Applying
for jobs is the worst. The vast majority of young Americans, and older
Americans too for that matter, can agree with me on that. There are steps to applying for a position. I
don’t mean in the sense that I follow some bullshit list of guidelines that I
picked up at my college’s career center, though I did do that after just one
too many badgering phone calls from my mother...
“Alright,
Alright, I’ll go to the goddamn career center.”
“Don’t say G.D., Emily, you know that upsets
me.”
“Fine. I
will go to the G.D. career center.”
Boy did
that help. The lady basically told me, (not in so many words, and of course
this is emotionally exaggerated due to my utter post-graduate despair) that
I was useless to society and should just stay in school. Then she handed me
some b.s. printed on colorful paper that I found crusty and wrinkled in the
trunk of my car a year later and threw away without ever perusing.
Anyway, I
have steps. Not some sort of standard procedure I wrote for myself on a series
of sticky notes and then pasted on my fridge to irritate myself enough to apply
for jobs. Nope, it’s just basically a pattern I follow each and every time. The
first step consists of being totally consumed and hindered by the initial
feelings of dred, helplessness, doubt, avoidance and the uninhibited act of
procrastination which generally consists of refreshing Facebook every 30 to 90
seconds to see if I have any red shit at the top. Then I go to links of memes
and youtube videos; laugh hysterically, sob violently, and have feelings of
overwhelming fatalism due to the beliefs of the Republican party displayed in big
text in front of unflattering photos of President Obama.
Then I
think about how small and unimportant I am, which coincidentally reminds me that I’m supposed
to be applying for a job, which chances are I won’t get. This is a bad
attitude. I know it is. And I think
about my shitty attitude and feel even shittier, and nope, I don’t ever get to
a place where I feel a renewed sense of personal strength and want to prove
myself wrong. Which would probably make
my job applications way, way better.
