Monday, July 12, 2010

on jobs

I am currently sitting on the coach eating coconut frosting. Its from a can and not terribly good. At least I am eating it off cake, and not from the can.
I have this issue with emotional eating - see Friday's post - and apparently think the best way to solve my sad feelings about our lack of a baby, lack of disposable income, my student loans, our unsold house and the lack of a new job for me is to eat frosting. And a little bit of kind of dry cake. I am a terrible cake baker, which is sad because I'm generally good with the oven.

I vacillate a) being happy to be gainfully employed in a fairly low stress job where I have awesome coworkers and a pretty high level of flexibility and all the autonomy I can ask for (are you asking what I am complaining about??), though a pretty long (train, again what am I complaining about) commute and low salary (OK, that I can complain about) and b) being really fricking annoyed that I, with a masters and ABD from an extremely respectable program in my field, from an extremely respectable (and unfortunately extremely expensive) university, and a few years of work experience in a reasonably respectable position at said university have had 1.5 (one real and one terrible phone) interviews in the last 6.5 months. I have applied to 9 jobs at Rutgers and at least half a dozen elsewhere. And I'm really qualified for at least a third (I admit I am aiming high, see student loan debt issue above)!

I know I sound like a) a raving lunatic and b) an institutional egotist (really I'm not. I was a public school kid until my masters and all through my 22 grad classes was the public school voice of reason when people said things during case studies like "well, if I had that problem in undergrad, I'd go see the dean." What? What? What undergrad at a big state school knows who the Dean of the damn school is much less can REACH them?!) and c) a whiner.
Ok, I am whining.

I know I am employed and stable and all that crap, and am happy to not be on unemployment and all, but for a million little reasons I don't want to type out right now - see point A directly above - I really, really would appreciate a snazzy new job showing up on higheredjobs.com, made just for me. One that calls me when I send them my resume. (FYI to the almost-diploma-mill that sent me the employment rejection notice: You are the ONLY job that has explicitly rejected to interview me! I am insulted! I am guessing you can't afford the fairly piddily salary I want, but I want you to know I am insulted you had the nerve to reject me ON PAPER without even talking to me. I didn't want to work for you and your below average on the SAT students either. Blah. You could save money to hire someone decent by not sending out employment rejection notices by the way).

Whew.
I feel a little better now.
I guess I can put away the cake and get to the dog park.

5 comments:

  1. Oh oh! I'm experiencing similar "blah!" Okay, so I don't have a Master's degree, or a wife, or a pining for children (I'm still all set being an uncle), I'm getting pretty frustrated with my job. I don't have freedom or flexibility, nor do I have a salary I can use to brighten my future.

    Similarly, I seem to be able to apply to jobs to my heart's content and receive similar lackluster results. (If, in fact, the jobs that I try to apply for still exist. Why do sites advertise something that is no longer available? Shouldn't they sort of stop advertising something if it expired or was filled?)

    I literally just finished applying to a job. Is it an art job? Not quite. Does it involve a move away from family and all these friends that have decided to congregate in the NY/NJ/PA area? Of course. Do I have a shot at it? I actually think I do... Is it a step in the right direction? Possibly. Would it make me happy? I don't know.

    Now, of course I'm making major assumptions here. As I said, I pretty much literally just hit "Send." My stomach is in knots, and I'm not even eating coconut frosting (though I admit I think that would sort of make me queasy).

    Here's to our futures, with fingers crossed and heads held high. Who the hell knows?

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  2. I feel your pain. I have found that you have to have an 'in' anywhere you apply to even have your resume looked at and maybe a phone call. (damn jobs going to internal candidates and getting my hopes up.) My vice, oreos & ice cream. The economy has to get better right?

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  3. Mike, you illustrate my point (no pun intended) that I shouldn't complain :) Good luck with the application! I kind of figure these things happen when they're supposed to...right? Where is it? We want to leave NJ in a few years (Well, after we actually get there)...maybe head to Seattle or Portland...

    Crystal, I don't have any idea how to address the "in" issue! I am pretty sure the place I interviewed last week just interviewed me to say they saw an outside candidate and are going to promote the inside guy (who's position was eliminated). Sigh.

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  4. Directly linking this post to my posting about moving to a new city, and not been given the slightest second look after immediately being rejected upon initial review of resume due to lack of experience.

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  5. Brit, this basically blows. sigh.

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