I've been unemployed for nine months.
I graduated at the top of my undergrad class in 2010. I managed to convince the federal government to pay for almost my entire graduate degree. I've published shit. I've presented alongside really smart people at conferences. But I've yet to convince an employer that I possess the skills that would make me worthwhile to hire.
Friends suggested that I write an entry about my adventures in seeking employment. I replied that readers don't tend to gravitate toward blogs in which the author spends the bulk of her time sitting around in her pajamas, drinking beer and watching cat videos on Youtube. I think they thought that it would make a funny and entertaining post, regardless. To those friends: you've been warned.
I knew that I was going to be unemployed for a while when I graduated last October. But I hadn't prepared myself for how disorienting unemployment was going to be. For the first time in my life, I'm not "doing" anything with myself. I’m not even working on anything, let alone excelling at it. I have nothing to show for the last two seasons of my life, aside from a few completed knitting projects and some extra books on my bookshelf. I'm completely directionless. And, much to my disappointment, Nora Ephron isn't materializing from beyond the grave to tell me to suit up and grab my own life by the balls. YOU’RE LETTING ME DOWN, NORA.
Immediately following graduation, I felt blissfully liberated by my unemployment as I quickly came to realize how all-encompassing school had been for me. I had essentially approached my work with a grad school mentality since kindergarten, and I was exhausted on every conceivable level. Waking up with the knowledge that I had some money in my bank account and absolutely no obligations or responsibilities to mar my day was the most deliciously satisfying sensation I could imagine. I could spend the day doing anything. Or nothing! The world was my proverbial oyster.
Of course, anyone who knows me knows that I quickly started spending days doing nothing with alarming frequency and impressive dedication. Unemployment has unfortunately allowed all of my antisocial tendencies, which school had always forced me to keep in check, to run completely rampant. I can easily go for days without leaving my house. Or without carrying on a conversation with anyone other than my cats. It's not because I’m depressed. It's not because I suffer from some kind of social anxiety. I’m just bored.
Oh God, so bored. So very bored. So bored that I sometimes legitimately worry that my internal organs will suddenly just stop working out of sheer apathy. So bored that some days the thought of having to wash my hair fills me with an unnamed, hyperbolic dread. So bored that a trip to Starbucks becomes about as exciting and novel as winning an all expenses paid trip to the Mediterranean.
I didn't realize how much I defined myself by my studies until I wasn't studying anymore. All of a sudden, I had no conversation starter, nothing to contribute to about 90% of my peers’ conversations, no reply to the dreaded “So, what do you do?” I had been so immersed for so long in being a student that I had never realized how much of my life I devoted to my work. How much time, how much brainpower. I quickly came to realize that academia, even at the undergraduate and Masters levels, had been a real vocation for me, something that very much defined me as a person while also accounting for a staggering and depressing majority of my waking thoughts.
So without it I feel very…purposeless.
Because now I’m defined by my unemployment. And that is literally the worst thing to be defined by. Except for maybe bad breath. Or grammatically incorrect tweets. Or having Nazi allegiances. Now, my interactions with people rarely deviate from the following template:
Them: Hey! How’s the job search? Found anything yet?
Me: No.
Them: Really?! *assumes sympathetic face* Oh…but you're such a smart girl. Something will come along eventually. Don’t you take it personally.
See, the not taking it personally is what I'm unexpectedly finding the most difficult about this whole thing. Particularly when you get turned down for a job that you've interviewed for. Because the subtext there is “Wow, you were really impressive on paper, but man are you ever a lacklustre individual.” Ultimately, the job search is very personal. You're being judged on every aspect of your person, and, until you manage to land a job, are being found wanting. Repeatedly. By numerous people. Most of whom you've never met. Maybe it's that lack of feedback that bothers me so much. I spent twenty years of my life submitting work that either garnered praise or criticism. When I got something right, I was told what I'd done correctly. When I'd failed horribly, I was shown where I'd gone wrong. My entire life had been governed by a learning curve that, upon entering the job market, had been suddenly and unceremoniously shattered. Because when I submit a résumé to an employer whom I subsequently never hear from, all I can assume is that I was too unqualified for the position to warrant an interview. But for all I know, I'm being met with silence because my résumé is an unrivaled, unprecedented dud. (Jesus Christ, I really hope that isn't the case.) The point is that I'll never know if or where I'm going wrong because our job market seems to sanction employers' silence toward prospective employees.
Upon graduation, I wasn't at all prepared for how indifferent these employers were going to be. My university’s career centre preached ad nauseam the importance of being a proactive job seeker and actively contacting business and companies I'd be interested in working with. But they never warned me that the majority of the jobs ads I was going to answer would explicitly state that the employer in question is not interested in receiving calls from interested applicants. Or that many of my proactive inquiries (and follow ups on those inquiries, and follow ups on those follow ups) were going to go unacknowledged. No one warned me that a lot of the time, employers quite simply don’t give a shit. And that most days I was going to feel like I was floating in a sea of self-doubt, clutching my MA as a lifeline, and having my calls for help fall on hearing but completely indifferent ears.
But I melodramatically digress.
There’s no nice, tidy ending to this entry. I didn't intend for it to be some inspiring call to action for the unemployed, or some rallying "IT GETS BETTER" battle cry. I didn't want to invite pity or solicit advice (Oh, please God, don't give advice. Because everybody seems to have an uncle, or a sister-in-law, or a parole officer whom they're sure would love to read my résumé, and who invariably does not want to read my résumé). All I know is that nine months of unemployment have done some funny things to my head and have started to turn me into a person I don't always recognize. Things have started coming out of my mouth that I'd never spoken prior to being unemployed:
- "Let’s not bother to buy each other birthday gifts this year."
- "How long can I use this same tube of mascara before it'll give me a staph infection?"
- "Are refills free?"
- "I want to cook you supper tonight, but can you pay for the ingredients? I’ll…uh…pay you back…later."
- "How greasy does my hair look right now? Like, passably greasy, or 'there might be things living in it' greasy?"
- "I’ll just have a water, please."
- "What’s a synonym for 'skills'? No, I've already used 'abilities.' And 'background.' And ‘experience.'"
- "No, I really don’t need another nail polish."
- "Does this sweater make me look like a hobo?"
Who am I?
I’m Jean Valjean. And jobless. But hopeful.
Hopefully.
