Leaving hope

Should things persist, I'll be forced to rely on -- and exhaust -- Nine Inch Nails songs to use as post titles.

You know how the unemployment rate is skewed by the number (fairly high these days, I imagine) of people who are without work and have given up on finding new work, the so-called "discouraged worker"? I'm falling into this category.

It's so utterly maddening to see how spectacularly unsuccessful my job search has been. Particularly when you consider I've been looking fairly actively for seven-odd months or more, and I can count the number of successful responses on one hand: 1) there was the writer/researcher opening at the HistoryMakers that actually landed me a miserable short-term gig; 2) some interest from a market research firm that netted an informational interview and consideration for a project that was perpetually postponed and finally shelved indefinitely; 3) not one but two interviews with the Mercy Home orphanage for a writing job in the development department, a candidacy that had me as the leading applicant and likely would've yielded my job if I had been dishonest about my interest in grad school; 4) an interview, foolishly scheduled by an investment bank for a financial analyst opening in mergers and acquisitions, that predictably led nowhere after they established that they needed someone with financial knowledge and that I lacked that knowledge; and 5) a reply to my inquiry at a dog walking/pet sitting company encouraging me to come in to fill out an application.

Pathetic, I know.

In fairness, it's possible I've overlooked some job or other where I at least got a token response or even non-automated confirmation of my application. But then, in fairness, I'm not sure that this dog walking gig will pan out as I'm starting to think they probably want someone with a car, given that the ad said it required access to reliable transportation (in Chicago and especially the 'burbs the CTA doesn't exactly qualify as "reliable") and it's "in and around Evanston and the North Shore," whatever that means exactly. Which is unfortunate, since the pay is $14-20 an hour, and they're looking for both full- and part-time people.

But it's just such a hit-or-miss process. Or in my case, miss-and-miss. Seriously, there's no real rhyme or reason to what limited interest I have generated (other than my impassioned plea as a lifelong dog owner and lover to that job). For only one of the four jobs where I landed interviews did I send a cover letter in responding to the announcement (oddly enough, it was for the one [temporary] job I actually got, yielding first a writing test and then an interview). Generally I've had the best luck simply sending a resume and hoping it gets read. Perhaps that speaks to my inability to write a really compelling cover letter, but I'm not sure. Prospective employers have been impressed by my academic record (as well they should, thank you very much), but most jobs it seems either want specific coursework and educational training or a lot more experience than I could realistically hope to have as a college grad.

It's so friggin' frustrating.

This week, I've come to the conclusion that I'd really like to just join the ranks of the discouraged workers and share in their plight. But I can't. Predictably, I can't afford it. If I don't find a source of income in the next month or so, I'm going to have to either deplete my very meager savings account (which so far I haven't touched since last summer) or beg parents and friends who don't have a lot of it to spare for money. Or take up residence beneath a bridge and eat from dumpsters.

Yeah, yeah, same old sob story as countless other folks. But I'm really approaching my wit's end over this.

Mainly I still can't (and hopefully, in an idealistic sort of way, never will) get over the way the world works, with its elaborate and foreboding system of patronage. I want a meritocracy, dammit! Ironic, considering my general disregard for all things American, I've done a remarkable job of internalizing that whole American dream crap about how hard work and persistence will pay off and make anything possible. I'd like to believe in that. Or rather, I believe in that and want reality to bear it out.

Really, I'd like to be able to have complete confidence in the fact that I am a really damn intelligent human being, with a glowing academic record to prove it, and that I have the smarts to learn quickly. I write like no one's business. I mean, this one's not even up for debate -- have you seen some of the crapola that passes for writing, grammar, style, etc., these days? It's laughably pathetic. I can write circles around 99 percent of the population. That's cocky, but true. And I happen to possess some truly outstanding analytical skills, honed through years of social science classes and research. These, you would think, are marketable skills. But the market for them appears to be nonexistent. At least, without two or more years of related experience. Whatever.

Sure, I've set out on a career trajectory that has me on course to become an academic. It is what I want to do, after all. But in the meantime, it's not like I'm incapable of doing other things. With my background, I'd be perfectly competent trying my hand at any number of occupations. But the chances to do that have been between slim and none.

So as the specter of penury looms in the not-so-distant future, I've found myself considering and increasingly lousy range of jobs just to get by. Anything from office/administrative assistant work to customer service, call centers to retail. I need income, desperately.

At this point, I honestly want to give up. It's conceding defeat, to some extent. But faced with my apparent options -- either continue sending out resumes and applying for interesting and decent jobs in the futile hope that I land one or accept an exciting new career in the booming service sector -- I think I'd really rather stay home than work just for sake of collecting the odd paycheck. Actually, I know I'd prefer that. My point is that both society and myself stand to gain more from allowing me to spend all my days bumming around my apartment, reading books, browsing the Internet, working on creative and other endeavors, than we would if I spent 40-odd hours a week peddling crap or making copies. At least if I do what I want, I can continue to stimulate and develop my mind, to acquire new skills and knowledge, to prepare myself for my future career as an academic and intellectual. And ultimately, I think society (and I know that I) will benefit more from me training to be a better scholar and teacher than stocking shelves or gaining a modicum of experience retailing.

Were it up to me and my preferences, if I possessed that sort of agency over my life, I'd do it in an instant. What's to choose? Only to eat or not. And therein lies the rub.

At times, I want to scold myself for being too materialistic and not sufficiently austere. In great measure I'm sure this is inspired by my current choice of reading material, Jon Lee Anderson's superb biography, Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life. But then I take a good look around my apartment and realize that it's not the case. The vast majority of my possessions consist of books and clothing. Perhaps I have too many t-shirts and pairs of jeans. Certainly I have more pairs of slacks and collared shirts than I presently have need for. But Che would no doubt agree with my contention that having books doesn't qualify as being materialistic. And there's no shame in wearing clean clothes daily. Beyond that, my major expenses are rent (essential), gas (essential) and electricity (essential). I also have a phone bill and cable Internet, both are which are necessary to carry out the kind of communication needed if I ever hope to find a job, and I think are functionally necessary beyond that. Then there's food, which is somewhat variable, but unexpendable. So I'm already leading a relatively spartan existence.

But at the very least I'd like to maintain it. And until this country develops a decent dole system, or at least offers me some assistance until I can fully support myself, I'll have to soldier on, hopeless though it seems.

I hate this. I hate that I perpetually harp on being unemployed and keep cursing the windmills to blame for it. But it consumes me. It literally renders me incapable of doing much so long as it hangs over my head. There are any number of perfectly useful and fulfilling projects I could be tackling in this preponderance of free time, even while keeping up the job search. Revising my thesis and submitting it for publication. Improving my Czech and German language skills. Working on the work of fiction I so desperately want to write. Reading a whole hell of a lot. Meditating on perplexing issues facing the world. But the futility of joblessness is so debilitating that I accomplish little. I accomplish little, I mope more and I bitch a lot.

Yup, I'm pathetic. Really, really pathetic. I've allowed myself to get sucked into this vortex of pessimism, and like quicksand my frenzied efforts to escape it only draw me in deeper. There's just not a lot that inspires me right now, that gives me hope, that makes me confident things will work out. At least not in the interim. What keeps me going and sustains me is the knowledge that I should get accepted to at least one grad school come March, and that I'll likely have the option of beginning work on my doctorate in the fall. From there, it's all back in my hands. I can work hard, I can make use of my talents and skills, I can create a lot of luck for myself. It's the one arena where I really do feel empowered to control my own fate.

But in the meantime, I'm stuck. I don't know what I should be looking for, whether I should keep focusing mainly on good jobs or concentrate on just finding the first intolerable job that will pay my bills. I wonder if at this point I'd be better off trying to defer admission to grad school since I'll muster very little in the way of savings between now and the fall, and might be better off financially to keep slaving away another year. Not to mention, all else equal, I'd really like to hang around Chicago just one more year (less the winter). Perhaps my prospects would improve if I were on that sort of a timetable (almost certainly I'd already be working had I been willing to more or less commit to it back in November). I'm just not sure how to weigh the tradeoffs.

For that matter, I'm really just not sure about much of anything. I need some glimmer of hope, some words of encouragement, some (unusually) helpful advice.