Sunday, October 30, 2005
(3:21 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Reflections on Seeking Employment
I just put in an application at Border's, online. It was an intense emotional inventory -- they repeatedly asked if I was prone to criticize people (certainly not to their face), if I'm a "leader" (yeah, that's exactly what they fucking want is a leader), etc. Perhaps I stand a better chance of getting hired since it's coming up on the all-important Christmas Money Worship Season. I did put that I wanted $10.00 an hour, so they'll probably throw my application in the trash. One of Anthony's friends was used to the kinds of wages that prevail in small-town areas, and she put down $6.00 an hour on her application -- they were very happy to give her her desired wage.I don't want to have to call the temp agency constantly, but then, I don't really want to work, at all, at least not in anything that will distract me from my PhD work. I'm sure I'm fully capable of doing some kind of management or program director or whatever, but I never even look at job listings that have those kinds of titles.
Does it ever seem like Craigslist has nothing but really shitty jobs with really shitty wages? I saw one that was for legal research and thought there was an off-chance I might be qualified for it. They wanted a recent law school grad or a third-year -- and the wage was $10.00/hr. Yes, I'm going to go to law school so that I can get $10.00/hr. Coming from the other direction, even with just a normal office job, it strikes me as unethical to pay anything less than $10.00 in Chicago -- most people have student loans, don't want to live in absolute squalor, have various nutritional requirements they need to meet throughout the day, etc.
I've never once heard anything back from a resume I've sent to Craigslist, though -- for those rare jobs that seemed like they could fit my schedule and my own unique skillset. I've probably sent over 60 at this point, some of them on the very same day the listing is posted, and no one has contacted me whatsoever. Perhaps I need to take the old MA off the resume.
Back when I lived in Bourbonnais, I always saw these signs outside of every Family Video store -- "management opportunities available, $30K/yr., must be willing to relocate." I always thought that in the worst-case scenario in which the academic system does to me what it does to most of its devotees, I could easily take up an opportunity like that -- with my extreme frugality, honed in the fires of grad student penury, I could easily pay off my student loans within three or four years. Then I'd be 35 or so, the debt-free holder of a by then quite comical PhD -- and managing a Family Video in Buttfuck, Iowa. Having discharged all my duties to society, then, I could quietly hang myself. Or else I'm sure the market for mail-order brides will be even more active by then.
One of the questions on the Border's application was "You often feel optimistic about your future." I put "agree," rather than "strongly agree."
