Being Expendable

I wonder what all of this means. What does it all really mean?

Another rejection. It would be nice if the rejection could at least come after the interview. I've never even made it to the interview stage. They don't have to see me in person to know that they don't want me working with their establishment. No matter how much I try to prove myself on paper, its just not enough. How can I be what these people want when I'm not even sure what they are looking for? I illustrate all the ways that I can meet their needs, all the ways that my skills can be beneficial to them, the ways in which I can do the job, and their response is that they went with someone whose skills better fit their needs. Why can't someone just give me a chance? With each rejection I fade more into the background. With each week/month/year that passes, my resume becomes less desirable, less relevant.

Was I really supposed to be working in an office - gaining experience, while going to school full time, raising my daughter on my own, dealing with death consecutively, never making a full recovery from being raped, in and out of depression, already not getting the most out of the education that I was getting? Did others around me do it because they were "only" raising children while doing school and work? Or because they had a boyfriend or husband living at home, bringing in the money, leaving them to focus more on family and academics? Did I not try hard enough? I did try! I did more than just try. I went to work. Sometimes forfeiting my classes and school work to be in the office longer, so I could see more money on my paycheck, to feel like it all was worth it. I felt like I had finally found my "place" when I was in that office. I felt like a contributor. Like I made a difference and was needed. I had made friends, was a part of the pack, or so I thought.

A year passed, and still, I was thinking ahead, about how I could be of service to the company. I was nearing graduation, so then I would be available full time. I was looking at housing closer to work for when it was time to relocate, I was even thinking about how my first love of journalism and my interest in photography could benefit the company. Since "I" was already the Marketing Department, I wanted to apply myself more during showroom travel. Photographing the showroom for the company website, making a suggestion to the CEO and COO that we should become a completely electronic based office where documents were concerned. I never got the chance to make it known that I saw myself as a permanent part of the company. I had started sensing that there was something not quite right with my scheduling. I had tried making myself more available, and would be told that I wasn't needed for the number of hours that I was available, when months earlier, my availability was welcomed. Then the day came. I was asked into the CEO's office, he gave me a speech about no longer being able to afford to keep me (due to the economy), told me I had two weeks, and if I needed a letter for my next job he'd be happy to write me one. There was no farewell party for me, like there had been for a coworker who had left the office. No one said anything. No one emailed me when I didn't return. It was as if I had never even been a part of the company. As if I had never shared anything with the people in that office. It was such a hurtful ending. I'm obviously still affected by it.

And now, as I search for a comfortable, fulfilling office assistant job, I find that companies are looking for people who have all of this experience. Asking a minimum of 2 years, which isn't much to someone who actually has worked for 2 years. My last experience was the longest that I have ever been at any one job. One year and 5 months. I feel like, in every aspect of life, I always come up short. Like, no matter what I do, how hard I may work or fight, I come up short. After everything that I sacrificed to be available for my company, my ass got kicked to the curb, and my time there isn't paying off for me in the way of experience, I still come up short. I'm reminded of that every time I open a new job ad or apply to one.

For anyone who reads this, I already know what you're probably gonna say. "Its the economy." Yeah, I know all about the economy. I'm sick to death of the fucking economy, and being told repeatedly that its the economy. Its worst than being told, its not you, its me. Which brings me to a random thought: What the fuck is Arnold doing making an appearance in a movie? With the state of California, his ass should NOT be on any big screen unless he is gonna be putting the money from the film into the pockets of Californians! AND, its not essentially just the economy. People are getting jobs. I know this because I am friends with some of the people who are getting jobs. So, what the fuck am "I" doing wrong? Perhaps you will suggest that I do more, such as take another class, take a different kind of job - anything that's available, go to a temp agency. Simply put, I'm really doing all that I have the capacity to do. I just really need for things to change. I deserve for things to change. Nobody deserves to invest so much of their time and money into a University, believing that in doing so they have insured a future free of poverty, only to end up homeless, with no possible leads to employment. So many that I know chose to go to grad school because of this very reality. They didn't want to face it. I chose to face it head on, because I desired to work. I needed to work - a change in my routine, a new direction in my life. I've been in a classroom for 21 years straight, I'm fucking tired of that lifestyle! I believed that I would find something.

So what now?

Continue applying for jobs, hoping to be chosen.

Try to think of ways to be more creative in my approach to employers.

Navigate the trap of being over qualified and/or under qualified.

Sharpen my computer skills through online program training.

All while functioning at half capacity, and being extremely depressed.

Early Bird Gets the Worm

After months of applying for jobs, and after nearly 3 months of documenting this process, I finally got a reply. I was beginning to think that, once I hit the send button, my resume and cover letters never reach potential employers, but rather vanish into the abyss of the undesirables. I was excited to see the RE in my inbox. I had applied for a position the night before where I was really hoping to plant myself. Office work. Blocks from my daughter's school. 3 month duration with the possibility of extension. Doable hours and wage. Perfect. Landing this job would have meant, paying down some bills, being available to my daughter before and after school, and ending our homelessness.

I opened the email, it read:

"Thank you for your application.
We have hired someone else for this
position.  Good luck to you in your job search."

My confidence was immediately a little shattered. Here's a position that I was extremely confident that I was well qualified for, wrote a great cover letter to get, painted an accurate picture of how I could be a beneficial fill-in. Yet, I obviously wasn't fast enough. At least that's what I'm going to believe. I absolutely refuse to believe that they went with someone better. I had that, it was mine, and now its gone.

Back to searching, back to applying, back to waiting.

This is What It Feels Like

Photo Credit

I remember back in the day, when I used to team up with my bestfriend. We'd put on our best, hop on the bus, and hit the town plazas, and then the local shopping mall. We were in high school. Things were much simpler then. All we needed to do was return the applications that we'd collected on a previous trip, in the manager's hands if possible, and wait on our call backs. And there were always call backs.

I was a retail girl, an exterior painter, at the same time. I was around 15, and had gotten a summer job painting houses. It was a great job, and I continued for 2 more summers after that. That first summer, I found myself clocking in at 6:30am and clocking out at 9pm. Right after I started my summer job as a painter, I had gotten a call back from the Gap. I didn't want to turn down a regular job just because I had a summer job, so I worked both. I'd paint from 6:30am to 3pm, and work the Baby Gap section and fitting rooms of the Gap from 4:30pm 'til 9pm. I worked at that Gap store, for $6.25 an hour, until the location closed about 8 months later.

And later on, it was Longs Drugs. I worked a mean green smock, and was a lightening fast cashier, who knew her shit, and was comfortable being a good employee, but not comfortable catching 2 buses, taking 2 hours to get home, late at night, in a rough neighborhood. The night I was approached by a man in a car, was the night I had to quit that job. And the day my manager offered to coordinate my schedule with the schedule of a friend who had a car was the day I went back. And the day it became too much for said friend to offer me a ride, I quit for the last time.

I've never not wanted to work. I've never not pulled out all the stops to get a job. But seems like I've always, always had to sacrifice, or be sacrificed when it comes to work. Quit for lack of resources, be laid off due to site closure or site greed, pass on working altogether because my academics and being present for my child had to be put ahead of earning an income.

Its been 8+ years since those high school days, 2 years and 4 months since I was laid off from my last job, and nearly 8 months since I left school. Its a lot less simplistic these days, and the sacrifices are greater. There is more at stake today than there was back then. I am suffering more, and in a multitude of different ways today than I was back then. This current experience, current state of being, is unlike anything I have ever known. Today, the resumes and cover letters have replaced those two paged retail applications, car keys have replaced the typical 31-day youth bus pass, and the call backs have fell completely silent. Yes, the economy, I know. However, I still feel like I am that same high schooler, trying to rise above, trying to be just a little less poor, except this time, I'm not the only one who is hungry.