The First Cut Is...Eh, Whatever

“Right now, this is a job. If I advance any higher in this company, this would be my career. And, well, if this were my career, I’d have to throw myself in front of a train.” –Jim Halpert, "The Office"

So, I was obviously way too busy “studying” (i.e. going to the bars five nights a week, barbequing everyday, and watching reruns of Saved By The Bell) senior year to really go out there and look for any meaningful, respectable job. While some of my friends had jobs set up for them after graduation through some lucky alignment of the stars (or finance degrees), I spent my time having a lot of fun and not worrying about the whole career thing. Of course, when one of my fraternity brothers told me it was time to kickstart my life, it was three weeks before graduation, and I wasn’t in the mood. Senior week was coming. I pushed things off—can’t let that job search get in the way of day drinking (still don’t regret that decision).

I graduated with a good GPA, and left on graduation day feeling pretty impressed with myself. I mean, shit, I got to wear a medal when I accepted my diploma. But then, I got back home, and realized that the job search had to start someplace. That place was, I’m a bit ashamed to say, A Large Insurance Company (ALICo). After all my schooling, and the late night debates about whether Radiohead or Wilco had more of an influence on 21^st century Latin American diplomacy, I was going to be a fucking insurance salesman. Dare to dream, right?

My cousin, an employee of this firm, referred me to ALICo, saying that I could probably get the job if I wanted it. He said I could do it until I found something more suited to my major or internships. In hindsight, had I actually gotten this job, I’d still be selling insurance—and that’s depressing. Anyway, I interviewed for it.

The first part of the process is one of the stupidest things companies are doing nowadays: a personality test. I’m sure you know what I’m referring to if you work in corporate America or applied to a job with any reasonably big company at some point. Obviously, these tests were created so some paper-pushers could weed people out easily because they lack the skills to judge others’ character. So, the tests ask all kinds of inane questions like “I usually take charge in a group situation” or “I’m afraid of commitment” or what have you. I guess through these personality tests (clearly dreamed up by some 25-year old psychology grad student) they can determine whether you’ll be good at the ‘fast-paced’ job of answering phones all day and giving people insurance quotes.

Then, there’s a typing test, which, I’m very proud to say, I passed with flying colors. Finally, you get to the best part—the basic math and reading test where they see if you have grasped a 7^th grade skill set. After you finish the chopping block portion of the ‘interview’, you go home and anxiously await the call.

The next day, I got a call from some googly-eyed HR woman to tell me that ALICo would like to “move me along to the next stage” of the interview process, meaning she’d call me up and ask me a bunch of questions about sales and goals and challenges. I got through it fine—bullshitted my way out of pretty much every question, and made it sound like I’d been some kind of amazing pharmaceutical salesman and overcame like 100 obstacles in the past four years. She was eating it up.

When I got to the final interview, the whole thing went up in smoke real quick. After making me watch a ridiculous team-building video or something, googly-eyes starts the interview asking if I “understand what a background check is” a dozen times before telling me that I’m going to “be on the telephone a lot” and “you only get x-number of breaks each day, and if you take an extra minute because you’re stuck in traffic or had to feed your pet iguana, you’ll get in a lot of trouble.” I’m smiling through all of this, or grimacing, because she told me all of this during the phone interview the previous day.

After continually smacking me in the face with the perfectly obvious, she starts asking me questions—the same things she was asking me the day before. She offers the challenge question again, and then a couple of experience questions, and finally begs me to tell her about my internship last summer just one more time. I was ecstatic—these fucking blowhards had screwed up and given me the same interview twice!

I was wrong. Googly then informs me that, after a forty minute chat, I’m going to interview with one of the sales guys. Great—get to meet the guys down in the trenches, fighting tooth, fang and claw for every dollar, every policy sale. But then, in walks Brian, a guy with a real heavy Napoleon complex, a wanna-be trash-‘satche, and a lisp. I held my laughter back, my heart beating, figuring this was going to be it for me; I was going to start laughing in the middle of the interview, and I’d feel terrible because, hey, the mustache that looked like it was from a B-list ‘70s porno wasn’t really his fault.

We sit down, and things get off to a rocky start. He informs me for the 39^th time that I’ll be working on the phone a lot and will have to pass a background check. He asks me if I know what a background check is, and by this point, I’m thinking of humoring him by saying, “No, Brian, does it matter if I robbed a 7-11 last year, and got caught drunk-driving on the wrong side of the road screaming ‘WELCOME TO ENGLAND!’ with four of my friends in the car?” Then he asks me about my old jobs. He mispronounces both of the companies I did my internships with, and I make the mistake of politely correcting him. By this point, the room is sweltering, and I think I was probably losing my composure a little bit. It was like some kind of offshoot of Groundhog Day called Interview Day where a constant stream of interviewers came in and asked me the same questions over and over again.

Things got harder. He starts asking questions about procedure, protocol, the top qualities a salesman can have, if I’m comfortable switching between screens on a computer, etc. I thought I was doing okay since he praises my GPA, and says it looks like I worked “real hard” in college. But all along the way, he’s viewing me with skepticism. I’m getting self-conscious because every time I use a word that has more than six letters, he looks up from his pre-written question sheet to give me a once-over through his transition lenses which are now half-dark. And then I know what’s gonna happen—my application will be in the wastebasket before I put my Wayfarers on outside the building. We go through more of the horse-and-donkey routine, me questioning him about the job, him politely answering. I ask him if he has any amusing anecdotes about the job, figuring that selling insurance to the elderly would merit at least a few chuckles. Stonefaced, he says, “Nope, can’t think of a time when that happened.”

So now I’m obviously not getting this job, but I find that I’m holding out shreds of hope for either outcome: I don’t want this job or the experience of working with some douche-noodle like Brian yelling at me about metrics, but I don’t want to be humiliated by failing at my first attempt to get a job that I’m pretty sure sixteen year olds with basic reading skills could do.

Yeah, I got humiliated. But, really, it coulda been a lot worse. I couldn’t believe this guy Brian sunk my application. After all of those interviews, this doofus tells me I’m no good for the job. I thought maybe I’d damaged my brain with all of that cheap whiskey in college (probably did). And then, with some help from my friends (the ones who talk a lot about Radiohead and Latin American politics), I realized that I would be terrible at selling insurance—I mean, these teetotalers were practically giving out the death penalty for people who took more than a half-hour for lunch. Could I envision myself sitting in a cubicle all day, having people ask me about insurance? Of course not. I guess the problem was, I didn’t want the job, and he could tell that, on some subconscious level (or after my constant questions about moving up in the company or ending up in another department), I'd be shitty at that job . That son-of-a-bitch.

And finally, I thought back to a true American hero, Jim Halpert, who slaves away all day at a shitty job for a boss who makes this guy Brian look like Stephen fucking Hawking. What if I stuck with it—all these guys who worked at ALICo said they started out on other career paths, but “after eight years, [they] just really love selling insurance.” Are they serious? I would be one of these dudes, and that scared the shit out of me. Of course, Jim Halpert has bonuses: Pam and Dwight Schrute. I’m pretty sure ALICo was full of guys like Dwight, though, none of them were even remotely funny.

I've seen this all before, though. In a shitful economy, tons of people--recent college grads, especially--seem to be trying to shoehorn themselves into ‘careers’ that they’re not well-suited for at all. Some kids go to law school, some kids go to grad school, some kids take the first job that they're offered because they see unemployment, or even underemployment, as a personal failure, a waste of talent. But, to make a move that will affect your entire life without really thinking it through is suicide. It's akin to jumping into the deep end without taking basic swim lessons.

I learned this with this goddamn insurance company; I've figured out enough in the past 20-some years that I wouldn't have lasted at that job. Frankly, I would've been pretty bad at it. And watching employees there, people who at one time had some idea of doing something remotely interesting and were now making a living in stifling cubicles, performing the same tasks day-in and day-out, you get a real sense of what "commencing nowhere" looks like in the flesh. Sure, it’s great to come home a month after graduation and brag to mom, dad, and your college friends about landing your first job, but at what expense down the road? I’d say you’re better off washing dishes or something. That'd at least give you time to daydream about, as Lester Burnham (American Beauty) said, “a life that less closely resembles Hell.”

I returned to the job search soon after, determined not to apply for a job like that ever again—or at least not for the next three months when my mom started referring to Benjamin Braddock every few hours and humming “The Sounds of Silence” when she did the laundry. Things didn't necessarily work out as I hoped in the coming months (they still haven't), but that extra time to think has done me quite a bit of good.

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"Take My Job...Please."

I'll be here all week; try the veal.

Dear Reader,

Welcome to Commencing Nowhere.

My name isn’t important—this is obviously true, since no recruiter from any of the fucking companies I applied to even bothered to read my name after they spent a grand total of 7 seconds perusing my resume.

Let’s start with an academic autobiography: I graduated from a good high school with a great GPA and class rank. I did very well on my SATs, and applied to an unnamed liberal arts college that promised me the moon. Everyone says if you go forth in this pattern—joining clubs, gaining leadership skills, getting challenging internships and maintaining top grades, you’re gonna be just fine. White-collar jobs will tumble from the sky and your wingtipped feet to greet you with fantastic salaries, benefits and promises of upward mobility. While smart people called me a fool to go forward with a liberal arts education that promises “diversity” and “a truly unique education that gives you a background in so many subjects” instead of something lucrative like science or mathematics, I bought the liberal arts dream.

I graduated from college with a 3.7 back in May, had serious leadership roles in a couple of campus organizations—and fretted daily about finding a job. I applied for shitty jobs and didn’t get them; I applied for jobs that were associated with my major and never heard back from anyone; and I sat in interviews where people with the intellectual capabilities of fleas mispronounced the names of the companies where I interned. Then, they never called me back. I fretted day after day, sitting in my basement, waiting for one of those so-called “essential” connections to help me get a job.

And here I sit. Unemployment’s become a way of life.

At first, I blamed my alma mater. While I still agree that these liberal arts schools overcharge you to give you a degree that, at this point, is barely worth the price of that paper it’s printed on, I pushed the responsibility for my unemployment off on them. “I did so well here, and did what I was supposed to do, and now I’m fucked.” Then, I blamed myself. “I should’ve known better than to pick political science/English/sociology as my major.” I guess I’m correct on both accounts—when the college’s message is put to the test, the emperor is stark naked. And I should’ve done my research before I believed it. If all I wanted after graduation was to walk into some kind of decent entry-level white-collar job, I probably should have chosen a bit of a different course.

But recently I was up in New York, and I started to realize something while talking to one of my old fraternity brothers: unemployment can really be hilarious. It was like a giant weight lifted off of my shoulders as we sat there in a cigar bar, drinking scotch, and philosophizing about the meaning of work. Unemployment isn’t miserable—it’s a time to build great memories. The interviews. The sitting around watching Lost all day long. The not getting out of your pajamas until dinner time.

You naysayers out there who either (a) have a good job; or (b) have shitty job just to have one or; (c) are unemployed but haven’t given up hope are probably about to lambast me. “Stop bitching about not having a job and get off your ass.” To those morons, I have four words: Go fuck a collie. If you really think it’s that easy just because you read like one Ayn Rand book in 12^th grade, then hear it from me—it isn’t.

But, chances are, many of you’ve been going through the same bullshit application/resume/phone interview with Human Resources idiot/in-person interview/second in-person interview/(maybe a third one in there too, just for good measure) for all kinds of jobs, and it’s totally stressing you out. Getting a job sucks now more than ever. Getting a shitty job sucks even worse because you have to jump through the same hoops for a job that pays as much as your first job working the drive-thru at Wendy’s.

You see? Unemployment can get rough, but why not stand back and laugh. Look on the bright side: it’s not the end of the world. You don’t have a terminal illness and the couch in your basement is pretty comfy. Jersey Shore re-runs are just waiting to be watched. If you think getting a job is so crucial to your social status, so that when someone says in a bar, “What do you do?”, you’re terrified to say that you work as a waiter or a caterer or a failing writer, you’re in the wrong place. Why not just embrace it? You’re unemployed/underemployed and you’re fucking proud of it. Brag about how much freedom you have, how you don’t have to deal with the grind everyday, how you go to the gym whenever you want to and go out drinking on Tuesday nights just for the hell of it. Studies show that most men define themselves by whatever they slave away at sort of happily for between eight and fourteen hours a day. Don’t be that guy. Not having a job doesn’t sound so bad now, does it? Believe me—I’ve tried this approach in conversation, and people eat it up.

This thing exists for people to share their fears, stories, criticism, whatever—we’ve all had that terrible interview, or woken up with night sweats during first semester senior year of college wondering who’ll actually hire you, or applied to seventy jobs only to receive ten written rebuffs and sixty non-responses from the HR bimbos who can’t even be bothered to send you a boilerplate rejection e-mail. Once you get past being offended by it, you can laugh at it. Of course I’m bitter, but I’m not gonna let them get the best of me: I’m laughing in their faces all the way to the bank...errrr, not the bank, but I digress.

So, stop worrying. Chances are, the unemployment rate will only get worse this year. Chances are, if you’re a liberal arts grad like me, your college is pretending to help you: career fairs, networking days, college job boards, the whole lot of scams. Take it from me: this shit is useless. Unless your dad/dad’s friend can hook you up after graduation or you majored in finance, you’re going to be hitting the skids and picking up Starbucks applications like the rest of us. Embrace it—you’re screwed. It’s never been so much fun.

Sincerely (Broke),

Commencing Nowhere

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