Why job hunting is a terrible job...

I have a grievance to air...it's personal to me, and, it seems it's probably also personal to about 1 in 2 Americans in my age bracket.  I feel as though ever since I returned from the Peace Corps in 2009, I have been what I refer to as semi-employed...I almost always have a job (or two) and I am almost always looking for a different one, because I spent nearly $100,000 on a college education that I would someday like to have the privilege of using, and perhaps even someday finish paying for...  And here's the advice I have been given time and time again (and the grievance that I'd like to air) by everyone from career counselors to friends, to online articles and job boards:  "Job hunting is, in itself, a full time job" and "Treat finding a job like it is your job" and "Make your job hunt into your job, create schedules and goals and adhere to them strictly."  Great advice!  Except, even if you are only treating job-hunting as a part-time job (which of course is more realistic, since you get no benefits, no paid vacations, and are not invited to a single company party) and even if you make your own schedule, and don't adhere to it strictly, it's still the worst job you will ever have to endure for any period of time.

Lets say job hunting is my job, I am a professional job hunter, by trade.  Lets follow this comparison through, shall we:  I get up in the morning, get dressed, and have a cup of coffee.  Then I go to work and sit down in front of my computer, the project I have currently been assigned at work is to find and fill out applications for jobs, right?  So I begin by checking my email, voicemail, and linkedin account to see if any I have had any luck on any of my previous applications, then I move on to hitting all the usual suspects, monster.com, careerbuilder.com, usajobs.gov, and then state and local government employment sites; then I check out linkedin jobs, read any job board emails that I am a part of, etc.  This is mostly just getting caught up on any new openings, since I have already done all of this yesterday morning.  From this reconnaissance work I come up with a list of 2 or 3 (if I'm lucky)  jobs that are (1) at least somewhat applicable to my experience, (2) still accepting applications, and (3) somewhere that I would be willing to move to.  So I take this list and begin crafting resumes and cover letters for each one, which can take anywhere from several hours to a few days, depending on how much I need to edit one of my existing resumes to make it applicable, and also if it is any kind of government job I will also have to complete the entire application, re-enter all of my employment history, answer the questionnaire, attach transcripts, and all that fun stuff.  So that's not so bad right?  Every day you go to work with the same objective, you follow the same steps, and you systematically apply yourself to anything and everything you might be capable of.  

Here's why that's awful: Can you imagine going to work every day, doing essentially the same project every day, learning from your mistakes, improving your process, finding jobs that really inspire you, spending all day crafting just the right resume and cover letter, and almost never getting anything in return except polite  excuses for not hiring you?  It's a full time (or part time, depending on your level of dedication) job of nothing but negative feed back.  I spend my days applying only to jobs that I could really see myself wanting, I dream about being a part of that office, completing the tasks described, living in that town, using my skills and talents and education to solve problems, complete tasks, I really pour my heart and soul into this stuff and then I will literally hear from maybe 1 in 25 of them if I am lucky.  Some of them don't want me because I'm too far away, because they want someone local, because I don't have enough experience, because I have too much experience, because I move around so much (I go where I can get a job...so sue me), because someone who already works there is moving into the position and they were just advertising it out of formality, because I didn't call to follow up, because I did call to follow up, because I don't care enough about money, because I seem too eager, because I'm not eager enough, because I'm too young, because I'm an environmentalist, because I am too liberal, because I am not liberal enough, because I attached my references as a document instead of putting them in the text of my cover letter, and so on and so forth.  Some of them will send me a letter saying "Oh hey you're great, and it's not you, it's us.  You sound really super duper though (I'm paraphrasing a bit here...) and we'd love it if you keep applying to our company over and over again because we will not remember you next time we're hiring and you'll have to re-do the entire exact same application all over again to even be considered for future opportunities with this company..."  Most of them will never say anything at all.  

I have gotten a few job offers over the years, obviously I got my AmeriCorps position and this spring I landed a pretty sweet (albeit unpaid) job in the Bahama's that I was forced to turn down for financial reasons...but as far as jobs in my field, that I am interested in, that's about all the positive feedback I've gotten in 3 years.  I have landed jobs as a bartender, waitress, front desk person, grocery store check out clerk, trail guide, in-store product demonstrator, and even "spokes model."  I think that is part of why 1 in 2 people my age is, as they so adequately describe it, underemployed; because after 3 or 5 or 12 months of no no no's, it just feels so good when you finally get a yes!  That, and because we are all saddled with so much student loan debt that the old "backpacking around Europe to find yourself after college" is no longer even in the realm of possibility without risking complete personal bankruptcy (and even that won't get rid of those pesky student loans) so we literally cannot not have a job for even a few months, until our loans are paid off.  Guidance counselors should really warn you about this stuff, when I was 18 years old a private school seemed like a brilliant idea.  I was a good student, and I wanted to go to a good school, case closed.  That seemed like what I was supposed to want to do.  $20,000 per year in scholarships seemed like a lot, at 18 years old I had never in my life even thought anyone would want to give me that much money for any reason, so it felt like an honor, something that I shouldn't turn down.  Of course I had to match it with a few grand a year in loans...but by the time I got out I would be making enough money to pay those off in no time, right?  So whats a few years worth of loans?  

So here's what they don't tell you, every year tuition goes up and scholarships stay the same, every year.  And not just by a little either, but but thousands.  During my time at RPI tuition went up an average of $1,800 per year, piling almost $6,000 additional on top of my already not-inconsiderable loan totals.  I came out with almost $40,000 in loans, and I was on the low side of my class.  Of course I graduated in 2008...I'd hate to think about where tuition is now...

It turns out it's right on track, rising an average of $1,777 per year since 2004, this years tuition a whopping 50% higher than that of just 8 years ago ($28,950 compared to $43,350, and that's just tuition by the way, and does not include room and board or books).  If it maintains it's current trend, tuition will be over $75,000 per year by 2030, and over $100,000 per year by 2044.  I'm making an example of RPI, but this is happening to schools, well, to students really, everywhere.  So here we are, spending 4+ years in school working our butts off to land a degree that is, at this moment, for all intents and purposes, a paperweight (of course it's made out of paper...so it's not even good for that) and now everyone is saying "well if you just treat finding a job as though it is your job, and then you'll get a job...and then you can treat that like it is your job because of course it will be your job, and you'll have enough money to pay off your loans in the scheduled ten-year time frame, and you can get on with your life and begin considering things like see a dentist or getting glasses."  (again...paraphrasing...slightly) 

Whew...I suppose I might have lost track of my point a bit there, but it is this: Job hunting is the worst job ever, and I can't wait to be done with it.  Also, if you are hiring, you should not penalize someone for changing jobs a lot, because in this day and age, with the economy the way it is, if I didn't get a new job every couple months I would never hear a yes, and things would be even more monotonous.  If I found the right job I wouldn't leave it, but you can't fault me for quitting running register at Grand Union or serving drinks at a bar in favor of focusing my hunt on a job that matters to me.  I am an engineer, I like to use my brain to solve complex problems, and if I have a job that doesn't change the problem every so often then I have to change my job every so often, just to keep things interesting.  Ok.  I'm done.  

Japanese Knotweed Pie!

On Saturday morning I attended an invasive weed talk about the unfortunate prevalence of the non-native invasive plant variety known as Japanese Knotweed.  I learned a few important things, first that this stuff is really nasty and tough to get rid of, seriously seriously persistent (complete removal can take up to and often more than 5 years of concentrated efforts) and second, that it is edible, has a flavor comparable to rhubarb, and makes a mean piece of pie.  So naturally I had two immediate reactions: First, I should sign up for a site to try to do my part, and get rid of some of this stuff.  And then second, and perhaps more obvious, I should make a pie.

So today, first I walked the site that I "adopted" and learned that this time, I might have bitten off a bit more than I can chew.  This stuff is everywhere man, well maybe not everywhere, but where it is, there is a lot of it, and it's well established.  I walked the rail trail in Johnson today, from Parker and Stearn's just to the ball park, and in that short strip I found 4 large and established patches of Knotweed.  After that I checked down the bank at the back of the ball field, where the bank slopes down to the Lamoille River, and there I found a Knotweed forest the stretched almost the entire length of the park.  I don't have ARCGIS but I ripped off a little scrap of satellite photo from google maps (so thank you google, and please don't sue me!) and made myself a map of my little infestation, to help me keep track of what needs to be done (and maybe to recruit some volunteers...anyone wanna help?) so here's my map, complete with photo points, because I'm a dork, and I love this kind of thing and I haven't had the fortune of using this side of my brain in a long time!

(Click to enlarge)

Photo point 1: Patch of dried up stalks of last years knotweed (and plenty of hard to see new babies) on the rail trail facing Railroad Street and Parker and Stearn's

Photo point 2: Another patch on the side of the rail trail overlooking the park

Photo point 3: Patch of knotweed on the side of the rail trail abutting a private property.

Photo point 4: Patch covering both sides of the rail trail at the entrance to the park

And this ones not on the map, but its the patch from the last photo continuing along the drainage ditch on the other side of the road.

And finally, photo point 5: The bottom of the bank.

So there's that whole depressing story, hopefully I can do my part to cut these guys down to size.  Now on to more positive topics: Pie!  After my reconnaissance mission, I collected a few of these frightening looking stalks to bring home and clean and make a pie!  I used this fabulous recipe from Yankee magazine, which I of course edited slightly because I can't leave anything alone.  I used about 2 cups of peeled, chopped, knotweed, 2 to 2.5 cups of sliced strawberries, and one peeled, cored, and chopped pink lady apple (because it added extra volume, cut down on the strawberry costs, and allowed me to cut out a bit of the sugar) and here is a collection of photos of the resulting pie:

 

  Yummm!

And the hardest part of making this whole pie: not throwing the scraps in the compost (remember, these little buggers are invasive, and they'll invade your compost heap too!)  The pie was delicious, not as tart as rhubarb, a not unpleasing texture (I was concerned because the uncooked knotweed had it's "slimy" moments).  All in all I'd say it was a success!  

For more information about the problems associated with invasive weeds and best management practices for their removal, check out the Nature Conservancy's information page for Knotweed or their section on all of the Invasive Plants in Vermont.  And finally, a more comprehensive pdf of all of the different invasive plant species in Vermont is available here for free download.

On taking the FE and the importance of dog noses...

Big news:  My test, the massive, lengthy exam that has eaten up most of my free time for the better part of 2 months, for which I had to re-learn everything I learned in school 4 to 8 years ago and more, is now, as of Saturday, over and done!  This is fantastic!  Fabulous!  Wonderful!  This is freedom!  This is a little nerve-racking because I won't find out my score for up to 12 weeks, but at least it means the practice problems, review books, note-taking, and cramming is over for now; hopefully that means the math problem themed dreams will end too.  For the past week or so, I have spent my nights restlessly solving plume-dispersion equations, anaerobic digestor, and secondary clarifier problems in my sleep.  The night after my test I dreamt of struggling to solve questions that had been on the actual exam, and last night I dreamt of studying on some strange campus full of people that took the exam with me.

Last night was the most distressing dream of them all, because I was walking at night to a place to study and a friends dog had followed me.  In the dream the dog belonged to a friend that I knew, but don't know well in real life anymore.  While we were walking I kept trying to get the dog to go home, but she kept following me.  Just as we rounded a corner, a very big and angry looking dog came into view.  I tried to get my friends dog to come in another direction, but I was unsuccessful and the two dogs began to fight.  I was screaming and no one was around to help me, and right before my eyes the bigger street dog bit the nose off of my friends dog.  Now I don't just mean the little button nose on the end of a dog's snout, this dog removed the entire snout of my friend's dog.  I was screaming and crying and trying to get someone to help me, and people were just walking by, no one stopped to help.

That was a traumatizing dream, consequently I have spent almost the entirety of this beautiful (85 degrees...in April!) day worshiping my dog's intact nose.  I took her for a hike and watched her nose blow bubbles under water, watched it snuffle around in the leaves, and test the breeze for the scent of something to chase.  We brought a blanket outside and laid in the sunshine, she wiped her nose on my skirt and growled at some menacing leaves, and I just watched and appreciated her noggin in the sunshine.  It was a great day...and this is a great schnoz...

I've hit a wall.

I've had the wind knocked out of me.  I read my horoscope today and it told me this would happen, it literally said that the wind would be knocked out of me soon, but somehow I was still surprised.  I was at the dinner table with my folks, talking about my impending move and dreaming about purchasing a functioning stereo for my car, when I had the nerve to crunch some numbers.  Never a good idea, especially not when you've been keeping a blog called UNEMPLOYED in a small town for nearly 3 years now, but I plugged on, hoping I could find money in my budget to purchase an $89.99 stereo that would let me listen to my i-pod in my car.  What I found was this: I can't afford to leave home.

Lets briefly recap my life, for those of you know who don't know me well.  I graduated from college in 2008 with a degree in environmental engineering.  I turned down at least 2 standing job offers to join the Peace Corps because I "wanted to help people."  I moved to West Africa for 15 months, where I learned more from the experience than anyone learned from me, and was evacuated before my project got off the ground.  (It wasn't a complete loss though, my project inspired my local partners to continue with it even though I'm not there anymore...and I can say good morning in 5 languages!)  Evacuation from Peace Corps thrust me back into the now floundering US economy where I spent 6 months job hunting and eventually landed an AmeriCorps volunteer position that gave me the three things I thought I needed most in a job: student loan forbearance, health insurance, and a chance to pseudo-finish the 2-year volunteer commitment I had made to Peace Corps.  I did that for a year and had a fantastic time; I learned so much, I experienced so much, met so many great people, and I learned all about restoration and environmental conservation work and that went on to inspire me to alter my career goals from engineering to conservation and restoration.  After that I had an opportunity to drive back home to VT with a friend, and since I had no clear career plans where I was, I jumped at the chance to go on a two week road trip across the country with one of my best friends.  Half way home I decided I didn't really want to spend much time there, and neither did she, so she called in some favors and landed us a job in St. Thomas at a hotel.  Six months I lived down in paradise with some great friends and a decent job.  I enjoyed it a lot, but one thing that I struggled with and that eventually drove me to head home, was the lack of meaning.  I need to have a purpose, and I don't feel right unless I'm working toward something that I believe in.  So, once again, I packed my bags and headed for the frozen north, home to my folks, to regroup.  I've been at home since, working at a ski resort and trying to get my ducks back in a row.  I'm planning on staying here until my brother's wedding in June and then had fully planned on moving on, to something undoubtedly new and exciting and as of yet, undiscovered.

For four years now I have been a professional job seeker, adventurer, and often full time volunteer.  I have also been broke.  I never thought it mattered until tonight.  Money has never registered high on my list of priorities, I can live very cheaply when I need to and I am very proud of that.  Today though, I took a step back and looked at my life.  I'm 26 now.  I haven't been to a doctor, dentist, or eye doctor in over a year, I'm still wearing focus daily contacts that I bought a 6 month supply of 4 years ago and have made last until...now, I don't have glasses because I broke the pair I got before college a few years ago and haven't replaced them, I'm running in the same running shoes I bought 8 years ago, a lot of my clothes have holes in them, I wear leggings every day because I can't afford jeans, and there are at least 4 things wrong with my car that I'm just not going to fix.  My net worth, all I own, minus all I owe in student loans, is negative $20,000.

All of a sudden tonight, I realized that money does matter to me.  Not in the way that I thought it would either, the old clothes, beater car, and questionable optical practices don't bother me.  Mostly I just want to stop relying on the kindness of others to keep myself afloat.  I'm not a sponge, and I desperately want independence, because no one should have to pay for my choice to live this way but me.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I found myself crying in my pea soup at the dinner table tonight.  My poor parents, stunned to silence, just watched, with no idea what to say.  And what should they say?  We're sorry that you've selected this life for yourself?  We have let you live here rent free, utility free, even fed you, for the last 6 months (not to mention the first 18 years of your life), but is there anything else we can do?  We whole-heartedly supported you in all of your insane pipe dreams, we held our breath and our tongues when you boarded a plane for West Africa at 22, picked you up at the airport when you gave us 12 hours notice that you were being evacuated and would be on our doorstep the next day, we funded your road trip out on your random move to Cali for yet another volunteer job, we bailed you out when your shitty car crapped out on you in Cali, we sent care packages to you while you were playing in the virgin islands, and we STILL pay your cell phone bill, but how can we make this easier for you?

So when I put it like that I sound a bit ungrateful...but I think I have been a bit ungrateful.  It's not as though I'm irresponsible, I rarely ask for help when I'm not living at home, but I have taken this home for granted, and I have forgotten to be appropriately thankful for it. I have always had this place as my fall back, but I have forgotten to acknowledge how lucky I am to have that.  So tonight my horoscope has won, it said the wind would be knocked out of me and it was, but it also said I needed it.  It said that this would be a good thing, that I would learn from it and move on, no worse for the wear.  Well horoscope, I'm not usually a strong believer in what you have to say, but this week you hit the nail on the head.  I cried, I whined, I felt sorry for myself, I did all those things you are supposed to do when life slaps you in the face.  Now though, I know what my challenges are, I've had my setback, and I'm going to move forward, no worse for the wear.  I'm intelligent, I learn from my mistakes, I work hard, and there is no reason why I can't learn how to be a slightly more responsible version of myself.

So thank you, to everyone who has held me up, helped me out, and reminded me how lucky I am. Thank you to my parents, for doing all of those things, and listening to me whine about it all along the way.  Thank you to my brother, who has done so much for me over the years that I can't even begin to make it up to him.  Thank you to everyone who has ever been there for me when I needed them.  I am so lucky to have such wonderful people in my life, and I am so excited to get myself back on my feet and back out into the world, and to start paying back some of the favors that I owe.

I'm not giving up, I am going to move out.  I can't afford it now, but I'm going to make it affordable, because I'm an adult, and as tricky as it can seem, taking responsibility for your life is not impossible.  I'm going to take a deep breath, find a paying job to get me through the next few months, and then follow my dreams on my own dime.

“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” -Maria Robinson

(this is a repeat photo, because sunrises just make me feel so empowered!) 

Thanks for listening...well...reading.  

April?!?!

Wow...where does the time go?  How is it April already?  I haven't updated this in a while...and not for lack of trying.  I have like 7 drafts started, I just really don't have much to say these days.  I'm at home, I've pretty much been laid off from work, I'm studying for the FE (which is in 5 days!  eeeeek!).  On a more interesting note, I have been playing with photography a bit, in some new fun ways.  Cory suggested the possibility of pursuing photography as a business, and so I have been playing with the kind of photography people might pay for.  There are, of course, some of the usual puppy portraits and landscapes to share:

 My nosey Josey...

Bella-butt

Sparkling mountain streams...

And beautiful secluded meadows.

But then I have also been playing with portraits and editing...and for now, the only model I have to play with is me.  Sooooo as much as I HATE self portraits, I came up with a couple today to edit and share for practice...soon I will be taking some of some other, more interesting people.  Until then, there's me.  

 Me, in color.

More me, less color.  

These would be better if I had Photoshop, but of course I don't at the moment.  Anyway, that is what I have been up to...cooking, eating, studying, sleeping, and always, taking pictures.  Soon I'll remove studying from the equation and add MOVING!  Not sure where, or even how, but I'm outta here!  Thanks for your patience with my lack of posts...more to come soon, just as soon as my test's overrrr and done!  <3