Household Income: Unemployed

I have a few things I need to get off my chest about this novelty referred to as “employment.” The one year anniversary of when I last held this status is quickly approaching and I am less than pleased with my current standings amongst my peers in household income. For nearly twelve long months I have applied for hundreds of jobs, some which I am considered overqualified for, most which are perfectly in line with my experience and education, and a few that I am completely unqualified for consideration to break of the monotony of applying for jobs within my reach (these may or may not include positions as a plastic surgeon and President of an investment bank). One would think my sparkling personality and radiant looks coupled with a very expensive education and experience in such unique fields as modeling, partying, and psychopharmacological research of addiction comorbidity that employers would be lining up with job offers. Such is not the case and I really just need to vent.

No one needs to tell me that the economy and unemployment rates are in a critical state. I am more than aware considering that since graduation from an esteemed university carrying the highest undergraduate tuition in the country (yes this is a fact), I am still not able to secure a job as a administrative assistant; referring, of course, to the title of a position that actually translates to “glorified secretary.” When my elderly manfriend tells me that he could have thrown a dart at a list of companies that would hire him in a heartbeat as an accountant just after graduating college I want to push him in the ball pit at Chuck E Cheese and hope he lands on a dirty diaper and child vomit. First of all, if I wanted to spend my day contemplating if slitting my wrists was more fun than my job, I would have gone into finance. Second, this isn’t 1852, so the job market isn’t the same as when he was a young buck. Besides, since the wheel was invented, many more people go to college today. I guess that is sort of the point though. Things were going so great for so long that it clearly couldn’t last forever.

I can handle being a part of a generation where androgyny is a dominant fashion statement. I can deal being born in an era when drugs were illegal before I was old enough to spell marijuana, there was war against their use in the form of a useless program we know as D.A.R.E., and getting high rounded out the decade where I have served my 20's by being mixed with household cleaners because the simple plant-derived drugs don't fuck people up enough anymore. I can even tolerate that I was born in a decade forever remembered for neon colors and too much hairspray, but not a whole lot more. What I can’t accept with is that despite these obstacles we have overcome, my cohort regularly hears the words “your position has been terminated” and it has absolutely no connection to performance.

Without actually posting my resume, I will note that there is absolutely no reason that I don’t get call backs and interviews. As I said, I have a great education (or at least an expensive one), with a high GPA (if that even matters), experience in a variety of areas, a history of being a good employee with references to back it, and most of all, I WANT to work. My supplementary, off the records qualifications include me being a completely functional alcoholic, not even the least bit cutting, sarcastic or rude, and an absolute gem to work with. Moreover, I don’t just want to work. No, no. That still isn’t enough to warrant my outrage of not having a job. I NEED to work because I am an adult (it says so on my license) and therefore I need to pay my own bills.

Twelve months, one tequila-induced romance in Cabo, a move across the country, a bazillion applications, one completely bunk employment attempt with a con-man, and several bottles of vodka laced with my own tears later and this chick can’t say much more than my only work colleague shits his pants and chews on his toys. Yes ladies and gentleman, these extensions are yanked every day by a six-month-old baby boy whose parents have the same job that I did exactly twelve months ago. That is what I call irony.

Even though I have accepted that I am destined to never do anything more than change diapers, it still fucks with my head when someone I know who moved out to San Diego three weeks ago and already landed a job. Especially when said person graduated college about five minutes ago and is a teacher securing a job in the middle of the school year. As happy as I am that my friend got a job in these economic times, my congratulations to her come out through frustrated clenched teeth. I can’t help but be convinced that the employment gods are somehow associated with the octomom and I am just shit out of luck for all that trash talk.

*Please note: my boyfriend isn't that old. He's really likeable so I have to find something to make fun of him for. When I find better things to make fun of him for I will stop referring to him as a dinosaur. He laughs when I tease him, so you can too.