My self -doubt, and likewise self-confidence, tends to oscillate with my blood sugar, however for once I feel like whatever worth I hold is an actual development built through five years of…really whatever those five years were made of. What is it about ‘this economy’ that distorts reality yet makes us all feel that the truth is finally out? Yes, people are being laid off. Yes, people are jobless yet educated. Yes, I actually know someone with a college degree who is now a discount store stock boy.
How is it that I, of all people, am actually getting some breaks? Apparently I was so disillusioned that I began to accrue the pessimistic mother-of-pearl a New Yorker carries. Regardless, here I am, not where I expected to be at 24 but moving towards the person I expected to be at 25. Well, I hoped to own a house by then but well….’this economy’ is getting in the way. Not in the way of my wedding though, not that I would let it, and not in the way of getting what I deserve, apparently. I suppose I’ve been acting as a martyr for the cause of higher education, seeing my high school friends speed past me, getting married, buying cars, houses, various recreational equipment all the while ‘reminding’ myself, like I ever forgot, that eventually I would be paid back for this. So I’m getting that pay; then why am I so uncomfortable with it? And what about everyone else? The newspapers asked this same question, and it was the baby-boomers who answered. When I see a sharp looking businessman old enough to be my father walk into a Starbucks and ask if they are hiring it hits my gut like a pink slip would. I have to ask myself though, why doesn’t he know to just go online, as that is always the response from chain branches. Maybe they aren’t the ‘Wall Street’ type I suspect they are. A well-cut suit can do wonders. I’ve yet to find that suit myself. I just can’t find a pencil skirt that works. Seriously though, is it harder because there are tech savvy kids being pumped out of University like they were from the womb of America after the war? Or is it easier because they have more years of experience than we have of life? Who’s really ahead? I don’t have a sense of that yet, nor do I have a sense of my whereabouts in all this.
Some of the things I am seeing on the way to my Starbucks to buy a three-dollar coffee disconnect me from the economy. I walk out guilty that I don’t have the cash to spare the guy hovering over the garbage can, but then the farther I walk away, the less I am confronted with that guilt. Truthfully, some days I do have the cash but I tell myself that I worked so hard to get where I am and that I am allowed to be selfish with the rewards. It doesn’t sound as dignified when I type it. I did want to stay connected and offer a hand out, providing what resources I can spare, which is time. I put an ad on Craigslist advertising resume help. I’ve seen a number of resumes over the past couple of months, via a discrete social experiment, and the reality is that some people don’t have a chance. The UW really has given me a leg up in that respect with their great Career Center. Lucky are those who just now have to create a resume, a signifier they have been employed for quite a while. Marketing one’s self is hard to embrace at first, almost like you are doing something wrong. We are taught not to boast and to be humble, but those who follow these codes of conduct must be the ones by the garbage cans. I find I work harder when I’m humble and so I’m glad I no longer have to boast because now I can get down to the business of being employed.
