So Over Jobbing

It's not what you think.

I didn't give up. I didn't look at it and say, "It's never going to happen." I just realized that, in order to get a job here, you need to have a flawless resume, an open schedule, connections, and a ridiculous amount of time and effort to keep looking. None of which I have. I didn't come to this conclusion just by watching the job market or by searching. It was when a friend of mine, who has been looking for a job for over a year, finally found one that gets her late night shifts and a ball of frustration. It was when someone I'm very close to got a job almost just-like-that because he had a certain job over the summer, which he got due to a certain job during the school year.

You have to have connections.

As it is, I've begun to fill up my schedule and plan for my schedule for next semester. And, as it currently stands, I don't have time to get a job anyway. My time is taken up by school, the newspaper, the HPA, and (more importantly) I need to keep up with working on my novel. In California, if you want to get into grad school, you need to not only have straight A's in every class, you need to have extra curriculars that make you look good, and none of this spells "job" in it. And it's sad because I sometimes feel useless being jobless, especially when I take out to loan to guarantee myself that, if I need to have a little extra money to buy food, it's there. Especially when, back home, I had a stable job for 5 years and never worried about money. Now I worry about it all the time.

That said, last night I had the most important interview of... well... my life so far. It was to work during summer orientation next year, which is probably the best job any student can get at this school. It makes between $2500 and $3000 just in the months of June and July, which would hopefully cover me for August. This job would definitely open doors for other jobs on campus next school year and it would give me a reason to stay here during the summer in my beautiful apartment when it's quiet and all the other students have left. I would love this job. I've been looking forward to signing up for it since the summer because I know I would love this job.

I've had many people ask me about the interview and I still can't tell you how the interview went. I simply don't know. It was a lot of team building experience, working with other people by stuffing folders, doing introductions, drawing shapes, and answering questions. I tried to stand out, I tried to make myself unique, but there were so many other people who were doing well, it's hard to know. All I know is that I tried my best and, if given the second one-on-one interview, I would fight for this job. A friend of mine who is on the judging panel told me last night that he thought I did well but... it's hard to trust friends, you know? They want you to think well of them, to think that they voted for you. I'll find out next week if I'm only thanked for attending or asked to come to the second interview.

If there's no second interview... I'm terrified to go through the whole job process again next May like I did this May. Applying early, being told that they're not doing summer hiring til after the school year ends, applying after the school year, being told that they've already done their summer hiring...

All we can do is wait.