You wouldn’t know it from my entries but I start each day with optimism. I wake up, brew a travel mug of coffee, and I drive to work with a good attitude about my hours in front of me. By now, I recognize that this optimism is unsustainable; despite my better efforts, it’s often gone by 11 AM.

Today was no different, except I’m writing this at 9:20 am, and won’t be able to post until later because OUR INTERNET IS DOWN. I don’t know what the issue is; internal stuff is working fine.

(this happened once at PLI and I wrote this post about how I wanted time to slow down anyway. I know it is terribly unhealthy the way I envy the girl who wrote that, but I do)

I don’t understand how our IT department cannot solve this, as it has been down for 90+ minutes.

[ok. Internet is back. Thank god]

And apparently, my optimism is crushed once I check my email and find no response from jobs or boys.  I don’t understand boys. I really don’t.  I mean, I would never describe myself as “hot.” But I’ve always been confident in the fact that I’m quite passably cute. But with this online dating thing, are they fleeing based on my Facebook photos? Evidence seems to suggest this is possible. Evidence also seems to suggest I am neurotic and over think things. However, given that NOTHING has worked out in the past 7+ months, maybe I have even more flaws than I realized, and I’ve just been walking around in this haze of self-deception.

At this point, anything thing is possible.

Every single morning, I wake up, believing that this could be the day. The job offer might come (which now has dissolved to “maybe I’ll get an interview…” and finally “maybe they’ll be something worth applying to posted.” Or, I might actually hear back from someone in my (admittedly small) network. Or maybe just SOMETHING good, something that is going to move my life forward will happen. Today could be the day.

I think this every single morning. It’s in my head from the minute I wake up. It’s in every song I skip or linger on my iPod shuffle. Every single day, there is a part of me that genuinely believe today is when it will finally happen.

 And every single day, for the past 6+ months, I’ve been wrong.

I’ve tried really hard to be happy (or at least “okay”) with the seemingly neverending string of disappointments. I really do try. I constantly remind myself of the good in my life and how things are not as bad as they could be. But those mind tricks are becomming less and less effective every day. I could give it a rest, sure. I could stop looking for the summer, try to relax and have fun, but what good will that do me? I will still be HERE in September, a place that I started to put together an escape plan from almost ten months ago.

And June is already half over. Time is moving at a ridiculous pace; and it’s such a valuable resource, and despite all my efforts, I’m losing it.

Nothing like a rejection first thing on a Monday morning.

This company has been teasing me with this job for nearly TWO months. I have been through four interviews with them ove r the course of seven weeks, only to be rejected with a generic “have decided to move forward with other candidates” email. No, the last round of interviews did not go well, but until I heard officially, I couldn’t help holding on to some hope.

That pretty much ends that. I’m not getting out of here. I actually thought I might be able to get out of here before the summer.

I am so SICK of this. I don’t know what’s different between now and two months ago but there has been a definite drop in the number and quality of  job postings. And there’s nothing even remotely like the Seven Week Tease job. It was one of those perfect fit jobs where I met all the qualifications, and it was such a niche thing and none of the similar companies have this particular department/specialization. This is the only thing I had out there that I even had a prayer of getting. I am so disappointed and so hopeless about my future job prospects. Not just for this job search, for this desire to get to D.C. but FOREVER.  If I can’t even get this job, for which I am oh-so-qualified and where I charmed my would-be boss, how the fuck am I ever going to get a job, period?

I know the only thing to do is to just keep looking, keep applying, keep making my pathetic attempts at networking. But rejection is so frustrating, and so seemingly irrational that it saps my motivation.

Wednesday, December 23, 4:06 PM

I was puzzled by the “Unavailable” on my Caller ID, but I knew what it was as soon as I answered it, before the person on the other end responded.

And I knew, before she even got through the script she’d undoubtably been given, what she was going to say.

I got rejected from the Libertarian Fellowship.

Five days later

There are about a thousand things I could write about. About how part of me feels this was my only way into DC (and why). About the cover letters for other jobs that I should start writing (because I guess I want DC, damnit…or something). About why that feels useless too. About timing. About the luxury of timing. About ideal jobs and how most people don’t even like their jobs and the avenues I should consider as a result. About pride and ego.

But mostly, there’s nothing I can write, and nothing anyone can say that I don’t already know. I don’t want to get too emo about this and I want to fight the good fight and keep pursuing DC. But I am not naive and I have perused the job listings and there is nothing that even comes close to this.

I can settle for something less, and I’m used to that, and it would turn out fine.

But for once, just once, I wanted to not have to settle. I think that’s what is bothering me the most.

The phone interview didn’t go well. Nothing really horrible, just nothing good, either. No chemistry, no “click.”  I know I didn’t give any good answers, and of course now I’m thinking about what I should have said.

When I get like this, people are quick to reassure me that it probably wasn’t that bad, it will be okay, etc, etc. But it really was, that bad. I’m pretty sure I’m not getting to the next round. And even as I write this, I’m holding on to the bit of naive hope against hope that it wasn’t as bad as I thought and that I will get an in person interview. And in a way, that’s worse too. I’m mentally preparing myself to get the email that begins “Thank you for….Unfortunately,…”  but still hoping for the opposite result, which I am perfectly aware that I probably won’t get. I need to accept that nothing will properly prepare me for the stomach dropping ickiness that is a rejection.

I’m going to go write my thank you note and try not to cry.

I got fired today.

Around 3 PM, I got called into Nice Boss’s office with the HR person. Remarkably, I held it together. I cried on the subway home. Now I’m sitting on my bed trying to update my resume. Damage control mode.

The abject panic hasn’t set in yet. Seven months isn’t long enough to file for unemployment. I have a little bit of savings, so I can pay rent in May & June, but then there’s health insurance and the job market looks bleak, and how the hell do you explain being fired after 7 months in a job interview. (My company has a trial period of 6 months. Mine was 7 because my Important Boss was away all month.)

I need to start temping, ASAP. I’m too panicked to even enjoy the relief of being free from a job I should have been grateful to have, but hated.

2008 was supposed to be a better year. So much for that.