography (blue category!), so we bet the max, and we won.

From my description you can see that trivia is Very Important and that this victory made me (well, us) way happier than it rightly should have. In the car ride home we were still discussing it, and future team strategy, and I was like “Guys, you do realize that we’re the only ones there to tonight who are STILL DISCUSSING THIS.”

But I wouldn’t have it any other way. It feels good to be a team again (Joe and Brent were on academic decathlon with me in high school) and to make ridiculous references throughout the game that no one else would get but us.

I didn’t fall asleep until around 2am, for the second night in a row. I am definitely feeling that this morning and the coffee is doing little to dull it. I have ice cream stashed in the freezer here, and I’m tempted to break it out. Work continues to be filled with crankiness all around.

But I am in a better mood than I’ve been in all week – maybe even all month. Getting rejected from the Libertarian Fellowship certainly left me in a funk and I’ve also hit the wall in terms of available things to apply for in DC. It’s frustrating, because I know I’d be perfect for several of the think tank positions I’ve applied for – there are just other people who would be even more perfect, and they’re probably already in the DC area. I’m that at the point yet where I could realistically (or would even want to) just quit my job, move to DC, and hope for the best with the job search and the powerlessness has left me irritable.

But being around two of my favorite people on the planet, who understand me better than anyone in the world, has done wonders for my spirits. At least for today. And allegedly, that’s the only one that should matter.

And yay, Friday! I may actually be social this weekend (an acquintences birthday tomorrow evening) and then, what the hell it is already February. If I start talking about how time is flying, and how I’m going to be, omg, 27 in May, I’ll just ruin my good mood, so I’m going to stop, and go do something productive.

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.

I went to the diner with Joe this afternoon to help him with Grad School admissions essays – physics majors don’t do a lot of writing.

After we went over his essays, we slipped into our usual conversation of what we’re trying to do, the escape we trying to make, and what our two mutual friends are doing along those lines. For all the differences we have on paper, we’re in a remarkably similar place. (Still stuck, for those playing at home)

As we were leaving, and I was talking about my weekend in DC, I admitted that a tiny part of me was fearful of running into The Ex in Georgetown. And I was being SUCH a girl, running over in my head whether I look better or worse than the last time I saw him – which was over five years ago now. In the “worse” column was the weight gain. In the “better” column was more put together.

“And,” Joe added. “You’re just hitting your stride. There’s always something attractive about that.”

I know what he means. I’ve said it myself before – that confidence is hot, and the first rule of confidence is faking it. But hitting my stride? I wouldn’t go that for. The Libertarian Fellowship is an attempt to get back into my stride, and my success thus far in the interview process has helped push that along, but there are still 3-5 rounds to go, and if I fail, I’m back to where I started.

It’s out of my hands now. All I can do is wait until mid-January, make another trip to DC, and impress 3-5 more rounds of people. Simple, right?

Don’t they say that humans have 6-8 dreams a night, or something ridiculous? You just don’t remember 95% of them? I’m too lazy to look it up. Anyway, my second to last dream before waking (the last one was Little House on the Prairie related) was that I got the interview in DC. 

My dreams have been oracle like before, so I was thinking about that while I was getting ready.

And then I checked my email before my ride got here, and there was a “Rachel, come in for an interview” email. It had been sent at like 6:00 am, probably right around the time I was actually having the dream. How freaky is that?

I have an interview in DC in 2 weeks! And they are paying for my train fare and accomodations. And since I’ll be in DC anyway, I’m going to stay the weekend and hang out with Keithers.

So at least SOME of the shopping I’ve been doing lately has not been for naught. Now I have plenty of job-interview outfits to choose from! I am definitely straigtening my hair.  Obviously, I have my priorities in order.

Now, I’m very psyched about this, but I also need to reign in some of my excitement. This is still a LONG process. I will be interviewing with at least 6 different people at the foundation. Even if that goes really well, I will still have to interview at 4-5 of their partner organizations. And you know what? I could be FANTASTIC, and as a result of circumstances (bad economy being one of them) they may not have a placement for me at any of their partner organizations.

So I don’t want to pin all my hopes on this, even though they clearly already are.  To say nothing of all the obsessing that will go into the possibily-moving-to-DC aspect of this.

But I’m afraid that my hopes are already there.

The phone interview yesterday went better than the first one did. It wasn’t fantastic, but it was okay. “Okay,” where I don’t know how to feel about things is generally not a readable sign. As soon as I hung up the phone, the impatience of waiting to hear began again.

I really have nothing today, but it feels like cheating to just write the above and count it as the day’s post. So because I enjoy things that make me feel 16 years old, let’s go with a survey:

I have seen variations of this where you use only song titles by the same artist to answer the questions, but I like the one where you have their whole rang of lyrics to choose from, because lord knows I love quoting song lyrics.

So, 10 things about me, via Dar Williams

Read the rest of this entry »

After a break to regain my health and sanity, the job hunt has begun in earnest and omg, and it is SO MUCH WORSE than it was last summer. There is NOTHING.

There’s nothing in development or research in non-profits, anywhere, not that I expected to stumble upon my ideal job, but there’s NOTHING.

And all the legal assistant/paralegal stuff I’m thinking of reverting to is all 3-5 years experience or listed by an agency, most of which are scams.

I’m already discouraged

It’s as if I never left, but the scaffolding is different. 

Call me insane, but I love Midtown in the morning. I love seeing commuters and their coffee making their way to work. It’s the commute home that kills me — I hate the stress of trying to get to Port Authority to catch my desired bus. I hate missing that bus more and having to wait the 25 minutes for the next one. Thankfully, I’ll soon be done with commuting from Jersey.

I have some things to report on the job front, but more on that later.

I GOT A JOB!!!!

Because my friends have been very good with the “Don’t worry, you WILL find a job,” (although it hasn’t happened yet, and I’m nervous and panicky and worried and, and, and…!!!) these are some other things that WILL happen.

WILL happen

I am in “single-minded focus” mode right now. Which means I’m obsessive about my job and apartment search. It only occurred to me a few weeks ago how possible it was for me to move to NYC, and now that I know I can do it I’m impatient to make it happen as soon as possible. I have job interviews. I’m meeting with potential roommates. I wish I could be of the “Manhattan or nothing” school, but I am not. Still not sure which would be best for me, as there are pros and cons to both. I would love to live on the Lower East Side, but unless I stumble into a miraculously good deal, it’s b&t for me.

But yes. Tomorrow begins my insane job interview schedule.

And that is all I have to say. When I get in this, forgive the term, mindset, I’m too busy acting to think.