What Color is Your Masochism Part 4: The Job Search

Finding a job is hard. I've been looking for a new one for over three years, so I can say this with absolute certainty. I can't say that this three year odyssey has been fruitless, because I've learned more than I ever thought I wanted to know about the job search process. More than that though, the constant reconstruction of cover letters and objectives, the re-organizing of bullet points on my resume has given me enormous insight into my own skills, interests, and adaptability. I'm grateful for all of these things, but if I'm being honest here, I have to say that I would not have put myself through this if I'd had a choice. This mid-recession job market has been like a sadistic drill sergeant forcing me to realize I can do more pull-ups than I thought I could.

To summarize the process, I can say it involved a lot of reading: craigslist, Monster, CareerBuilder, individual websites for companies I was interested in, books on career advice (What Color is Your Parachute?), numerous online guides to resume writing, sample cover letters, salary comparisons, Yahoo news articles comparing various U.S. job markets, etcetera, etcetera! Then a lot of applying what I read to apply for jobs: sitting down and asking myself the eternal questions: What do I want to do? What am I good at? Why do I want this job? In some ways, the early stages of the job search are like interviewing yourself for a job, and often you come to the conclusion that you don't want to work certain places, or you aren't qualified for certain positions, but the longer you work at it, you come to be acutely aware of what jobs would work for you, and what you could work for.

I never imagined that I'd write so many cover letters. And it's an awkward thing to do, especially if you do it too many times. And by awkward, I mean excruciating. Sitting down over and over to describe your strengths, to figure out what is best about yourself, what other people will find interesting or valuable, and why those things are relevant, can start to feel extremely neurotic after one or two dozen drafts. I've watched my own drafts go from being succinct and professional to verbose and desperate to cheeky and irreverent. None of them have gotten a response in over two years. Not a single call. Not a single email or interview request. No matter what job or what form of introduction I choose. I am writing into a vacuum. So I've become even more playful, just to make the effort more entertaining for myself. Because at this point, I've come to the conclusion that I don't want to work for anyone who expects anything other than what I have to offer (and part of that is my humor!). I don't want to work for someone who requires me to jump through hoops and put up a false front to impress them. Of course, I might not feel this way if there were any chance that a false front, or any front for that matter, might get a response.

In short, I'm burned out, I'm tired, I'm confused, I'm frustrated, I do not understand what I have to do in order to find a job (or even be considered for one), but somehow it's making me more confident in myself and my worth, not less. I'm less willing to bend over backward, and in fact more particular about how I want to be treated by a potential employer. My demands are getting more imperative as the desperation increases. My backbone is getting stronger, and I find it absolutely mystifying. You'd think that after all this rejection and disappointment I'd feel broken and sad and defeated, but I feel stronger and sassier, and more convinced of my own value. I guess this comes from having to state my value over and over, but jesus m hot damn f christ, it's a bizarre and blessed side effect. Will this new attitude get me any closer to a job? If experience is any indication, probably not. But at least it doesn't feel so bad anymore. This is the color of my masochism: a sort of dusty iridescent shimmer.

What Color is Your Masochism? Part 2 – Rockstar Receptionist

Ever find yourself looking for another reason to feel disgusted with humanity? Go to Craigslist and search the word “rockstar” in “Jobs.” Seriously, you can do this in any town in the U.S. What you’ll find are a bunch of employers hoping to get a lot of something for next to nothing. In the vocabulary of want ads, the word “rockstar” indicates someone with exceptional skills and ambition who will work for a wage below market standard, and below what a person can reasonably live on.

These ads drive me batty. Not only because they’re unreasonable and insulting to jobseekers, but because the authors of these ads clearly don’t understand what a “rockstar” is.

Rule #1 in this OPP establishment: Rockstars do not work for minimum wage.

In the common mythology, rockstars are not typically symbols of administrative virtue. An abundance of noteworthy, talented musicians have contributed to the image of the rockstar as oversexed, drug addicted, and wildly narcissistic and impulse-driven. Does that sound like an ideal secretary to you? Administrative professionals are traditionally credited for their organization, punctuality, demure sense of duty and obedience; traits not typically ascribed to rockstars.

Out of wicked curiosity and a compelling desire to vindicate the abused job-seeking masses, I started wondering how these employers would react if they got a a curriculum vitae closer to what you’d expect from an actual rockstar. As a little experiment, I'm sending out a "Rockstar" cover letter and resume to job listings that ask for it. (See part 2b for the actual CV)

Oye, pendejo!

Dear Sir on 24th & Treat St., SF:

"Ya estuvo" means quit trying to stab people. The silly knife fight is over. None of your friends feel like identifying your corpse, or testifying against you in a murder trial, so put down the muthafuckin swithblade. Ya estuvo, homie, ya estuvo.

Is Not A Crime

Do you remember your first concert? Mine was at Six Flags Magic Mountain. It was this guy, but don't hold that against me. Fortunately, I was able to wash off the dirty in a matter of years by seeing many other live shows and being exposed to far more varieties of music than I could ever have found on the street or in my bedroom. I formed much of my adolescent identity in response to the music I listened to, and I can't imagine how I would have turned out without that influence and the time spent with other music lovers.

I work in all-ages concert venues where I've had the rare privelige of watching thousands of kids and adults indulge their love of music and develop their identities together at the rock shows. I utterly value the role these venues play in our lives, but now, like everything good, these clubs are being threatened.

One of the clubs I work at is the Great American Music Hall which has recently received some special attention from the ABC. You can read about it at SFGate. In order to fund their legal efforts, GAMH and Slim's are selling the above t-shirts for $20 (handsome spokesmodel not included). If you're in the neighborhood, stop by and pick one up.

If you love live music, help support it and the venues that make it possible for a kid to rock out with a bunch of other kids and a couple of drunk dudes. If you love me, help support me having a job.

Love is Tough

How did we spend so much of our history advocating our right to choose our own romantic destinies, only to return to various systems of arranged relationships? Remember the ancient romances? The stories about young lovers forsaking their families' agendas and pursuing their own ideas of true love. Remember how our predecessors followed that model in search of their own little taste of transcendent romance?

Now, more and more of us turn to strangers, algorithms, Greg Behrendt(?) to sort it out for us. And I wonder if this reversion represents a positive change for heterosexual couples. Is it just too much for us to expect ourselves to figure it out on our own? Did we bite off more than we could chew?

I wonder if we were wrong to think that we were qualified to partner ourselves off to begin with. I wonder how plausible our individual and collective fantasies of love actually are.

I wonder how much this series of movies, tv shows and books that blame women's expectations for the array of common romantic difficulties is going to help us. But most of all, I wonder how VH1 finally managed to suck me into a reality show. Enter: Tough Love