Sunday, September 5, 2010

I Love My Parents, I Swear

I told my parents about it. They were cool. My mom (of course) wondered if it had anything to do with the pictures on my facebook. My facebook has the highest security settings possible and is under a name that isn't mine. But she still emails me every other month or so telling me she wants me to clean it up just a little bit. Moms. I showed them some emails from my boss at NASA and an email I'd gotten from my "new boss" in which they'd both said very kind things about how they were sad not to have me anymore and that I had done great work. That calmed my parents down, and we let it sink in for a minute. We all said let out depressed sighs. Back to square one.

They explained that this just meant that now applying to jobs had to be my full time job. "We're your bosses now," my mom said with a little mom-ish chuckle. Ugh. I have to find a job right away because as much as I love my parents they are some of the biggest pains in the ass when it comes to job stuff. The world has changed a lot since they had to apply for jobs, and it's weird for them that smoke signals are no longer accepted as a legitimate resume. Also, they were both accountants which is like, a legitimate major that companies actually want, so their situations had been inherently different to begin with.

Can I really argue though? I'm living at their house, after all! UGH. I hate being in situations where I have no choice, considering I'm young and spontaneous and often the bad choices are the more fun ones.

Since I had nothing else to do that day, I started applying right away. I surfed indeed.com and idealist.com (both awesome for finding jobs). I sent out applications and cover letters to about to about ten jobs. As part of my new situation, my mom told me that I had to cc her on every job I applied to. "We believe that you're applying, it's just hard to keep it in mind when we never hear from you. CCing is so easy, anyway!" I told her I felt like a fourth grader and she told me to get used to it because that's what the working world was like. Ok mom, whatever you say.

That night I hung out with some friends, and one of them (Nathan) was in a similar position. I told them about losing the other job, and he said "Welcome to the Funemployed Club. It's a very exclusive club, and we're getting rid of members all the time." He told me about how he'd been talking to another friend of ours, Aaron (who was also in the 'club'), who'd said "I could kind of get used to this. It's not a bad deal. I wake up whenever I want, watch ESPN in the basement and eat cereal, occasionally pull out my computer to seem like I'm doing something. The other day I told my mom I had an interview but I actually just put on a suit and went to Starbucks for an hour." I realized my parents should be thanking their lucky stars.

When I got home, I checked my email and my mom had replied to every single CC with critiques about what I had done wrong. She concluded with an email saying, "You're not going to get any of these jobs. Do better tomorrow." Man, my boss sucks.