gainfully unemployed

I GOT A JOB

2012-03-27T11:00:00.005-04:00

I GOT A JOB. I START NEXT MONDAY.

I guess that's it for gainful unemployment! Stay tuned for my forthcoming book about the worst 10 months of my young life.

SECOND ROUND!

2012-03-21T11:44:00.000-04:00

WHO GOT A SECOND ROUND INTERVIEW FOR LUCKY #13?

I DID I DID I DID.

I AM NOT A HORRIBLE FAILURE.

DON'T LET ME SCREW UP.

OHMYGOSH WHY AM I WRITING IN ALL CAPS?!!!

another week

2012-03-20T10:28:00.003-04:00

Huh, well, another week has gone by, and I haven't heard back from the last two interviews. It's gut-wrenching waiting around. I've already followed up a few times, so I think any more might be annoying. Is it annoying? Does anyone know? Will persistence ultimately spell my ruin?

Wow, I have been reading way too many novels lately, though an article I recently read showed that those who read fiction tend to be more empathetic and understanding. Everyone could really benefit from reading more novels, in my opinion.

I am so tired of waiting, so I've been working at a startup and it's been great because I've been building my professional portfolio with additional pieces. I don't think I'll ever have the real soul of a journalist, so blogger will have to do. It's something to do at least.

Man, I just really want this job. Please please please. If I beg enough, will things work out?

waiting waiting waiting

2012-03-15T15:31:00.001-04:00

All of this waiting to hear back is giving me a serious case of insomnia. This is like senior year of high school only so much worse because there's no guarantee that I'll be doing anything at all for the rest of eternity.

I can't sleep past 5 anymore, and when I wake up I think about how wretched the state of life is right now. And then I condemn myself for thinking like that because it could be so much worse. I think in this case it would be better if I were just stupid and selfish all the time so that I couldn't give rattle my brain with cognitive dissonance.

That's it. I'm going to follow up again tomorrow. It's do or die. (Notice how I said again. I've already followed up once).

In other news, I'm back to writing freelance blurbs for a writing network. This means I get paid $2.00 for throwing 75 words together. Easy peasy. My fingers type at least 90 WPM.

#13

2012-03-13T09:41:00.001-04:00

So I made it to thirteen interviews. Yesterday was the thirteenth one and I don't think it was jinxed, in spite of popular belief.

The interview was in NYC, so I had to once again commute about an hour and a half to find the place, which was located near Union Square. I really dig the vibe around Union Square, which is good. So many hipsters running about.

The interview itself wasn't terrible, though I noticed I made a type-o on my resume. Crap. Apparently I am in denial about the turning of the year because I listed the end of my internship as February 2011 rather than February 2012. Bah. Denial.

I'm a moron. One strike against me. The other unfortunate thing I discovered was that this was only a first round interview. Oh my goodness. I am so flippin' tired of first round interviews. Why can't we do this on the phone instead of wasting time and money on both ends? It just doesn't make sense from anyone's perspective.

Anyway, I should hear back within the next two weeks and maybe I'll just have to mosey back on into the city to get grilled again.

Interview #12

2012-03-09T11:07:00.002-05:00

It looks like I forgot to actually document what happened at interview #12. Let me do that now for your reading pleasure.

I drove to the company's office in suburban New Jersey, just about half an hour from my home. I entered the hotel-scented lobby, rode the rickety elevator to the third floor and found the reception area of the office. Once inside, I was greeted by the HR lady with whom I was in contact. Also, I should note that I only got this interview because of a family friend who recommended me. That was nice of her, see -- the power of networking at work right here!

The company had grown from its founding in 1997 and now opened offices across the country and internationally. We walked back down to the lower level, where the HR offices were located and I found myself in a spacious conference room with windows overlooking a parking lot. Oh, what a view.

I seated myself, and the HR lady asked me to fill out an application for employment. Really, now? Another application? It's bad enough filling them out online. Now I actually had to put pen to paper and rehash the contents of my resume on this four-page form. I was not pleased.

Once I was done, the HR lady returned with another interviewer who was a plump middle-aged woman with a scowling face. Before she even greeted me, she kept going on and on about the weather without acknowledging my presence. When she finally turned to me, it felt like she was deigning to take time out of her oh-so-busy schedule to meet me.

We sat down. It was clear that she hadn't perused my resume or cover letter yet, so a she did, she started grilling me about both of them. I mean, I guess that's fine, but there's no need to be nasty about it. She began questioning my choices about college, about my majors, and what exactly I planned to do with my course of study.

"Well," I told her truthfully, "I just wasn't really thinking about my career when I picked my major and minors. They just sort of happened. I was more interested in studying subjects I thought were interesting in order to develop a broader framework with which to analyze real-world problems."

She raised an eyebrow skeptically and continued scowling. Oh gosh, this was not going well. I could already see there were fundamental conflicts in our personalities and in our points of view. "Damn you, liberal arts elitist," I read in her expression.

After getting grilled for a few more minutes, we launched into details about the position. I mean, it sounds okay, very doable, especially since it's a new position. It would probably give me good experience, but the responsibilities aren't so clearly defined. Ah well, we'll see how it goes.

I found out that the interview was only a first round interview, and they're trying to see a total of 15 candidates before narrowing it down to 3-5 to put in front of the SVP of Marketing. Sigh, why couldn't we have done a first round interview on the phone? There might even be a second and THIRD round. A third round? This seems ridiculous for a job I barely want.

My expectations are not very high right now. However, I do have another interview at a publishing house lined up for Monday, so I am stoked.

the walkabout

2012-03-08T15:54:00.002-05:00

Because of today's anomalous weather, I decided to leave the house for once and face real people. Yes, I braved the gritty suburban streets and took a mid-afternoon stroll after my lunch of peanut butter toast with a banana.

It was a beautiful day, and on my walk, I found the neighborhood surprisingly busy. Stay-at-home moms were cruising the streets, some youths were around for unexplained reasons, and then there were the retirees. Yes, my neighborhood has always been fairly geriatric, but only today did I realize just how much everyone aged in my four-year-absence at school. It's amazing how much has changed.

I walked up a steep hill I'd never climbed before, just to see where it would lead and I saw an elderly woman checking her mail. I had just reached the end of the sidewalk and turned around when she waved me over.

"Are you new here?" she asked. Oh gosh, she thought I was new here?

"No, no," I said. "I just live down there." I pointed to a place somewhere downhill, just in case she was crazy or something.

"How long have you lived here?" she persisted.

"Well..." How long had I lived here? Just about 20 years. "All my life." This kind of confrontation is exactly what I don't want to face. I don't like making small talk.

"Oh." And suddenly the dawn of recognition--"You must be [my name]." Yeah, I'm still keeping this relatively anonymous. So that was weird, how did she know my name?

"You remember Jennifer?"

I nodded absently, pretending that I did until...

OH. Well, now I remembered. Jennifer was my childhood friend, like really early childhood. We hung out when I was in kindergarten because we were both Asian. I guess you could say we were best friends, but seriously we were only friends for that one year. Maybe we would acknowledge each other between the ages of 6 and 12, but from middle school on, we never spoke again.

"Yeah, yeah I do." And then she went off about what Jennifer was doing.

"What are you doing now?" she asked. And I told her I was still looking for a job. Then we went on to discuss my parents, my siblings, her situation.

"I almost didn't recognize you," she said. "You look really good. Your body really..." she cut off there and made the universal signal for "slimmed down." The woman hadn't seen me since I was six. Was I really that obese when I was a child? I would argue that I was at least pretty average until middle school when my belly ballooned due to lack of exercise and a terrible, terrible diet of Gushers Fruit Snacks and chicken tenders.

So yes, what I learned today was that I underestimated just how fat I was as a child.

lucky number 12?

2012-03-04T19:10:00.001-05:00

Tomorrow will be my twelfth interview in the past year. Wow, I can't believe I've been interviewing for a year. By this time I should be a total pro.

I am actually quite convinced that I am pro. It's just that people a) don't want to pay me what I'm worth, b) they don't understand just how awesome I am upon meeting me, or c) suck.

As I might have mentioned before though, I don't view this whole experience as necessarily negative. It's given me a lot more time to reflect on what's important to me and what I want to accomplish. It's given me more time to work on a novel, which I will publish. So while I may complain about how much the whole process is, it isn't all bad. Life could be so much worse.

on the continued hunt

2012-03-01T11:56:00.001-05:00

This is why I hate leaving my house these days: shame. When I go to the grocery store (or any other place in my small hometown), people who may have known me in the past invariably ask me one thing:

"Hey, how's the job hunt going?"

This is what I want to say: "Pretty awful, considering I'm here in the grocery store in the middle of the day with my mom. If I were successful, I would be working right now and not running up and down the aisles looking for cumin." I mostly blame my mother who has established herself as a minor celebrity here. Going to the grocery store tacks on an additional half an hour to what would have been an ordinary supply run.

What I actually say: "Well...not so great." I refuse to give them the satisfaction of knowing that I have failed. Me, failing. It's so improbable. It's the curse of the valedictorians -- trust me, there have been studies that show that valedictorians tend to be slightly less successful because of their low propensity to take the risks required for great success.

"Oh, that's too bad." They cringe before their eyes nearly pop out of their head with pride. "My son so-and-so has got plenty of offers."

Way to rub it in, jerk. I don't care how many offers so-and-so received because for all I know they could be for selling insurance. If I wanted to sell insurance, I would have no problem doing it. But I don't. So I don't care.

This morning I emailed a bunch of alums and applied to about 25 more jobs. Will it work? I'm already exhausted, but I'm learning that maybe I should just enter the dying industries that I love: publishing and media. Boom. Why was I even bothering wasting my time with everything else? Pride and pressure. So much pressure to do what sounds difficult to me. Maybe it only sounded difficult because I never wanted to do it in the first place.

back to the beginning

2012-02-23T18:19:00.000-05:00

Well, it appears I screwed up interview #11 in spite of my best efforts. I'm back to the start. No prospects. No interviews lined up.

It's weird because this interview actually went well. I even wanted this job. I had real reason to be there. There were two case interviews along with a resume walk-through, followed by a writing exercise.

Here are some possible reasons why I didn't get the job:

1. Humoring me. I only got the initial phone interview because of an email I sent to a previous recruiter for a different position. Maybe they never intended to hire me at all, but just wanted to give me a good impression of the company as a whole? Still, that would have cost them probably around $500 total for my interview. They did pay for it, luckily, so I got a good trip to D.C. out of the whole ordeal.

2. School snobbery. Okay, my school wasn't "top-tier," but it's pretty darn good. Is it my fault that the Ivies didn't want me? I was valedictorian, dude. I think the reason I didn't get into the Ivies was that I followed the "formula" that the guidance department prescribed to a tee. I studied my butt off, participated in a bunch of clubs, held leadership positions, did community service. Dang, I was a beast in high school.

3. I'm delusional and the interview actually went really poorly. Maybe I just have no idea what a good interview looks like. It seemed like we were getting along. I had answers for every question -- surprisingly eloquent answers as opposed to my usual garble. The case interviews were a lot easier than I expected them to be. The interviewers gave me cues like "Yes, very good," and "anything else?" And I would answer them with something else. My solutions closely resembled the actual solutions they came up with for their cases. I asked informed questions because I had done a lot of research on the company. When it was done, I shook hands with them, and then followed up a few days later via e-mail. I said thanks and told them why I'd be really good at the job.

4. Better matches. Granted, I only graduated last year and am pretty young for the company. They do hire people right out of college, but maybe there were just more people with more experience and more compelling reasons to work there. Maybe, but I don't buy it. I'm awesome! (Let me brag a little to boost my wounded ego).

5. Fate. It just wasn't meant to be.

It's too bad because I had just made peace with the idea of moving to D.C. And right when I had quelled my anxieties about moving to a completely new town with no friends, I get the generic rejection e-mail. I thought that once and for all I would have a change of luck. I feel like giving up right now, but I won't.

#11

2012-02-15T15:10:00.005-05:00

Interview #11 wasn't as terrible as I thought it would be. Yeah, they actually gave reasonable case studies, rather than the idiotic questions most management consulting firms pose nowadays. In fact, the worst part of the whole ordeal was just driving down to D.C. That's roughly five hours from here. Yuck.

In other news, I'm working on a few more writing projects, so now it's become a challenge to see how much writing I can possibly output in one day.

So, let's see where the next few weeks take me, shall we?

unemployment

2012-02-02T15:34:00.004-05:00

Unemployment is simply the best.

Since I quit my stupid internship, I've had so much time to reflect on life, build a website, and work on my writing. It's been simply lovely. I also finished reading a book. I love being productive while unemployed.

The chart you see above is my interview history since last year. I'm really quite tired of talking about myself and tired of taking tests and talking to so many people. I wish someone would hire me so I could stop.

I don't know if I'll end up getting this one job I'm interviewing for. It would mean a move to D.C. and having to start over. I rather like my house, but it's becoming apparent that I'm going to have to leave eventually. Greatness won't just find me in my little house in the suburbs. I could attempt to be a recluse, but that's no guarantee of literary success. In fact, I will probably just receive more rejection letters for being in such a boring location with nothing to write about.

gone

2012-01-30T12:24:00.002-05:00

Yep, that's right. I quit for real this time. I refuse to go back to that horrible place where I was verbally and emotionally abused day after day.

I am done. Things are looking up -- I just found my mom's copy of Microsoft Office 2010, so I'm back in business. AND, I just set up my printer and cleaned the office room. This is great. It's the simple things that really do it for me.

fts

2012-01-25T20:26:00.001-05:00

I'm not going back after tomorrow.

happiness

2012-01-22T12:58:00.000-05:00

This is a chart depicting my current level of happiness. I'm hoping things turn around soon.

And as an aside, if you guys could click on the ad on the side a couple times, it would be really great. I want to see what happens if I get over the $10.00 ad sense mark.

networking my way to the top

2012-01-21T11:36:00.000-05:00

Well, DB followed through on his promise to introduce me to some people. Nothing has happened yet, though. I watched as he called up his friend and told him about me and my other co-worker.

Nothing much else has happened in the office lately I'm sad to report. I've been blogging, tweeting, and writing up some market research reports as usual. Luckily I haven't had to make a stupid deck in a while.

One of the decks I spent a lot of time on (I mean like over 40 hours) actually proved useless. I literally spent a bunch of time perfecting this presentation and then writing up a nice e-mail to accompany it. The guy to whom I sent this presentation replied with a succinct "Hi. Not interested. Sorry."

That's real cool.

Luckily I don't have anything to lose, so it's not that big a deal.

I'm just not sure corporate America is for me anymore. People are really fake and they lie to your face. It's just so wrong. Wouldn't it be really nice to have a company comprised of transparency and real, honest people? I think that would be really great. That and a four-day work week.

i quit

2012-01-18T20:37:00.000-05:00

So yesterday, I told my "bosses" that I quit...and they wouldn't have it. I've been telling people that they didn't let me resign, but ultimately it's up to me. I realize I hold the power and that I can just stop showing up at any point. The problem is that I just won't leave on favorable terms.

I can't believe I actually used the words "I would prefer to leave at the end of the week," and they kept pushing me to stay. Like I'm actually that valuable to them? Unlikely. It's not like they're helping me find a full time position.

I really just want to leave and focus on some other projects I'm working on...so I may just stop showing up one day. At this point, I don't even know how to do hard work anymore. I can't focus. I'm distraught. This is just a huge mess.

Actually, I'm contemplating becoming a recluse like good ol' Emily Dickinson. I'm thinking that maybe it'll make me a better writer? An insane, but better, writer? Maybe just maybe.

time

2012-01-16T09:18:00.002-05:00

Every day that goes by I lose a little faith in myself. I'm watching as my former classmates return to school for their final semester, full of that same hope I felt last year. People said it would be difficult to find a job, but no one warned me that it would be this hard. I suppose I should have suspected it, given the current economic climate. I'm guilty of hubris, of thinking that it would be easy, that my track record would speak for itself.

It's already mid-January, and I refuse to think about time anymore.

I promise to quit this week and focus 100% on the job search. The "bosses" clearly aren't helping me find employment, so I should just leave. Still waiting to hear back from that other company, though, so even if it's just for a little while, I'll have something to do. It'll be easy, mindless work.

the courage to quit

2012-01-14T17:42:00.001-05:00

I am a coward.

I can't summon the courage to quit. I don't know what's wrong with me. It's about time I quit this miserable job because I'm no longer learning anything.

I should just leave. Help me leave!

Yesterday I had an informational interview from which I didn't expect much. It was a pretty neat company down in Chelsea; they seemed pretty chill, but I'm just not sure it's for me. If you've seen "Friends with Benefits," it's sort of like that atmosphere that Justin Timberlake was working in pre-GQ. Yes, just like that. Dim lighting, with little globes of light hanging from the ceiling. The elevator was pretty ghetto, and the interior held glass walls, wooden floors, and an open floor plan. Everywhere people were dressed casually, in ripped jeans, crumpled t-shirts. Many of the employees sported large tattoos and piercings.

I have no doubt that this would be a cool place to work; I'm just not sure it's for me. I live in a pretty quiet, reserved way. It's not like I don't have fun; I just have a more innocent view of the world, and I prefer the purity of being straight-edge.

Basically, they're just too hip for me because I'm a huge nerd/dork. It's like I don't belong in corporate America, but I don't belong in academia either.

Another one bites the dust.

interviewing while sick

2012-01-12T20:48:00.002-05:00

So, if I were smart, I probably would have rescheduled my interview with that ill paying job so that I wouldn't have to go into a meeting while hacking up a storm.

I guess I'm not smart.

Nah, the interview went pretty well considering I was coughing every other minute and my sinuses were seriously congested. All this pressure was building up inside my head. I could barely think straight, but I made it through.

The interview itself wasn't terrible. I wasn't asked that many questions, and I just talked about all of my experiences. If there's one thing that this internship (that I hate) has done for me, it's made me more confident in my abilities. Well, I'm not sure if that's quite it. It's probably that it's made me not care about anything. I'm largely apathetic toward everything in life now. Basically, it's beaten the hope and compassion out of me. I don't care about anything.

This internship has jaded me. All I see is incompetent people lying and B.S.ing their way through life. They exploit people who do work hard without teaching them anything. They treat people disrespectfully. They go through life drunk, or high, or just simply without doing anything of use to society. I don't want to live like that, and I refuse to accept anything less than my vision. Suck it, life.

I'm not too keen on the job. Even if they offer it to me, I'm just not sure. Money is better than no money, but I just got this bad vibe from the place. The office walls were painted in this drab, off-yellow color, and there were again no windows. The people had large cubicles or work spaces, but they looked unhappy. The light was gone from their eyes, and they looked like if they died that very day, it wouldn't have mattered. They just did not want to be there at all. They were also awfully old and overweight. The whole place seemed like nothing ever happened there.

So, I guess we'll just wait and see. Tomorrow I have another interview, so wish me luck!

job interview X

2012-01-08T17:09:00.002-05:00

Last week I had yet another phone interview, and it seemed to go well in spite of my current state of ill health. Yeah, I haven't been sick in nearly a year, and then I caught a cold. I think it's a cold, but it could be something else.

The interviewer told me upfront that the salary wasn't very good. I wonder why she did that. That's never happened to me before. Does that suggest that it's a terrible job?

Why is it that I always find the worst paying jobs?

According to Payscale.com, the median starting salary for economics majors (like myself) for 2010-2011 was $47, 300.

If I get this job, I will be making up to $17, 300 less than my peers. What. Up.

This is a pretty disappointing and staggering figure.

I suppose that it's better than hemorrhaging money like I am now, since I'm paying just about $20 a day to commute to the city for an unpaid internship.

On the bright side, I built a website today, so I should be buying a domain name soon. It'll be great to launch my writing career that way. See, I'm still being productive!

So yeah, I actually do apologize for all the bleak posts lately. The end of the year always gets me down.

pompousness

2012-01-07T10:36:00.001-05:00

It's come to my attention that I sound a little pompous when I write here.

My response: Why yes, yes I am.

You can't get anywhere unless you believe in yourself, right? So I'm just going to keep on being awesome and you can read if you like or stop if you don't. Glad we got that settled.

a promotion

2012-01-05T20:41:00.002-05:00

In a truly twisted turn of events, I've been promoted to "Senior Analyst." Yes, that's right. The unpaid internship is rewarding me with more work. Now, I'm in charge of a few of the new analysts and have to help them project manage. The only problem with this is that it's more work and that I have my own projects to work on.

I'm a little pissed off about it because I stated last week that I would be leaving next week, next Friday, in fact. And now they expect me to stay through the end of the month because they're covering my transportation costs. Right, because my labor is so cheap you might as well just pay for my transportation and give me some extra work while you're at it.

Oh yeah sure, this wouldn't be that bad if say...the interns weren't idiots. They're asking me the dumbest questions I have ever heard. It's like, hello, did you just wake up? Do you not have a brain? When I started working three months ago, it's not like someone held my hand through every step of learning the ropes. You're probably thinking this is a classic case of bias. I assure you it's not.

Every five minutes they interrupt me to ask a stupid question, so I can't even keep my train of thought. It's ridiculous. I can't take it. I think I'm just going to leave next Friday regardless.

happy new year

2012-01-01T11:26:00.002-05:00

Happy New Year! With this coming year, I have a few resolutions and hopes that I'll share now. They are in no particular order.

1. Get a job. Preferably one that doesn't make me want to kill myself. That was harsh. I actually mean find one that is fulfilling and pays and that doesn't involve me getting yelled at every day.

2. Find some mancandy. It's only right. Focus on the job first, and then focus on personal life. Come on life, even my younger sister has a boyfriend now. This is totally unfair.

3. Embrace femininity. Whenever I get really depressed, I throw trying to look good out the window. This year, like I said last year, I will try to dress better and figure out how to wear makeup and all that jazz. Right now I'm wearing holey jeans, an old t-shirt, and an Old Navy fleece pullover. Not a great start, but I'm not going anywhere today. Oh crap, this is how it's going to go for the rest of the year isn't it?

4. Study Chinese. Every day. That's pushing it. I'll settle for "Study Chinese at least once a week."

5. Learn a new language. This could be any language, natural or computer.

6. Practice piano. I'm trying to learn how to improv or whatever. I've spent most of my life playing classical.

7. Read more books. I'm going to read more classics now that I have a Kindle. I'll also add some nonfiction, but I want to focus on fiction so that I can improve my fiction writing skills. Or at least creative nonfiction. I need to master quickly the art of personal essays, since I suck at revealing personal things.

8. Stop being miserable. Every time I get upset, I start an internal monologue about how life isn't fair, but how it could be so much worse. I think a better thing to do is just let myself be upset for a while and then move on. There's nothing wrong with being unhappy and complaining for a while as long as I eventually get over it.

9. Work out. A classic resolution. Working all day and commuting makes this really difficult, but I've managed to maintain my weight so far. Here's to hoping I can continue it. (Last year I think I called this plan "Get Hot.")

10. Stop drinking diet sodas. I know it's terrible, but I have a penchant for Coke Zero. Sometimes you just need a bubbly, carbonated drink! I'll cut down.

11. Quit eating so much junk. Related to the health resolutions; I don't know, after work, sometimes I'm just so upset that all I want to do is plop on the couch and dig into a pint of ice cream. There was one week that I actually did eat ice cream every day. I've since stopped, but then the holidays came around, and if you see what I've been baking...well, you'll know that it's terribly difficult to resist.

12. Stop being anti-social and calm down about friends. Yeah, I've been pretty anti-social lately, except with a few people. This people I abuse by obsessing over how much we talk and whether it's enough or not. Resolution: stop. I love my friends and I'm really grateful for having them in my life. Sure, I wish that sometimes they made more of an effort to talk to me first or hang out with me, but maybe that's just in the nature of the people I choose to friend.

Well, I think that's enough resolutions for now. That's what's been on my mind lately.

break

2011-12-30T10:50:00.000-05:00

No one should work the week between Christmas and New Year's because no one feels like working, and nothing gets done anyway. We should all just come to an agreement and agree not to work.

It's only fair.

This week I went in to my internship for two days even though I didn't want to and I really didn't feel like it. I skipped Tuesday. Luckily so did everyone else except Dbag. And then I got in early on Wednesday and Thursday because, that's right, no one else is working this week so there was absolutely no traffic.

I've been planning my exit strategy since the day I started, so now it's just about time to leave. I still haven't found a job, which is really lame, but it's not like anyone is hiring right now anyway.

The bosses have so generously decided to cover my travel expenses for the month of January.

Ick.

I would really just rather quit, so I think I still will. I'm going to ramp up the job search over the next week, and see what I can do. And then I'm going to leave. I have to. I'm going insane and making myself really unhealthy. This is no way to begin a new year.

On the other hand, today should be great because I get to see not one, but two best friends! As well as some old friends.

Also, I've almost got 1000 page views! So let's keep the reading coming so I can make some money off blogging. Deal? Deal.