In April: Parent: Lazy child--go out and get a job! Me: *has been applying to and handing out resumes since January--when I was still in University in another city*
In October: Parent: Where's my dinner? Fetch my socks! You don't have a job so the least you can do is pitch in around the house! *sayeth the one that's been sitting on the sofa tanking an Asian Drama for 7 hours straight* Me: *has to leave for a 3 hour training shift at a fast-food restaurant--literally the only place out of hundreds to give me both an interview, and a chance to train and work* There's not enough time. Make your own dinner--if I don't leave now, I'll be late. Parent: That's not even a *real* job! Don't be so up-tight about it--be late!
It's sad that I'm not the only one of my friends going through this right now. We graduated from University and went back home to different cities so we can only support and encourage each other through IM and whatnot. None of us got a celebratory party or anything for graduating. Heck, most of us skipped Convocation 'cuz we couldn't afford to travel back to our universities or rent the regalia etc. My "celebration" was me busing out to the mall and buying myself DVDs of the movies I had missed in favor of crushing my final semester. My degree still sits in the envnelope it was mailed to me in, sitting in a corner in the document pile. My friend got a celebratory dinner--a dinner where her dad commented countless times on her not having secured a job yet, of her not having any income at the moment, of her having nothing to be happy about or something to celebrate 'cuz she didn't have a job.
Most of my friends and I have jobs now--fast-food, daycare, etc. Our parents and their circles of friends aren't shy about telling us that we're 'not aiming high enough' and that we 'have a degree--you shouldn't be applying for something like fast-food'. They tell me to go for reception or secretarial jobs. They tell me those are the only offers I should be accepting. Newsflash, bigotted assholes: there are no such offers!
I landed a few interviews for receptionist-style jobs. The want-ads said 'entry-level position' and all that was listed under their qualifications was that the applicant had to be older than 18 years of age.
That interview was one of the most humiliating experiences of my life. They liked the fact that I had a high GPA and a degree to my name, but they didn't take me seriously. "Where's your experience?" "Why should I hire you when you haven't done reception for another company?" "How do I know you're not just going to take off to do school after we train you?" I have a degree--I'm done school. I don't have reception-experience because this is the first receptionist job I've ever applied for (and your ad, which you proudly claim was typed out by you, personally, clearly stated that this was an entry-level position with no prior experience necessary). I have experience--5 years of it working for my University and the year I took off to earn money for university. If you count volunteer experience, I have 2 more years of that under my belt too. Honestly, if they weren't planning on taking me seriously or seriously considering me for the position, they shouldn't have bothered scheduling an interview with me. Every complaint they had about my lack of experience or whether or not I was honest about being done school was on my resume. I had all of my experience listed, as well as the time I spent in each position. I had a cover letter that was optimistic and clearly stated that I was done school, looking to gain work experience, and that further education was an idea for the future, but not something I'd be jumping into immediately. If they had bothered to look at my application for three minutes, they would have saved me the time, effort, and cost of transport to get to their place and be humiliated.
Going out anywhere or being around anyone was humiliating. Going to church, every conversation is the same every single week: Person: Hey! Haven't seen you in forever! Where've you been? Me: I've been away at University. Person: Cool, cool. So, you're back now? Me: Yup. Person: Found a job yet? Me: Still looking. Person: Good. Next week: Person: Hey! Found a job yet? Me: Still looking. Person: Good. *repeat every week until September. Conversations after the start of September: Person: Hey! You're still here? When does school start? Me: I graduated. I'm looking for a job. Person: Congrats. So...found a job yet? Me: Still looking. Been looking since January. Person: What are you looking for? Me: Anything. Person: A friend of mine is looking for people to paint their fence for them before the snow hits. Me: Sure, I'll contact them. Thanks! Next week: Person: Hey! You're still here? When does school start? Me: I graduated. I'm looking for a job. Person: Congrats. So...found a job yet? Me: Not yet. Still looking. I looked in on the paint job your friend mentioned. Person: You have a degree! You shouldn't be painting fences! Aim higher! Eventually: Person: Hey! You're still here? School started already, didn't it? Me: I graduated. Person: Congrats. So...found a job yet? Me: Yeah, I'm training at [Fast Food Chain]. Person: Why are you applying to fast-food? You have a degree! Reception, think-tanks, Non-profit organizations--look downtown! [Fast Food Chain] isn't a *real* job. You can do better. Don't waste your time. The good opportunities will pass you over if you're going to cheapen yourself to fast-food.
It's often the same person/people that I have these conversations with every week. People that don't bother remembering that I'm looking for a job or that I graduated. They're the ones that start a conversation with me. On top of that, the only thing they can think to ask or talk about is whetehr or not I have a job yet or what I'm doing now. At some point, it gets to be a really anxiety-inducing topic. I graduated in April--ideally, I would have had a job interview or two set up in February. Ideally, I'd be training to work somewhere in May. Come June, the job-topic should be taboo. If someone has a job, then yeah they are going to talk about it. If they don't, don't ask. Considering you didn't bother remembering that they've graduated, you're not going to bother remembering if they've landed a job or not--so stop asking! It's a really triggering topic for some people. It got to the point where I actually don't want to go to church anymore. I want to listen to the sermons, but I don't want to deal with the stupid conversations with people that honestly don't give a damn about me or what I do. They didn't bother to remember I graduated despite being reminded of it for more than four months. Asking a young person whether or not they have a job should be taboo because it's a really upsetting topic for a lot of people right now. Our newsfeeds blow up whenever a 'young person' commits suicide over being unemployed and all of us are terrified that one day that headline is going to be us.
Nobody applies to work in entry-level fast-food if they have options. Most of my friends and I only started applying to them after all of the reception and non-profits declined us for our lack of any work experience. Most of us didn't have means to go downtown to get to those jobs even if we had it. They expect you to show up to work at 5:30A and transit doesn't start running until then. Most of us don't have cars or licenses 'cuz we can't afford them. With no other options, we have a degree, but we're in the same boat as High Schoolers except for the fact that we have debts and we're no longer covered by our parents benefit plans.
Home and home-communities aren't safe spaces for a lot of us anymore. We're berated multiple times a day for not having a *real* job, whatever the hell that means. The worst part is that the people berating us for it have never had to work fast-food a day in their lives. My friend's dad graduated from a polytechnic school and claims that his first job ever was a job in his field--he walked into some construction firm, demanded to see the 'man in charge' and said 'here's my certification. Hire me.' and he was hired. So he claims, anyway. Another friend's older brother who lives away from home still comes back every other weekend to "spend time with the family" and he's always up in her business and calling her a failure. He's never worked an "entry level position" in his life. His first ever actual job was after he got out of University. He had a high enough GPA that companies doing head-hunting were sending him offers to pay for his tuition and whatnot if he'd work for them for a few years. He landed a 9-5, salaried office job as an IT guy the moment he graduated. Minimum-wage was never a thing for him and here he is sneering at his own sister for struggling to land a minimum-wage job.
You don't understand what other people are going through. Just because you lucked out and got a job in your field, it doesn't mean everyone gets that. My friend hates it when her brother comes home because he and her father gang up on her--telling her off for working minimum wage, screaming at her that this is not the way to becoming independent. Brother pays a mortgage and father owns the house she's staying in and both of them tell her that she's an 'adult' and should have a salary, a car, and an apartment of her own to her name. She graduated just a couple of months ago and only three places of the hundreds she applied to bothered to schedule an interview.
I'm worried about this friend of mine with the shit-for-male-relatives. I've known her for a long time and I know she has had brushes with suicide in the past. She's my best friend. If it were financially feasible right now, I'd want to get an apartment and enter roommateship with her. I don't want her having to listen to this demeaning bullshit at home all the time and at church (we both go to the same church and deal with the same conversations. She helped me write them for this post). It's not feasible right now. The last thing either of us wants is more debt. We're super anxious each time our phones ring right now, wondering if it's a scammer or if it's our minimum-wage jobs calling to tell us our next shift ('cuz literally, we could be told our asses have to be at work in 6 hours and neither of us knew before then).
To all our family and acquaintances--we know our lives are shitty, stop rubbing it in. I don't say "friends" in the above, because right now the only people we consider friends are the people that can relate, or at least the people that are decent enough not to comment on our shitty lives. Honestly, the only reason I haven't become the next suicide headline is because of these friends. I haven't done it yet because I'm holding onto the idea that if I keep working at this craptacular fast-food chain it'll become financially feasible for me and my friend to get an apartment together. Two-bedroom would be preferrable, but if one-bedroom is all that's feasible, we'll convert the living room into a bedroom or something with curtain partitions.
To anyone reading this this that is in a similar, toxic, undesirable situation: I will not lie and say it gets better because I don't know if it will get better. There's an idea, a dream, and a hope that things will get better for my friends and I if we can make a roommateship happen. We're holding on for that dream but things could very well end in tragedy for one or both of us. If anyone is out there, traumatized by toxic relatives or acquaintances that just don't know how to keep their damned mouths shut, look to your friends. They are people you choose to interact with. They are your family-by-choice. They are the people you want to be with and want to converse with, not the crappy relatives you were born to and had no choice in, and not the nosy, pesky acquaintances that decide to stir the pot and not be helpful. Find your friends. Support and encourage each other. Times are tough and you're all probably going through nasty things. Take care of each other, check up on each other. Listen to each other because the thing none of us wants is to hear that a friend committed suicide and it may have been preventable if we had just bothered to send them a "hey, how are you?" message or decided, "screw it--lets go into debt together and get the hell out of these toxic families".