The (Mis?)Adventures of a Perpetual Job-Hunter/Job-Hater

Once again I abandoned the blog, and I apologize for that. This time, however, my hiatus didn’t stem from uninspiring job-related depression that prevented me from writing. I actually genuinely like my job and love my co-workers, so my discontent has taken a backseat lately. Consequently, so has this blog, unfortunately.

I didn’t get that other job that I thought would be “the one”, by the way, which ended up being the best turn of events since I’ve grown to like my current job so much. To top it all off, my husband and I are now almost in a position to buy a house, which makes me exceedingly happy with where we are in life overall. I mean, the actual job isn’t stimulating or challenging, nor does it give me a sense of pride when I tell others what I do. I’m also quite certain that there’s nowhere to go from my current position – at best I can make lateral career transitions within the company. And I’m well aware of the fact that 99.99% of my job happiness is contingent on the friendships I’ve forged with my super awesome co-workers. If they all fled the company next week, I’m not sure how I’d feel about my job if it required me to go in to the office without them being there. But as for right now, I’m comfortable with the stability, ease, and predictability that go along with my job.

That comfort gives me a serenity that I haven’t felt in a long time. At times, though, that comfort also terrifies me. My co-workers frequently express their disgust with our repetitive and low-level job – it is a topic that has strengthened our friendships. And while I readily acknowledge how banal our daily tasks are and share their disgust and annoyance, for some reason I don’t feel it as deeply as they do… as deeply as I used to feel it. They feel what I felt for the past two years. Like my former job-hating/job-hunting self, they rail against the injustice of having to continue working in positions that are beneath them. I used to rail, too, but now I merely chuckle and shake my head, like it’s a bad but charming joke. What’s wrong with me? I promised myself that I would never turn into some of the people I’ve worked with in the past… the kind of people who knew they could do better in life but settled because it was the right thing to do.

Is it settling? Or is it settling down? How am I supposed to know the difference? I just received acceptance to law school, and while I’d really like to pursue a law degree, I’m scared to leave behind the stability I’ve just begun to experience. I want a house. I want to travel. I want to start a family eventually. But I also want to be great… truly great, and I feel like law school can open the doors that can lead me to that sphere of the greatness I aspire toward. At the same time, I’ve made so many missteps in the past two years… would abandoning my current job just be another misstep that will thwart my process of settling down? Or would I merely be settling and assailing my opportunity to do something great with my life?

I’m not yet sure. But I will say that having a job I actually like makes this decision the hardest one I’ve had to make thus far in my post-grad life.

I know I said I wouldn’t write about it prematurely, but I can’t help it! I’m getting more and more nervous about my interview tomorrow, and this anxiety escalates in direct proportion with my mounting unhappiness at my new/old (it is kind of a hybrid) job. The more loathsome this job becomes, the more my happiness becomes absolutely contingent on the successful outcome of this impending interview… and the more my self-deprecation becomes good sense. Really, I’m an idiot. What was I thinking? Why did I come back to this awful place? I’m dying to get the job I’m being interviewed for tomorrow (it’s a copy editor position with a financial services company, so the pay is quite respectable… and the fact that my interaction with the written word will involve actual editing rather than just copy and pasting is an added bonus). The thing is, if I’m fortunate enough to secure the position (there are about 7 other people being considered, which is insane), I’ll have the annoying task of figuring out how to escape my current gig without looking like a complete a$$hole. Yes, I care… even though I shouldn’t. I mean, after all, this company doesn’t care about me, which is clearly reflected in how grossly underpaid I am and the fact that they don’t deem me worthy of a simple investment like my own personal cubicle. I share one with a co-worker and am forced to be productive with just 1 square foot of my own working space (okay, so I exaggerate, but not that much). I also share a name plate, if you would believe it! That’s right – apparently my name is unworthy of populating its own 2″ x 6″ piece of plastic.

Anyway, my current position opened up due to a transition that the company is undergoing (one that required laying off, quite heartlessly, 40 employees in one of our offices, some of whom had been loyal employees for over 30 years), and this transition must be completed by a certain deadline. So, now that I’m almost completely trained, I’m sure they’ll be livid if I’m lucky enough to be in a position to tender my resignation. And I care. I feel bad about it. I do. But this company doesn’t reciprocate my remorse. It is unapologetically unfeeling. Did the company feel bad about laying off those 40 employees? Of course not. Because expedience is at the heart of good business, regardless of how many corporate mission statements tout the disingenuous “importance of our employees” mumbo-jumbo.

Expedience should be at the heart of our mission statements, too, fellow job-hunters/job-haters. The company I work for would’ve risked a substantial profit, I’m sure, had the lay-offs not occurred. In my case, I have my self-respect to lose, which has suffered severe blows in the past year-and-a-half or so… and no amount of remorse can justify my ever-intensifying inability to look at myself in the mirror with a sense of pride.

Happy New Year! To the few followers I have, I’m sorry that I abandoned you for such an extended period of time. I’m almost certain that I’ve lost the interest of the handful of folks who actually brought themselves to glance at this utterly morose blog every now and then, but hopefully I can lure you back in due time. The truth is that I was far too miserable to document my thoughts on my seemingly neverending career search… sometimes my misery despises company and relishes silence instead. In coping with my misery, I vascillate between practicing mute despondency and penning overly long complaints…  I’m feeling chatty nowadays, so I hope that you can indulge me.

Yikes, where do I begin? I will attempt to provide a brief summary of the recent happenings in my discombobulated life…and for a perpetual job-hunter/job-hater, is life truly ever otherwise? I think not.

So I decided, in mid-December, to return to school. The program commenced a few weeks ago, and on my very first day I knew almost immediately that it wasn’t a good fit for me. Having already left my job, I panicked. I have never been idle (i.e., not working or attending school) for more than a couple of weeks (followers, you’ll remember my heroic resignation a few months back, which, to my great disappointment, apparently hasn’t amounted to anything heroic after all), and the realization that dropping out of the program would force me into an idle life prompted me to make a phone call that I didn’t truly want to make. The first legal publishing company I worked for during the summer before beginning grad school was hiring, and while I knew that working there again would entail taking a huge step backward, that monster called Reason reared its ugly – yet familiar and uncannily comforting – head… and of course I let it convince me that a career regression was just the thing I needed in my life. Not the ideal way to start the New Year. I know.

So I officially dropped out of the program in the first week of school and started the job the very next week. I’m an editor, again, at a company that has already housed so much of my mind-numbing. It kills me how, despite the several changes I’ve experienced in such a short amount of time, nothing has really changed. I’m relieved that I was able to secure a job in such a short span of time, especially since job prospects aren’t optimum these days, but I feel like I’ve foiled my own progress.  I’m downright embarrassed to run into former co-workers because I know they’re all thinking, “Why are you back?” One of them actually explicitly verbalized that sentiment. Ouch. But she’s right to pose that question… I left, only to come back? Of course it doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense to me either. And yet I was the one who essentially sped up the recruitment process by making that phone call. These days I feel like a disturbing amalgamation of conflicting selves. My idealist self constantly unleashes invectives against my pragmatic self that was too much invested in Necessity, too much of a coward to avoid doing something I know I hate doing. And yet the idealist in me has no right to criticize, no siree. I can’t compartmentalize the facets of myself in the shameful attempt to dissociate myself from accountability. This $h!t is my fault completely, and I have to come to terms with that fully if I expect to find a job that actually makes me happy.

In the meantime, it’s at least a tolerable post at this point. I’ve already befriended a couple of co-workers – one of them is absolutely hilarious. Comedy gold, I tell ya, and she shares my work-related woes, which is a huge comfort. I’m also extremely good at what I do, which makes the adjustment period easier. But I’ll admit that it terrifies me, too. I don’t really want to be good at this job, simply because I don’t really want this job. But I need this job, so I’m just going to have to figure out how to endure it like everyone else in a similiar rut. I’m starting to think that I need to approach the situation with an “adult” attitude… a part of me knows that I’m coping with it immaturely, but I can’t help the fact that I truly am not stimulated by my job or any of its predecessors. And I can’t feign contentment. I just can’t.

Anyway, I have an interview for another job that I am almost fearful to write about because I want to avoid “jinxing” the opportunity. I think it may just be “the job”. Perhaps not until retirement, but definitely for several years, which is exactly what I’m looking for right now. I’ll write about that next week when the final outcome – good or bad – is concretized.

It’s quite concerning that the company I work for would ever allow this moron to write a book. She’s an idiot. And she can’t write for $h!t. And she can’t comprehend the simplest of emails. And she’s condescending without having any impressive credentials or publications to her name.

F*ckin’ douchebag. Apparently I got my MA in order to prepare me to deal with intellectually deficient b!tches like the one with whom I have the misfortune of collaborating.

I’m. So. Over. This. Job.

My apologies for the extended absence, folks.

I’m still here, searching for the perfect career. I have to admit, though, that lately I’ve been “slumming it” with respect to the positions I’ve been applying for. I know, I know, what happened to the enlightened career-searcher who wrote with such gusto about being selective in the application process? She’s long gone, it seems. My 26th birthday is just around the corner, and the fact that I’m still indulging in these job-searching shenanigans exceedingly depresses me. But I can’t reconcile myself to the fact that I make as little money as I do… doing so much damn work, by the way! So I feel like I have no choice but to “slum it” (and I should probably qualify this term here – what I mean is applying for positions that are not aligned with my interests and do not present an opportunity for me to use my strengths/talents, hence preventing me from securing a self-fulfilling career) because apparently I can make more money slumming it. And I dunno, am I not slumming it now? Yeah, sure, I have an English background, so an editorial job seems like an ideal fit. But it’s a boring and eggregiously low-paying, low-level editorial position… could I really slum it any harder than this? Haha, I don’t know. But seriously, I feel like I’m so far away from attaining an actual career… it’s not that funny.

Would someone out there just offer me a job already? Please?