All Quiet On The Working Front
I wish I could say that I just rescued a puppy from a gun-wielding panther or found a large patch of marijuana while trail-skipping, but it’s been kind of slow around here lately. One medium funny thing did happen—I dropped out of grad school. This in itself is not really all that interesting as my life as an aspiring proletariat isn’t much different from my life as an aspiring master. When you own no textbooks, never attend class, and enrolled in school only to be able to say, “I’m in graduate school,” you don’t really feel like a student so much as a creep for only venturing to campus because there’s a lot of shade and the girls are cute. Here’s the medium funny part: you have to write your reason for leaving school on your withdrawal form, and as, in the words of my grandmother, “the dumbest smart person around,” I wrote, “I’m quitting because school makes me want to kill myself.” I turned in the form at five o’clock the Friday before Labor Day, when, presumably, everyone had left for the weekend. I’m guessing that someone glanced at my form on the secretary’s desk and made a phone call or two, because an hour later, the DEAN called me. It’s a strange experience to explain to a college administrator that if anything made you want to bake your brains in the nearest hotbox, it would have to be way more interesting than school.
Now that my formal education has come to an expensive and unsuccessful conclusion, I’m in the job market. I haven’t had much luck, which is surely more the symptom of North Carolina’s 11% unemployment rate than my absolute lack of experience and/or references. I’ve had to get a little creative with the job search, like sending, for instance, the following email to a local roasting house:
Dear [Redacted],
I realize that there are no job openings listed on your website, but
I’m hoping that you might have a secret one stashed away that no one
knows about yet and you’re waiting for the perfect person to come
along. I worked in coffee for a long time and left when school
seemed like a good idea. After realizing that school makes me wish I
had gone into roof-tarring, I want to go back to work and I want to
work at a place where people are happy to be there. [Redacted]
seems like it might be that kind of place. I’m good at a lot of
things including, but not limited to, sweeping floors, scooping beans, and
breathing underwater.
Love, Katie
I actually got a response to this, which went something like, You’re funny. Maybe we could talk. Send a resume.
My response:
Dear [Redacted],
Indeed, I have a wide array of resumes. The one attached is a
conglomeration of the professional jobs I’ve had in the past few years
as well as some of my coffee shop work.
An unimportant but amusing side note: Java Sutra was a high-end
espresso kiosk in Portland’s Range Rover-driving, doctor-residing
shopping neighborhood. I mean high-end in the track lighting, maple
counter tops, $15,000 espresso machine way. The business plan was pretty abysmal,
mostly because it rains in Portland all the time and people weren’t
exactly jumping out of their BMWs to stand under a four-inch awning to
get an Americano. The coffee, however, was… interesting. It was
infused with Macca, a Peruvian root that allegedly has an amorous
effect on the drinker. We weren’t in business for very long. I guess
people don’t what an aphrodisiac with their morning coffee. Who knew?
Love, Katie
Shockingly, I didn’t get a response to this message, so yesterday, I sent the following:
Dear [Redacted]
Fine. I get it. You’re playing hard to get. I know how it works.
You give a little, I give a little, you ignore me. Or maybe you
Googled my name and found out about the whole Unicycling Under the
Influence thing. (Kidding. My record is clean, both legal and Google.)
Or maybe you checked my references and found out that it’s all
is lies and my only actual employment was at Taco Bell when I was 16.
(Also kidding, although that was my first job. It lasted until I
realized that there was no grill out back—roughly three hours. This
is not, however, a reflection of my work ethic. I’ve really grown
since high school.) All I’m saying is that I’m a little hurt. I thought we
had a good thing going here. You and I could be very happy
together.
Love, Katie
Again, no response, and the only person who fully appreciated this, er, cover letter, was my friend Melanie, but she walks her cat on a leash. In Harlem.
