Hope Springs...Or Trickles

"I have nothing to show for the entire year," I bitterly complained to my roommate a couple of weeks ago. "That's not true," he patiently replied.

Of course he's partially right: I did get to visit six countries this year, and I made half a dozen new friends (shout to Mark). I just finished taking ballroom lessons with my friend Joe, and by the end of this month will have attended six weddings. That's got to count for something.

Yet at the bottom of my dissatisfaction lies my displeasure with my career, or lack thereof. On vacation to Witch Lake in August, I mentioned to my second cousin how I'm "just a file clerk" and that I "need to get a real job." "No you don't," he said, the first person ever to respond with that sentiment.

Easy for him to say, though. He's a teacher mainly because he gets his summers off. His entire essence is contained in Witch Lake; he spends his winters in California dreaming of his summers in the U.P. Plus, he enjoys being a gym teacher.

Unfortunately, to not define oneself by one's job is antithetical to the way my extended and nuclear families operate. I've been trying not to label myself as my job title this past year-and-a-half, when my jobs have ranged from working in a library to working at a bookstore to working at a law firm. When people ask what I do I become annoyed, secretly wishing I could respond with an interesting title.

I've always been that way--wanting to shock or impress people with my answers. "Classical Civilization with a minor in Linguistics" gives pause to business majors and engineers alike when they ask what I studied, providing a small inner smirk if they must ask me to clarify what those are. Growing up, the typical "What do you want to be?" yielded a variety of answers, from "a taxidermist" in grade school to "a Byzantine scholar" in high school. In college it was the flippant "a makeup artist" (given in response to the snobbish "What do you plan on using your degree for?").

Of course it doesn't help when one's parents have unusual jobs. Sure, growing up they were (just) a farmer and a teacher, but recently I've been able to say with pride, "My father's a State Representative" or "my mom runs a prairiegrass restoration nursery." Somehow, the more intriguing a job title, the more weight I give to it as a profession. Are you a waitress? Okay. But wouldn't being an archivist sound better?

I want to be able to waltz into my 10-year high school reunion, not as Romy & Michelle longing for good looks and money (although those wouldn't hurt), but with a job that would impress me as much as it does other people. I'm not asking for much--just something that would make me look smart, creative, interesting, and above all, unusual. Heck, those are the very reasons why I chose to be a Classics major instead of a more boring History major.

So maybe that shows my inherent snobbishness, or my pretentious yearnings, my stuck-up, supercilious tendencies. Or perhaps I just want what everyone else wants: to be happy with their job.

Of course, it hasn't helped that over the past year in Chicago my job confidence was at an all-time low. It took me a good 9 or 10 months to realise this: that after London my self-esteem (job-wise) was shattered. With the confidence of a newly-degreed 22-year-old, I'd spent the summer after gradudation emailing my resume to every single study abroad office in the United Kingdom. And voilà! A job landed in my lap. Yet when it didn't pan out, and each of my eight interviews ended with nothing offered, I moved back home defeated. And then the process started again: a summer job at the Newberry Library landed in my lap, hopes of obtaining a wonderful position at summer's end began to stretch out their little tendrils. Yet in a panic and glad of the money, I took the next job that came my way and ended up at the bookstore.

My, wasn't that soul-crushing. The hours-long slog, being demoted and losing a friend because of it, constantly feeling demeaned, the snide remarks by my draconian bosses all conspired to provide a hateful winter. A few times I roused myself to action, attempting to network through my cousin and friends of my father, but for the most part I felt too beat-down to try to find anything else. What marketable skills did I possess? What abilities did I have? How would my useless major help me in any way?

My slow road to recovery came about through several life-changing events: my trip to Eastern Europe followed back-to-back with getting hit by the car, and, two days later, being "laid off." (Let's just call it getting fired, because in essence that's what it was.) Then I ended up here, at the law firm. Seven months later, I'm starting to realise that the complacency I fell into throughout the summer (preceeded by the occassional disaffected whinge) shouldn't be sustained. Surely I should be earning more money? Surely I shouldn't be using my college degree to answer phones? (This reminds me of a funny comment a friend left to a whiny away message I had up. "I'm using my college degree to answer phones all day," I complained, to which he replied: "actually, I think you mean that you're NOT using your college degree to answer phones all day. because that would be quite weird, as pieces of paper cannot speak and most clients would be offended by the odd silences separated by brief sounds of downed, compressed, and bleached pulp scraping against the receiver" Ha!)

Now it's fall, the month of September went by in a flash, and if all goes to plan I have less a year left here. I'd rather not have my entire next year consist of working as a lowly file clerk-slash-receptionist.

Yet I'd also rather not get rejected. That's the main fear preventing me from seeking out a new job. I just can't take the thought of reaching and having my hand slapped. But it's something that must be done, I'm afraid, and do it I am determined to do. Yesteday I finally--after a year--got around to mailing some resumes to 15 international businesses. Next week I'll attempt to follow up with calls. Will anything come of it? Doubtful. Yet at least--at the very least--the sword of Damocles that's been irking me the past year is gone. I have now proven to myself that I can try to find the job of my dreams. Whatever that is.

So, the plan now looks like this:
1.) Get great job in Chicago for the next year
2.) Go get Master's degree in Britain OR move to large cosmopolitan city in U.S. OR (with money saved from great new job, of course) go work abroad somewhere like South Africa or Australia OR join the Foreign Service

See? I've got it all planned out.