carnivalnights | Entries tagged with career

DAY 29 - HOPES, DREAMS AND PLANS FOR THE NEXT 365 DAYS

All of my goals for this year are practical. Not much fun. I need to tackle these important things before even thinking about out-of-country travel, starting my own business or much else. :\ Although it feels like I have had these same goals for a billion years, I have to keep reminding myself it has only been three. I have to start working harder to achieve them.

-Obtain a decent job.
-Move to a new apartment.
-Keep to a weekly work-out routine with Wii Fit.
-Enroll in Technical Writing certificate program.
-Enroll in Make-Up Artistry certificate program.
-Continue contributing to Move Out Fund.
-Continue paying off student debt.
-Contribute consistently to a savings account.
-Some semblance of a 2010 summer vacation if I can pull it off financially.
-Adam Lambert concert! ♥

Current Mood: worried

Sometimes, when one part of your life is a mess, the other parts do not seem to even matter. Happiness is never consistent. We always need sadness to counterbalance; we need the bad to truly appreciate the good. But in order to feel content, there has to be one or more parts of our lives going well at the same time. Unfortunately for me, this is not the case. And usually, when one part of my life goes to hell, so do the others. "When it rains, it pours." Right now, I feel I am in a very bad place. For months my depression has been slowly increasing and not just because of my job situation. The thoughts inside my head are anything but positive or empowering. I feel vulnerable. I feel like giving up. In the end, I usually find some way to pull myself out of these slumps so I try not to worry too much. But this time it feels a bit different. It feels a bit... worse.

Last week, I went for an interview. It was a really amazing job, even if only a contract. It was a great opportunity and involved business writing, something related to my future to finally put on my resumé. It was my last chance at employment before this coming Wednesday. It went really well, and I came out feeling good. Three days later, I was told I was very nice, very polite, very professional... but they decided to go with someone else who had more experience. Ah, "experience." What I love is that I actually have this now, and yet here we are back at square one with employers telling me I do not have enough. Even after three consecutive years of being at the bottom and gaining that much-needed experience (along with all of my summer jobs before that), I still do not have experience to these people. Interesting. My sadness quickly turned to anger, and I began questioning what the point of this even is anymore. If I cannot even get into an entry-level position, where am I going to end up? Is it even worth it to stick around and find out? How much longer do I have to do this? How much longer do I have to do things completely unrelated to my career before someone will let me into my industry to start gaining experience in my industry? How long? I cannot keep waiting and wasting my life.

I am sick of my non-existent social life. I go out several times a month, but I mean in terms of deep friendships. I am sick of people saying they do not have time for me. Up until now, I have had next to no time myself but I always found a way to offer it to the people who mean the most to me. Here is the worst part about every friend I have right now: they make me believe they want me around, but when it comes down to it, they just do not put in the effort. They say "I miss you," or "We need to talk more," or "Let's not go without talking this long again." And then nothing. Why dangle a piece of meat in front of a hungry dog? I hate to call these people terrible but maybe some of them are and I just need to realize it. These people somehow find a way to convince me they will try harder or they will be there for me, and then they are just not. They cancel at the last minute, they do not return my calls, they are conveniently busy when I am not. Or sometimes I get so excited about the prospect of a new friendship, and it disappears faster than it came. There is always some damn excuse. An excuse not to hang out, an excuse not to open up, and excuse not to start something. It is one thing or another, always. Do not even get me started on the number of people who promised they would never leave me and did. I realize saying you will never leave someone is crazy because you do not know how things will play out, but in a few instances, I actually believed them. I am not even putting all of my eggs in one basket; I have several people doing this to me, new and old. I am not even a needy person. I like my space, all the time. So it is not like I am making unfair demands from these people. But it seems most people cannot even deal with or want to provide someone else with the most basic needs of human friendship. Is it laziness? Arrogance? Pride? A power trip?

As much as I hate to admit this because it makes me appear weak and stupid, I have been really used in my lifetime. I have people to remind me of just how much all the time. Most of the time, it was not my fault. Sometimes it was. And the thing is, I will not change. I will not stop opening up to people, even strangers. I want to live my life open to everything, all people and all opportunities. I do not want to write off friendships simply because they did not work the first time. People do change, right? That is what everyone tells me. I do not want to overlook anything, even the smallest of things. The little things matter. I rescue lady bugs from my bathroom every morning and I feel good for the rest of the day knowing I have saved a life, even if it is a small, insignificant (except to me) life. I take a lot of emotional risks, and I honestly have no regrets even when I get hurt. I think sometimes I could handle things better or that I should not have done something, but I do not regret it. Ever. Everything has made me who I am. It all matters.

Despite my lack of regrets, it still feels like my entire life is made up of getting my hopes up and then being disappointed. Just this constant up-down, this bipolar way of living. The fact that I always get my hopes up proves I am obviously not overly jaded or negative. I always have faith before I am let down. I believe in that. I believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt; I never just write people off as bad or not good for me. But in the end, there is always that disappointment. This runs through all aspects of my life. Friends, family, career, self. Is this really what life is? Getting kicked down and getting back up again? Is that all there is? It feels like that is all there is. I cannot remember the last time I was sublimely happy, content, feeling great, loving being alive, wanting to get up in the morning. When will this happen for me? Does it happen for others? What are the hidden, subconscious obstacles we need to overcome to achieve this?

I just want to be happy. I just want to get my career off the ground. I just want a few really close friends. I just want one person to love me unconditionally. I just want some spec of a relationship with my father before it is too late like it was for one with my mother. Is this seriously too much to ask? I thought these were things everyone deserved. Why do I always feel so undeserving of these things? I feel initially that I deserve these things, but then I have to wonder why I have none of them.

Current Mood: stressed

Okay, so, it is official: I will be unemployed as of 15:30 March 31, 2010. I got called into the boardroom Friday morning and told that they will not be renewing my contract, much to my entire department's dismay and to my own personal nightmare-come-true. I knew there was a chance they would not renew me (though I figured it was a very small chance since we are already short-staffed, but who am I kidding? No company cares about their employee well-being!), so I had been job hunting already as I mentioned in another entry. But wow. This really does it. This really ruins everything. Had I found another job, it would mean nothing. I would be happy to leave that hell hole. But now? Now it ruins everything and I am back at square one, right where I started out of university three years ago. Jobless, temping and hunting furiously.

I made a vow I would never go back to temping again. It was the worst experience to be doing that for almost two years (on and off), and every time I thought about it, it made me cringe. When this current contract was offered to me, I had stability even if only for a year and I frequently thought back to where I was the previous year. It made me sick to my stomach. I was going from job to job every week or two and making scraps, barely enough to survive on without rent costs. And here I am, right back there again in two weeks time. I cannot believe it.

I cannot believe after all this, after all of my hard work there and the fact that they need me, they are just terminating me. I should not say they need "me" but rather all of us. Any time someone is away, off sick or on vacation, the department suffers and we can barely function. Now they are taking an entire person away who knows the job inside and out from being there for two years and leaving the department even more short-staffed despite recent and extensive additions to our job description and responsibilities. We have two new rotations now, which brings us to seven. We do seven different jobs, rotating every week or two. The only reason I got this contract is because everyone else who got accepted went running after a week or less! It is a hard job and requires an extensive amount of hard work, memory recall and project juggling. I feel sorry for my co-workers. I feel first and foremost sorry for myself at this time, but I also feel for them. I know when I speak to them a few weeks after I leave, they will be suffering and the department will likely have yet another temp to help out because they have realized their terrible mistake.

I also do not believe they told me at ten in the morning. If you are going to let someone go, do it shortly before the day ends. Do not expect them to be able to go on about their day as if nothing happened. My boss and HR was well aware that despite my applications, I have been unable to find anything else. They knew that I was really dependent on my contract being renewed and that I would be unemployed if it was not. I am not saying they should have renewed it, but I am saying they should have had some fucking sympathy. I took off for an hour and my boss knew exactly why. Unfortunately, I cried. Thankfully, I did not cry in the boardroom. I was just shaking and I have no idea if they noticed. But once I left and was half way down the hall, the tears came and I could not stop them. I confided in a co-worker and this co-worker went and told my boss on my behalf I would be back later. My boss simply said, "Fair enough." No real guilt or understanding, just 'fair enough.' Honestly. She said nothing to me later either. She apparently wanted me to stay but did not offer any such sentiments yesterday, no apology, nothing. And you know what? I deserved that much. I will be 'arrogant' and say that I am the hardest worker they have (that is not saying much since our department is made up of seven people). I really am. I go out of my way more than any of my co-workers, I have only been off sick twice in two years, and I am the most efficient and therefore have one of the highest productivity levels. I churn out more work every week than anyone else. That is just a fact and it is nothing against any of my co-workers because many of them are very nice and I will be keeping in touch with them. But wow. Way to throw it back in my face. Not that it is personally her fault--because it is not--but she could have at least said she is sorry this is how things turned out after the relationship we have formed. We may not be best friends but I am probably closer than anyone else is to her.

I barely said two words the rest of the day. I was too depressed to eat lunch, so I just tried to lose myself in my work. I have no idea how I carried on. Almost everyone told me I should have just left. Almost all of my co-workers were really nice about it. They tried to comfort me and said they had made the wrong decision. As much as I complain about them sometimes, I am going to miss them all terribly. I am quite close to a few of them. I have no idea if future jobs will be like this, but they felt like my second family. I cannot even process this fully yet, that I will not be with them every day now. It is going to be so hard. The politics of the place are such bullshit and I hate working there for that reason, but some of my co-workers have made it more bearable. I cannot even imagine what life is going to be like without seeing them every day. The past two years there have been the longest two years of my life. I have confided in all of them at some point, and many of them have opened up to me. And as selfish as it sounds, I will miss being around people who find me funny. I was always able to entertain them. That will be hard to live without too, for sure. I never made anyone laugh so frequently as I did these co-workers. I think laughter is how we all deal with being in a place that resembles a prison, complete with disgusting cafeteria food.

This is just so much for me to handle right now. I was planning to move out late summer/early fall and go back to school for that writing program in May. That is all down the toilet now. I just cannot believe it. The whole point to getting this contract was to try and move over to Sunnybrook Hospital, which we are affiliated with. Health Care is not my industry but it would have been a good starting point, and Sunnybrook is a great place to work. Great pay, great benefits and perks, close to where we have planned to move, secure employment (I despise unions but in Sunnybrook's case, your job is protected from virtually anything and you can move within the hospital freely if you are not happy in a certain department). But my job made me wait the typical six months before applying internally, and by then, there were so many budget cuts and no jobs were being posted. It was a matter of terrible timing, but what else is new? Everything that has happened to me in the past three years has been 'terrible timing.'

Do you know how sick I am of people saying this is a good opportunity and that everything happens for a reason?! WHAT IS THE REASON THIS TIME? It is an opportunity to be unemployed? No, it is a death sentence. The economy is supposed to be picking up and unemployment is supposed to be going down, and yet I have not had a single call back. I am worse off than I was two years ago when I was job hunting! At least then I got a few interviews. This time, nothing, even though I have been completely qualified for pretty much everything I have applied for. I feel like I worked so hard to start from the bottom, etc. I put in two years and for what? For nothing. I am back at square one and I have nothing to show for it expect experience unrelated to my future industry. If they had renewed my contract, I would not have stayed there another year. But I would have appreciated having consistent income and not having to worry about money, money, money the entire time I was job hunting. Come April 1st, I will be a wreck with worry over paying bills and wondering when my savings will run out or if my agency is going to call me in for some work tomorrow. I HATE THIS. I do NOT want to be back here.

I have really hit rock bottom here. Today, I texted my friend and asked if they were hiring at the Tim Horton's he works at (part time for extra money) and how much they pay. Food service. A university grad going into food service. This is great! I think I would rather claim bankruptcy. I cannot be on my feet all day anyway (heel spurs), so I may as well trash that idea... And I cannot wear one of those hats. I would rather die.

But I would rather be working a minimum wage job than temping. That I am sure about. Temping is seriously the worst thing in the world. I know a lot of people love it for its variety and the fact that it may keep you on your toes... and that is fine, I understand that, but I personally despise it and feel sick just thinking about doing it again. Let me make this clear: there is nothing wrong with minimum wage jobs and there is nothing wrong with temping--there is just something wrong with it AT THIS POINT for ME, in MY 'career.' I am too old for this. I have already paid my dues. I got a knot in my stomach as I left the message for my old agent. I feel so humiliated too, crawling back to them after only a year. I wonder how that comes across to them. Maybe they will think I am too big of a loser to hire again. I did not even hear back from her yesterday even though I left the message early in the morning.

I have no idea what to do next here. Applying for jobs is not enough. I have to have something by April 1st. I am at a loss. I can apply all I want but I may not even get an interview within two weeks, let alone a job. So what else can I do? Can I sign up for stuffing envelopes or putting together jewelry from home? I am so sick of putting on a show. I will have to walk into each job clean-cut and smiling, as if I am happy to be there stuffing envelopes and alphabetizing for stuck up assholes who do not want to do the "dirty work" themselves. I have no idea, at this point, how I will fake enthusiasm anymore at those temp jobs. At this point, my depression is obvious and it written all over my face. "Tracks of My Tears" comes to mind.

Who knows. I cannot even think about this anymore. I am so frustrated and upset right now. Every job site makes me cry because it reminds me of where I am in life right now. I am sick of staring at this screen. My eyes are puffy and bloodshot. I have a pounding headache. I look like hell and I feel like hell. I just want to go to sleep and not wake up for a few months.

I have to apply for more jobs...

I am officially in a rut.

After I stopped writing last year, I found myself in a very bad position: not knowing what I wanted to be or where I wanted to go. All of my life plans just shattered around me and I was suddenly stuck, scared to death. It is really terrifying being in your second last year of university and having no real clue what you want to do when you get out. But unfortunately, that is the position I am in. And that is the position I have been in for over a year now. I feel lost and I am completely terrified I will never find my way back.

If there is one regret I have in life, it is that I did not work during summers a lot of the years as a teenager and even now. I am going to walk out of university with two BAs, and then they are going to see my nearly-blank resume and tell me to get the hell out. I am not cut out for the conventional workplace, but I failed every time I tried to search for an unconventional job. I know they are out there but I just could not come across any. On top of that, my self-esteem is just disgusting. It is so disgusting that I do not feel I am qualified for even the lowest-paying, bottom-barrel jobs. I could never be a cashier, for example-- I would fuck that up completely. (I probably just offended a bunch of people. I am not saying being a cashier is not a good job; I am saying it seems like a simpler job compared to others and I can't even do it.) So not only am I hesitant because I hate conventional jobs (I would hurl if I was asked to wear a uniform), but I am also hesitant because I do not feel I am qualified for anything. Not even a university degree can convince me otherwise, and I have no idea why.

I almost feel like all of my efforts in school are going to go unrewarded. Are they really going to care about my straight As last year? No. Are they going to care about my scholarships? No. I keep working my ass off, and now it seems like I have been working my ass off in the wrong area. Everyone always says school is the most important thing. Is it? Do employers even care how hard you worked in school? Will it tip the scales when it comes to people who seem equally qualified? Probably not. Just because someone works hard in school does not mean they will work as hard in the workplace. Good grades do not mean you are the most qualified for the job. What the hell, honestly, is all the hard work going to get me? It doesn't help a damn thing. I almost feel selfish because I did well in school to please myself and not really anyone else. Growing up, I truly lacked talent in any area, so I chose school as my 'talent' and held on to it for dear life. An A was not good enough where there was an A+. I put 110% into everything, even the things I hated most. It was the only thing that made me feel good about myself, so I never let it slide. Not even now. And yet now I am honestly wondering where that has gotten me and how it has bettered my life. Not myself, but my life.

People keep telling me I need to figure out what I want to do before all else. Well, that's great, but how the hell do I do that? You don't just wander around aimlessly and suddenly stop in your tracks and shout, "Eureka!" It does not work that way. I have no idea how to go about figuring things out. I obviously will not just get a job this summer and suddenly know. And it is definitely not a light switch I just need to turn on, as many people seem to think. This is not something where I just 'know' anymore. It used to be, I admit. I had a one-track mind for becoming a writer and absolutely nothing was a reasonable substitute. But now that I am no longer writing, that has thrown everything off, including the dreams that I did have for my future.

I hate not having a plan. That is probably the worst, most stressful position you can put me in: send me out into the world without a plan. Or anywhere, for that matter. I'm a planner and I need a plan... for everything. I need a plan for each day that I wake up. I plan out my morning routine and I plan out my bedtime routine. I plan for tomorrow and I plan for next week. I was always one of those annoying people who could have the next five to ten years of their life planned out. Always. I always had answers for people who asked me those ridiculous questions, even when I was very young. And now... nothing. I can barely tell you what I want in two years, let alone ten.

I have no idea what the hell to do. I have less than two years to figure all of this out. I have two full summers of working ahead of me that I really hope amounts to something, but it might not. I feel completely lost, completely insecure, and completely unqualified. I have no idea how I got myself into this mess because no one in my past, in their right mind, would ever assume I could be in this position. Not me, not the one with the plan, not the one who is so determined and ambitious. It would seem unthinkable to anyone who knew me in high school, teachers included. And yet here I am. I feel horrible about myself for being here, in this predicament.

I have honestly become exactly who I have always dreaded becoming. At this point ending up a bum on the street seems like an actual possibility, which is sad. I think one of the main problems is that I have lost my passion. When I was passionate about writing, I was passionate about other things too. Now nothing gets me going. Nothing triggers that spark inside of me. Nothing makes me feel good, nothing makes me feel productive, and nothing makes me feel like a better person. I think that needs to be fixed before anything else, but again, I have no idea how to go about fixing it. I just seem to sit here, idle, and keep complaining.

I have never in my life felt this unmotivated. Never.

Current Mood: frustrated
Current Music: "Jackie's Strength" by Tori Amos