Last weekend I was seriously stressing about how insanely high my credit card bill had gotten. I knew paying rent and COBRA wouldn’t be a problem, but I’d be dipping into my savings way more than I liked (and oh how the savings dwindle when you are unemployed.)

On Tuesday evening I got the email: “We are prepared to make you the following offer.”

On Friday I had a job. Not only a job, but one that was a promotion from the one I’d originally applied for. The CEO was impressed, they said. (Please note: I now work for a very, very tiny company, one even smaller than The-Job-That-Wasn’t 2.0. But hey, it’s still a cool thing to impress a CEO enough to get you out of the assistant trap and get you into a job title that won’t make you self-conscious to hand out business cards.)

So Friday night I couldn’t stop smiling, and I made the first level of the pies for my impending dinner party, and when The Roommate got home, we just hung around, occasionally exchanging bits of commentary, and yeah, I know there’s been pseudo-drama with us that’s mostly my jack-asinine behavior that’s at fault, but it is nice that we can just “be” when we’re around each other. And then we made an amusing trip to Target Saturday morning.

Michael came over around noon on Saturday, and I had not seen him in months so it became a very fun session of cooking, reminising, catching up, babbling, and yes, lets talk about how Rachel loses her gaydar completely when a Libertarian is involved. Michael is one of the most gregarious people I know and he will engage anyone in just conversation or whatever. So while we were cooking and talking, The Roommate was putting together chairs (wins more Roommate points for engaging my dinner party that logistically was going to be a mess although a few expected people didn’t show, so it would have worked out) and I think Michael actually forced Roommate into having a good time. Which I did not know was possible. The Roommate does not have fun.

And then – successful party, I think. The food wasn’t as good as it could have been, I forgot to put out cheese with the chili, and the salad just never got made. But we all just hung around the table, and people laughed a lot, so is that a good sign of a successful gathering? I think so. Plus, it was also an impromptu celebration of my new job.

And then, I had a date, of sorts, on Sunday. This is a change from my usual mode of boy drama. This boy has told me straight out that he likes me, told me he thinks I am “beautiful and intelligent”, and held my hand in public. He made me feel adored, which made me realize – the recent boy I like-liked never made me feel like that. He was very good to me in many ways, from the pajama pants to the pancakes, (and one time, in the midst of the worst panic attack I have ever had he made sure I was safe and protected). And to him, I owe the roof over my head. I will always be incredibly grateful to whatever bizarre arrangement the roommate and I have. But I get his point now. It has been so long since I dated and I am so used to emotionally unavailable men, for whom you have to fight for an ounce of their attention. I forgot that sometimes you can just be yourself, and a boy will like you and pay attention to you.

This isn’t going anywhere yet. It hasn’t even started. But he held my hand in public, and he walked me to my doorstep and kissed me tonight, and he asked me if he could see me again soon.

And of course I said yes.

I keep getting asked “But what do YOU want?” and having to answer with “I don’t know.”

What I want is my life in NYC pre grad school, to be the girl that warranted two good-bye parties before she went off to grad school.For a girl who didn’t make any friends in college, that was pretty damn awesome. Between the two parties, I had about 60 people who wanted to give me a hug before I left for Chicago.

My time in New York City before graduate school was the best time of my life. I was 23. I realize I can never be 23 again. In the mirror, I am 5 years older, my face is totally broken out due to all the toxins in alcohol, and half my jeans don’t  fit.

While in grad school, I used to watch any version of Law and Order  (because, it was practically a guarentee that one would be on) and see recognized landmarks in NYC, and I’d get so homesick. To quote L&O SVU “It’s so quiet here. Sometimes I get so homesick for New York that I hum the Mr. Softee song.”

I actually listened to REM’s “Leaving New York” and Tom Petty’s “Square One” about a billion times that summer before I left for Chicago. The former still makes me tear up. Leaving New York was something I’d call my biggest mistake, but how can I call it a mistake when I got an MA at University-of-fucking-Chicago, right? Still…I question.

But then I did go back to NYC after grad school and it was not the same in a million different ways

This is why I cannot go back to The-Job-That-Was, even though I’m in tears about how much I miss being Home.

When I moved back to NYC after grad school it was a disaster. Going back to The-Job-That-Was would probably feel similar.

And so on a day when I just can’t pull a job application together

I know that turning down the job was the right thing to do.

But I’m having a bad day and part of me is like “WTF was I thinking?” I should have taken the job that as offered to me, knowing I’d have basically the best co-workers and bosses in the universe.

It’s more of, I never should have left in September. If I’d just stayed on, just 6 or so more months, just been patient.I’d have found something in DC that was right instead of just taking the first thing that was offered. I’d have been safely ensconced in that job and that home.  God damnit. But you can’t go home again. And so I’m here. For better or worse.

But it’s a Saturday, and I’m trying to put together a god damned job application, and I just cried my eyes out over a god damned song that reminds me how happy I was in my stupid job in Jersey.

And for the record, I am sick of being asked if I am “over educated” for the job described. I am NOT over educated. I am educated in a completely unrelated discipline. So take a chance on a girl who has changed her mind on ‘what do you want to do with your life’ about 1000 times because I will kick ass and take names on your behalf. I am AWESOME.

Please just trust me. Please.

So I got offered a job this week. Actually, the job offer was for the job I’ve been begging to have back almost since I moved here. Yeah, I got offered The-Job-That-Was.

Last February, when it turned out my replacement was not working out and they hired someone else, I called my Ex-Boss and joked “How was I NOT your first call?”

So, this time, he called me first. This was Monday night. So I said I’d give very serious consideration to coming back. But, I did have a job interview on Tuesday and moving back to Jersey would be quite the logistical nightmare.

It’s one of the harder decisions I’ve had to make. I’ve said it a million times, The-Job-That-Was changed — and saved — my life. After the horrible Job-That-Wasn’t, after that awful 2008 summer, the Job-That-Was was one the first thing I felt good about in a long time. It gave me this confidence I didn’t know I could possess, from the most mundane tasks like putting together binders to the important, like helping to figure out this nightmare billing thing with an outside counsel firm. My Ex-Boss and I hit it off right away, and with my Ex-Coworkers, once I got over the fact that they were actually being nice and not out to screw with my head (which was a huge problem at The-Job-That-Wasn’t) we got along great too.

I know I view The-Job-That-Was through rose-colored glasses, and there were things I was unhappy with there. And I know I certainly didn’t like feeling trapped in Jersey, feeling like a loser because I was living with my parents, feeling stuck, like I couldn’t move on or do anything because I didn’t want to over-establish a life in Jersey.

The-Job-That-Was was a very good place for exactly two years of my life. I was trusted and treated very well. My Ex Boss knows I’m a recovering alcoholic and a head case, so this job offer was huge. Whenever I talk to my Ex-Coworkers around quarterly meeting times they tell me they miss me. Good for the ego, which given my current level of self-hate probably needs a boost.

And I gave it a LOT of thought. But ultimately, taking this job back was not the right decision for me. I am JUST finally beginning to establish a life for myself in DC. Everyday is still a struggle, but that’s what medication, therapy, and SMART/We Agnostics are for.

I am determined to make things work here. And history has shown that when I’m determined to do something, I go after it full force. That’s how I got to NYC and that’s how I got to DC. Things are kind of un-pretty right now but I think I can make them better. I will exhaust every avenue of hope before I give up on this DC project.

So I turned the Job-That-Was down. Which, believe me, is the last decision I ever imagined making.

There seem to be more libertarian/free-market organization jobs open lately, which is a good thing. More to apply for!

The problem is that when I actually care about the job I’m applying for I obsess (overthink?) the application, spend possibly way too much time on it, and often wind up giving up and not applying. How do you explain in a job application that you just see these ideas as fundamentally right and that you want to put every ounce of your energy behind them? How do you strike the right balance between professionalism (these are my qualities: and look! they match the job requirements perfectly) and passion (my god I will answer phones, I will make coffee, I will make copies, I will DO ANYTHING just to work for this type of organization)?

Juding by the number of responses, my applications often fall short.

Right now, I just wrote two paragraphs about how I came to my libertarian ideas, (an EXTREME CliffNotes version)

My passion for free market and liberty oriented ideas was not ignited in the traditional manner of being exposed to the great works of Hayek and Friedman. That came later. While a college student, I listened to my fellow students advocate for ideas that involved government “solutionss” and referenced “the public good.” I disagreed with them, but I couldn’t pinpoint why. Then, in “Contemporary American Conservatism” I read Charles Murray’s “What It Means To Be A Libertarian,” and it clicked.

In the classroom, I became very well-educated in what I didn’t believe in. In small reading groups, in internet forums, and in volunteer work, I became very well educated in what I did believe in; that is that a free market society with an absence of government intrusion is the best atmosphere for the continuing advancement of humankind.

And now I must debate whether that should go in the letter.

I fear my blog is going to become (even more) boring as I delve into the details of trying to make and/or execute A Plan. (Note: it is unclear yet whether this is The Plan.)

Now, regardless of the fact that I am leaning towards actually executing this Plan, there are still several issues. One is that it is summer, and I do not intend to go anywhere at the moment, because summer is a terrible time to look for work anyway. The second is that I would like to reapply for the Libertarian Fellowship. I am unsure at this point whether I will apply for the early deadline (so maybe I can know that I am rejected by XMas again, and not pin any additional hopes on it) or if I should wait until one of the later application deadlines.  Third is that I still prefer NYC to DC, and even though the MAJORITY of jobs are in DC, there are still a few good ones in NYC, and maybe I could wind up with one of those, however unlikely.

Did I mention Polite Boy started asking me legal questions on his own behalf, and then started ARGUING with me over my answers. And these weren’t wavering opinions, they were STATEMENTS OF FACT. And yes, I know the law is up for interpretation and what have you, but he was trying to go into all this technicalities that were irrelevant, because his overall premise was wrong.

He was also suggesting that it would be okay to lie and claim that he never signed a piece of paper, because it wasn’t notarized and therefore they can’t really prove he signed it. There are a number reasons why this is a stupid idea, the first being, of course, “committing perjury is a bad idea.”

God, I am a magnet for tools.

E-mail sent. Let the obsessing over whether he will reply commence. Actually, it began 12 hours ago.

The Smoker that I went out with over a week ago sent me a barrage of text messages on Saturday night, in which he did not identify himself, but I knew it was him based on what he said, and the fact that the number he was texting from has the same first 6 digits as his phone number. (So probably another phone on a family plan, or something). They were a little bit creepy and definitely, I thought, over dramatic.

And now, I’m hiding out on “invisible” mode on gchat, because Polite Boy has been irritating me, even though I get the impression that he does not like me. As I mentioned, he has never been on a job interview (gotten jobs via nepotism) yet he feels that he is qualified to offer lots of advice, and question my methods. He also told me that he is “not used to girls who have political opinions.”  This partially supports my arrogant suspicion that he was intimidated by me. Whatever.

And, speaking of job interview, (or job hunting) David is currently lamenting his rejection from a Perfect Job, and his description of the pain and uncomfortableness of this particular rejection hits way too close to home. I know it well. Both of us are, on paper, completely fucking useless. It’s a hard thing to be reminded of, time and time again, because even when you get over the initial sting of the rejection, it isn’t something you have the ability to change much. It isn’t possible to go back in time, and mold ourselves into something different on paper.

And, so it is Monday. Time to go compose more cover letters for jobs I don’t have a chance from hearing from. I don’t mean to be all gloomy and pessimistic, but it’s fairly easy to be this morning.

I guess there’s not much to say about the Polite Italian Boy. Again, not really my type, but again, not enough that that should eliminate him from consideration.

It was fine. He was polite and held the door for me (I don’t much care about chivalry one way or another, but for whatever reason, I appreciate the door thing) and conversation was ok. It was actually picking up towards the end of the pseudo-date, when he had to leave for some other thing. (Of course, he could have just made this up to have an easy out.)

I don’t know. If he asked me out again, I’d go and give it a chance. But if he didn’t, I wouldn’t care. Joe gave me the excellent advice to just go and pretend that it’s not awkward. This sounds dumb, but it actually worked. I was fine and I could tell he was kind of uncomfortable/nervous. I think my confidence may have freaked him out.

Now it’s already 3:00 and the day is sucking. I had my phone interview, but right before it, I got hit with 2 emergencies and a panicked phone call from my boss, so that definitely affected my tone and such I’m sure. Plus the conversation lasted all of ten minutes, and while I felt I gave decent answers, it was still just ten minutes. I felt like I didn’t learn anything about the job and that she didn’t learn anything about me. Blah.

You know what? Dating is, so far, about as much fun as job interviewing.

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

Read the rest of this entry »

Fact: Obsessively checking your email is unhealthy whether you are waiting for responses from boys or from jobs. I know I said in the past that maybe boys could at least distract me from the fruitless job search, but I think at the end of the day I just wind up double insane.

I am going to actually LEAVE THE OFFICE during my lunch break, because I don’t know, fresh air, or some such nonsense. But it never fails: I go out (and while this is, in sum, likely healthier than sitting in front of the computer for that hour) and am so disappointed to return to an empty inbox.

(I really need to get a life) ((I KNOW THAT! THAT IS WHAT I AM TRYING TO DO)) (I am talking to myself via parentheticals. Clearly progress is stalled)

Fact: I will never get a new job or a boyfriend.

And yes, I know that is entirely too fatalistic, and that if I were the type of blogger who had many readers, I would likely get a dozen comments about how that is not true. However, I will never, nor to I aspire to, be the type of blogger with a lot of readers (probaby because I have a bad attitude) and so when I make this statement, I am not fishing for comments but merely admitting to myself that that is what I feel (and fear). Putting it in words means that it is real, so I am loathe to do so, but there is it.

I am not supposed to fear; in fact, fear is supposed to be the enemy, the underlying source of all misery (that is what I have been told, over and over again). But it is there. I haven’t had one in person interview (other than the Libertarian fellowship) and in the past 6 months I’ve generally managed to be waiting on one possibility at almost all times. (It helped that one company took two months of interviewing to reject me). Now I am not waiting on any possibilities, I just have applications out that will not get responses. I am out of places to look. My network is quiet. I am back down to no leads, no prospects, and no hope.

As for boys, I haven’t been on a date in more than two years, if you can even call O-L-B a date, which is likely even more pathetic.

I’m going to go for a drive now, and try to resurrect the decent mood I was clinging on to this morning. Self pity is not a pretty color on me.

I think I would give anything at this point just for an interview. I am back down to no prospects.

I have written this mildly snarky cover letter and I am trying to decide whether I should actually submit it, with my real resume. This is to a Prestigious Non-Profit, that I have applied to many, many times for multiple positions and never gotten a response. I suspect that when they post a position, they already have someone (or several potential someones) and the public posting is just there because it is required by lawCut for career whining

I don’t expect this place to ever hire me and I don’t really want to work there anymore (I’d never refuse a job with them, but have basically decided it isn’t worth my effort) and I’m trying to work up the nerve to submit it, just to see if I get a response. Probably not. I can’t be the only one who submits sarcastic cover letters.

There’s nothing else going on in my life except the job search. I know that I should try to find other things to fill my time, but I’m trapped in that head space where I feel like I can’t do anything until I solve the job problem. It’s not as bad as I felt when I was unemployed; far from it (standard disclaimer about how I am grateful to be employed) but when people ask what I do, it’s a breathless rush to explain that I’m doing this now but I’m looking for something else, the economy is just bad and it’s been bad since I graduated and…

And all I’ve ever had are jobs. Nothing has been a career. I have drifted from assistantship to assistantship. First it was that I wasn’t staying anywhere long enough for it to become a career (pre-grad school) and then it was the disasterous Job-That-Wasn’t and for nearly two years, I’ve been here. And there’s no where to go here.

When I’m driving, especially when I’m on my lunch break, I’m composing paragraphs in my head, 99.9% of which will never hit paper. Yesterday, I was thinking about satirical cover letters, and the finished product is not the project I was imagining – I attempted to write that, but only have two paragraphs thus far. And the day before that, I was thinking it had been awhile since I chronicled my utter sap-titude, and my West Wing obsession has certainly given more fodder for my hopeless romantic obsession, and I was writing all these lovely sentences about it. But apparently, I am only poetic when gray matter is the canvas.

So anyway, it’s Friday, and I haven’t had nearly enough caffeine, but the cafeteria in this new office space is far, far away.

I am hoping the mental and physical act of writing this entry will clear my mind and force me to do things today. You see, I think I have unconsciously let the seduction of possibility lapse me into a state of non-action. You see, there’s this job:  this job, that there wasn’t going to be any possibility of me getting for various bureaucratic reasons, but then, miracle of miracles, this job was actually available. And as I almost always do when a job with actual potential, I’ve projected. Even though I have mentally prepared myself for every possible disappointment, my mind has already given two week’s notice and moved into this job’s DC offices.

In reality, this position is likely not going to be filled, period, due to budget constraints, etc. The organization is dragging their feet and I’ve been playing hurry up and wait for nearly two weeks. I should use my time in a more productive manner, obviously.

(Guess how many times I reloaded my email in between writing those two paragraphs)

Also, I have sent into the universe, an invitation for coffee, with an actual day. Not just a “we should have coffee sometime.” Well, that’s how it started, but perhaps it’s the hurry up and wait of the job hunt, or perhaps it’s just my advanced age, but I have no patience to play a game, and so I asked him to coffee on Sunday, and said “suggest another date if that’s no good.” This likely breaks more than one unwritten rule, and makes me too available, but I am so sick of games, and this isn’t even a date.

And, because I am incapable of not talking about my job search for more than 5 minutes: going back to what I said in the first paragraph, I need to force myself to do things today. There are literally ten jobs for which I am qualified enough to put applications into.  Ten! That’s a lot in this lousy economy. I need to just do it. I need to pretend this other alluring opportunity doesn’t exist. Because at this point in the process, it almost doesn’t.

It’s just that it would be so much easier if this job were to work out. But nobody said this would be easy. (I am obligated to add “no one ever said it would be this hard” even though 1) I am not a Coldplay fan. 2) They weren’t talking about job hunting. 3) It’s not 2003.)

I have a few not-even-half written posts sitting in my draft folder. It’s been a weird week. After the latest rejection, I combated my wallowing with my version of Damage Control. This translated into my first fledgling attempts at networking and a revised (again) resume. Joe did say that the new one is “impressive,” so I guess something good has come from the rejection. However, the thought that immediately follows is along the lines of “So what? It isn’t doing me any good NOW.”

I am impatient, etc, etc. I’ve expressed that here a thousand times. Nothing new to see here. Intellectually I know that, theoretically, this super-improved resume could make a difference, but the job post pickings have been slim all of April.  I’m so sick of thinking about this.

And I also don’t have anything else to write about. It’s like I can’t wrap my brain around any other subject. The only activities I’ve been doing are reading YA/kids books (I can’t concentrate on anything ‘real’) and online window shopping. I find myself keeping the TV on in the background but not actually watching it, so low is my concentration level.

Things keeping me sane, or at least keeping me from being too insane: Joe, various random e-mail conversations, the fact that I’ve been managing to keep my room in order, and that in some outfits, it certainly seems as if I’ve lost weight. I don’t weighmyself, so I don’t really know if that’s accurate, but my clothes have been fitting slightly differently.

Things making me insane: Impending office move (and the need to pack/archive/sort through literally thousands of files, the lack of job postings, and online application systems – I hate them.

It’s the elephant in the room, even though I’m alone. All day, I compose posts of half thoughts and boring randomosities, as if to say “Look! Look at me NOT write about job hunting.”

Because there’s not much to tell. But then, there is. There’s this place that I had a first, and then a very good second interview (via phone). And then I heard from HR they wanted to schedule a third! And then there was a week of frustration where HR wasn’t communicating with me, and I was stressing and reloading my email and trying to figure out what was going on. But I didn’t write about it. I didn’t want to indulge my anxiety, because it was out of my control, and I kept telling myself that they already said they wanted to interview me, they’ll get in touch.

Finally, today I had the third phone interview. Since it was scheduled on Tuesday, I’ve been preparing. And not writing about it, because I haven’t written about the first two, and I didn’t want to get all excited in writing and then have to write about NOT getting it.  After all my talk and obsessing and waiting over the Libertarian Fellowship, it was really hard to come here and write about NOT getting it. And really, I didn’t even write about it; I just mentioned it, as in, “this is what happened.’

Silly I know; another psychological trick I play on myself.

The third phone interview did not go well. Too much inanity on my part. I don’t think my tone was what I wanted it to be. It didn’t “click’ with the interviewers (I had two seperate phone calls). I didn’t feel it clicked. Whereas my 2nd phone interview made me feel energized about the job, and like it was some place that I actually wanted to work, these two interviews left me thinking that maybe it was for the better that they were going poorly because the job and team and company sounded boring and awful.

So that’s that. I don’t have anything of note to say on the subject. I know that my optimism and projecting were definitely ramped up since I scheduled the interview and that I should know better (and kept catching myself and telling myself not to project). Nothing else to do but go on to the next application, but I’m so sick of writing cover letters and getting no response and this was the only interview(s) I’ve had since the Libertarian Fellowship.

I don’t want to write about this. I am so sick of writing entries about job hunting and the frustration and disappointment and anxiety that surrounds them. And part of me knows that really, it still hasn’t been that bad (especially given that I’m employed), I haven’t been looking for that long. I know what I’m trying to do, too. I’m trynig to contruct a point of utter frustration, where I throw in the towel and that’s when the magic job appears. That’s what happened with The First Great NYC Job Hunt, and so I can help half-hoping that that’s all it will take.

I know that’s silly. But that’s where my thought process goes, even when I reign it in and try to pretend I haven’t considered it.

May 30, 2005: 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.

And with that I took a few weeks off of LJ for The Great NYC Job and Apartment search. I found the apartment first, in late June, and then HWSNBN ended things officially, and I kept going on interviw after interview (mostly with temp agencies) for lousy receptionist and administrative positions, mostly at finance places. One place blended in to the next. I didn’t write about it and an interview in and of itself was nothing to mention, because I had scads of them, 99%of which I walked out of knowing that there was no chance of getting the job.

I don’t want to write about job hunting anymore. I don’t want to write about my frustrations, and my moments of hope and plans that may or may not be foiled by circumstances out of my control.

Right now, I’m pretty resigned. I’m pretty much Here for the long-haul. I’m going to stop wasting my time with federal job applications, because right now I don’t have the time or energy to put into crafting the time of answers you need to get your application looked at. When I’m unemployed, with nothing but time, then I’ll dedicate the hours each one of those takes.

Right now, I’m kind of ok with that. I’ll focus my attention on the good things about Jersey. I’ll enjoy the last few months of Joe being around before he heads off the California. I’ll participate in our efforts to rally for another friend. I’ll go to the CFL meeting tomorrow night (maybe…it’s all the way at the eastern edge of the county, which is about as far away from my house as you can get, plus I’d be coming from work.)

I reserve the right to write an entry completely the opposite of this one any time in the next 24 hours to 30 days, because as a woman, I reserve the right to change my mind, and as I mildly angsty almost late-20s something, I reserve the right to turn everything into an existential crises.

I have not applied for a job in a week.  There is no (tangible) difference between a week when I send out 50 applications and a week when I send out none in terms of getting me a job in DC.

But I think my head is back in the game. I actually LOOKED at postings today.

March was pretty much a total failure. I went to the gym ONCE, I did not get my Quintessential Nice Summer Dress altered, and I cancelled my dentist appointment. Today I was feeling guilty, so I made another dentist appointment, this time with some guy who is 5 minutes from work and advertises dental hypnosis on his website and is probably a quack, but I am ok with that.

Oh and I also decided I am no longer going to check my work email from home. I’m not “supposed” to anyway.

Tomorrow is another day.

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.

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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.

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.

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.