In Which I Discuss Job Searches and Try Not to Be Too Bitter (But Fail.)

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO READ THIS ITALICIZED RANT. It is 11:29 am and I woke up at 7 am so I could have time to go to the bagel store on Ave X and complain about how they accidentally charged me $79.16 on my card for a $1.63 bagel w/ cream cheese last week and WHEN can I catch the boss and get my money back, and also so I could run to the copy center on Hillel Place and get the book that had a bunch of stuff I was supposed to read for a 12:50 class today. The bagel store boss will apparently be notified, so maybe I'll get my moneyz back in cash soon, and I read all the MLK/Malcolm X/Steve Biko in an hour. Go me. Also, stayed up till 5:30 am Saturday night discussing Three of Swords . SO PRETTY MUCH I AM TIRED.

I am unemployed. I go to school 4 days a week and volunteer several hours a week as a freshman guide (Peer Mentor). As a Peer Mentor I sit in on a freshman class, give presentations, am available for questions and help, write reports, talk with amazing faculty members, and send like 6 FREAKIN billion emails a week, I SWEAR. I also write when I have spare time and refresh my Facebook homepage too. So I'm not entirely unoccupied. I mean between classes, homework, Peer Mentoring, OH and my education fieldwork (sitting in on 4 HS classes a week and taking notes on surroundings)...I sometimes have to think hard about how to fit in a life (Solution: Neglect homework. Go out. Have fun. RUSH TO GET THAT CRAP DONE THE NIGHT BEFORE OR MORNING OF.)

I was going to add a lolcat but this was better.

Nevertheless, I need a job. Or, more importantly, I need money. I mean my resume is beefed up decently enough at the moment, and if my rich grandfather died and left me his millions, I wouldn't bother with a job (note: I do not have a rich grandfather. Both of my grandfathers are dead* and never had much of the stuff anyway.). Currently, the only legal path to Brittany Having Money seems to be a job (I have considered illegal options, and I don't think they'd pay out). Or I hear you can make $$ on selling your eggs or whatever for the gov't. to make superhero babies with, but I just keep imagining what if the superhero baby grew up and married one of my legitimate kids? Incest is never cool. Except in Ancient Egypt.

The trouble with looking for a job is that it's a job in and of itself. How many weeks did I spend looking for a job before I was hired by Annie Sez when I was18? Probably more time than I actually spent working there. They should have paid me for my search. Or paid me on time for my work there, instead of like a month after I was hired. I don't know. What I'm getting at is that now that I'm in school, I don't have time to look for a job. But I need the money like you know, starving poor people in the USSR needed bread and lard (been reading Ayn Rand). A job at school would be ideal, but that has not worked out so far.

Attempted job #1 I walked in and the woman exclaimed that I was "such a beautiful girl", asked her coworker what he thought, and he was all ahhh yes she is. Still didn't get the job. Still confused.
Attempted job #2 They kept the "now hiring" sign up even though they were no longer hiring. WORST EVER.

Soon this will be me. Except I'll be humiliated and probably wear a mask or something.

It's no wonder that most suicides are caused by college students who can't find employment.** I mean, here we are, selling our souls for tuition, and nobody can give us jobs. If there are jobs, you have to, I don't know, already know about it, because nobody's going to tell you. You can ask different locations if they are hiring, but there is nothing I hate more than that vague shifty look and a reluctant, "Well, you can leave a resume." I am often throwing my resume into bottomless messy drawers (or more likely the garbage can) via the hands of disgruntled workers that don't want people stealing their hours no matter how much they loathe their job.


Forget looking for jobs online. I used Snagajob.com to get that Annie Sez job though, so they do work. But sifting through them is hell. I look through my school's job search page and everything is for graduated teachers or accounting majors. I just want to sit at a desk and be a receptionist or do filing or tutor some brats.


Someone once told me looking for a job is like looking for a boyfriend. Now I don't venture out into the man market too often (or ever), but I can see the similarities. It takes time and therefore, money, often you expend much effort in the search or attempt and get nothing out of it, you are often disappointed by high hopes, etc. You could maybe even say in the end, when you do get one, you immediately want a better one. JUST KIDDING. That last statement is a PESSIMISTIC JOKE.


Anyway, I think I might have to become a bum eventually. I'll ask the bum at the F station on Bay Parkway if he can spare some room and a corner of that dirty yellow comforter he carries in a garbage bag tucked into his sweater. If I do end up as a bum, I promise however, that I will be an HONEST bum, like this guy:

Sorry for the language. But this made me laugh.

Comment with your job search/actual job horror stories. Or bum stories. I'm partial to those too.

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*I also only have one living grandmother. And one active parent. I am seriously lacking in the family department.


**This probably isn't true. But it might be.

Categories: bum, college student, employment, homeless person, how to work a mythology, job search, jobs, unemployed