10 Jun All is Fair in… Full-Time Employment

So, yeah. Maybe for a while, I was being really dramatic about being unemployed.

Finding employment is hard. I was stressed!

But I wasn’t really stressed about finding a job. I was stressed about finding the job.

I had previously been working at a pretty poorly run company and saw the signs of it going downhill, fast. I wasn’t being respected, I was being asked to work overtime to get something done and then it would be ignored and forgotten as if it was never needed in the first place. They also weren’t paying me the right amount or on-time, and just last week, I was finally paid my salary for working last July. What was even worse was they were lying to my face – and it was pretty damn obvious.

When I left that job, I felt a rush of determination. Determination that I was going to find a new job – the job. 

You know, like when you break up with a really terrible boyfriend (and we all know I’ve done that a few times…)

“I am sick of dating idiots, douchebags, psychos. I am ready for the one.”

So, for my month of unemployment, I was freaking out. You know, like a regular single girl.

“What if I can’t find the one?”

“What if I find the one and they don’t want me?”

“What if the one doesn’t exist?”

I felt desperate. I felt like I was reaching that age “when it’s kind of weird that you’re still single.” It almost felt like I was living that life where your grandmother constantly asks you why you’re still single and if she’s going to manage to live long enough to meet her great-grandchildren. Except this was about a job – and for me, not having a job was way more awful than being single forever. I was determined to find the job

And I was going to do damn well everything in my power to find it, grandma.

Ugh but the process. Going through the motions again and again and meeting people who are awful or putting yourself in awkward situations and maybe, if you’re lucky, coming out on top.

You know? The process.

The awful, horrible, excruciatingly painful, process.

You start by updating your online profile as if someone is just going to magically decide you are the one:

You start the only way you know how – the internet. You update all your channels, whether it be Linkedin with all your great experience and achievements, or your Match.com profile with all great your experience and achievements. You update the headshot, on both, to the most glamorous and least drunken photo you can miraculously find, and you cross your fingers.

You ask anyone you have ever met if they might know someone who knows someone who might, maybe, be interested in you:

Your best friend know of any job openings at her boyfriend’s office? Does your friend’s boyfriend also have any single friends? None? What about your friend’s boyfriend’s sister? Her best friend?

You graciously accept anyone’s offer to connect you with the one, even though you think you are way better than that but also think you have no other choice:

Like when your grandma cares so much about you and your happiness that the thought of you being single literally kills her, so she sets you up with Fran’s grandson who lives in his parents basement and can’t drive. Or your friend’s dad owns a pizza hut that needs a driver, and you think of no better way to use your Masters degree. And you do it. You do it just in case you can’t find anything else.

Nothing else.

You also reach out to any and all prospects even though they are insanely out of your league just in case they are desperate:

Hot guy at the bar is standing alone so obviously I’m going to awkwardly dance over to him because, why wouldn’t he fall in love with me?

Need 7-10 years experience? Yeah, I’m 24, but I’ve been doing this since I was 13 – I swear.

No, you don’t even know.

You finally find someone who is willing to give you a chance and take you out on a date/interview you (same thing) and you have to act like you think you’re pretty great when really you have no idea why you’re on this planet to begin with:

Why, yes, I just casually hike all the time and I love nature and all things relevant. Experience with Quickbooks? Who doesn’t have that? That’s accounting, right???

You end up realizing that your date/interviewer is reaching into your soul by asking you a series of “thought-provoking” questions that literally make you reconsider your very existence but there’s no way out:

“If you were a box of cereal, which would you be and why?”

“What is your least favourite thing about humanity?”

“What do you think about when you’re alone”

meep.

After the torturous first date/interview, no matter how well or poorly it went, you play the “waiting game” and want to die:

Do you wait for them to email you first? Do you send the first “I had fun last night” text? Do you send a “thank you for considering me” email or is that too needy?! HOW DO YOU KNOW!?

Sometimes, you get rejected, but you don’t let that stop you from “getting back out there” because you will not be one of those hoarding catladies:

My mom thinks I’m awesome.

Then, somehow, by forces unknown, you end up finding the one, tell everyone you’ve ever met about it/them, then regret it immediately in fear that you’ve jinxed any chance of closing the deal:

Can they hear me?

Finally, if you’re really, really lucky, you actually land the one, and wonder every fucking day for the rest of your life how you managed to do that:

I honestly could not tell you how I did it.

After going through terrible date after terrible date, I somehow, by the lucky stars above me, found my perfect man. He treats me like a princess, takes care of me, values my intelligence, and makes me smile for no reason at all.

After going through terrible interview after terrible interview, I also, somehow, found my perfect job.

I currently work for a digital agency that is better than any job I’ve ever had or could ever have imagined existed. Even before I started, they asked me if I needed benefits, and only picked a provider that would fully cover my ostomy supplies.They constantly give me thought-provoking feedback and they actively seek out ways for me to learn to grow me as a professional. The whole team gets to go on work retreats in the mountains and they feed our silly little food cravings by supplying the best and healthiest snacks to the office. I was also promoted after only working there for a month because they valued my skills and intelligence. And the best part of all is that the place where I work is like a second family.

It’s nice to be able to look back now and laugh. Yes, I reached out to everyone about everything. Yes, I had terribly awful interviews/dates. Yes, I got rejected. But it was all worth it.

It’s not supposed to be easy to find the one, right?

They say that people tend to get married to their jobs. Well, if that’s true, I am lucky to have found one I could spend the rest of my life with.