With all the news about the economy being in the toilet and people left and right losing their jobs (and unable to find new ones), I’m reminded of the personal recession I once experienced shortly after I graduated college, waaaaaay back in ’98.
I had just wrapped up my undergraduate “career” and finished with a degree in computer science, all during a time when the IT industry was BOOM-ING, BABY, OW! You couldn’t so much as turn without smacking right into an IT/computer related job. I had made the right choice for a degree, patted my back for a job well done, and at 21 years of age I was ready to take on the world and start on my way to becoming a buff, studly FBI hacker who would single-handedly capture Russian bad dudes with nary a few taps on the keyboard. The world was my oyster, baby!
Well…
One job interview went by. Then another. Then another, and yet no one got back to me. Soon I started getting rejection letters, and it wasn’t long before my post-college bravado gave way to concern, and then outright fear. I was going to job fairs, handing out resumes like candy, responding to newspaper ads, emailing companies, literally knocking door to door, and all I was beginning to show for it was a growing stack of rejection letters (which I still have by the way.)
What was I doing wrong? The industry was booming, I had picked the right field, the demand was high, and yet no one wanted to hire me?
One month became two, then six, then before I knew it a whole year had gone by and I was still gainfully unemployed. My relationship with my parents was really taking a turn for the worse too. At some point things got so bad between us that they eventually became convinced that I wasn’t serious about finding work, that the only thing I was really doing all day was playing games on the internet. So as punishment they took my speedy 28.8 dialup modem away.
There’s probably nothing more demoralizing to a 22 year old college graduate than to have not only his modem taken away, but access to a car as well (since my parents both worked during the day.) So there I was, with no access to the internet and no access to a car, and yet I was still expected to somehow find a job.
Their suspicion that I would only spend the day playing Battlezone 2 or surfing Usenet groups to argue with stupid Christians was totally unfounded too. Ok… MOSTLY unfounded. It said nothing of the fact that I was desperate, DESPERATE to get the holy FRICK away from my parents and get my own place so I could live my own life. You think they’d understand that ALONE was more than enough incentive for me. I wasn’t gaming all day long on the internet. I was trying to network, research and brainstorm ways I could find a job. Then when I needed a break, I’d play a round or two of Wolfenstein. What else could I do, really?
But still they locked up my 28.8 dialup modem in their bedroom before leaving for work every day, and my only means of transportation then was a 20 year old woman’s bicycle (with a flowery basket in front) that we kept on the porch. Thank God YouTubers weren’t around then to capture the comical display of me riding around in a suit on a girlie bike with a stack of resumes crammed in my basket. I never would have lived it down.
Most of the time when I wasn’t out riding into town and feeling really stupid about myself, I was left to twiddle my thumbs while I stared blankly at the wall, wondering why God hated me so much.
I think the first low point then was when I managed to get a part time job delivering flowers, only to get fired a week later when I asked to come in later than usual so I could go to a job interview. When they realized I had graduated college and was spending time going to interviews they figured I wouldn’t be around long term and fired me. My parents blamed me for it because I shouldn’t have said anything about a job interview, but I wasn’t street smart enough to know about these things. Their harsh criticism and the embarrassment of being fired from a florist delivery job made me hate myself more than anything. I thought I was the most worthless idiot on the planet. Everyone else was landing jobs left and right and here I couldn’t even hold on to flowers.
Eventually after some more time passed, I had an idea. My modem was still being locked away safe and sound in their bedroom, but one evening I had to go to the supermarket to get some groceries for my parents and borrowed the car. When I went to get the keys, I realized one of them was the key to the bedroom.
Hmmmmm….
I had a bunch of extra quarters saved up in a can somewhere, so I grabbed those up, got in the car and stopped by the hardware store.
“Yeah I’d like to get an extra copy of this key?”
“Sure, be a few minutes.”
I watched him as he forged a magical key that would unlock the mysteries of the kingdom. I dropped a bunch of quarters on the counter while he threw a quizzical look at me, as if to say “Are you so cheap you can’t even pay in bills?” but thankfully took them anyway and gave me change.
YES!
The next morning I cheerfully waved my parents off as they went to work, then waited a few minutes to make sure neither of them came back in case they had forgotten something, and raced to their bedroom door.
*click*
You could hear the angels singing as I unlocked the door and the light from outside shone into the room. I started looking around and quickly found my beloved dialup modem. I was in the game again!
The thrill of sneaking around like that breathed some new life into me, and I would spend the next few weeks making the rounds of unlocking the bedroom door, grabbing my modem and then going through my daily routine of job hunting, networking and whatnot before I ended with a fast game of Battlezone, then quickly returning the modem back into the bedroom and locking the door again when the timer I set for myself buzzed, signaling the time I needed to get off so I wouldn’t get caught redhanded.
Once my internet time was up, I would break out the Ragu pizza sauce I kept hidden in my room and use the bread machine we had to make pizza. We had the same equipment restaurants used to make brick oven pizza, and with it all I was turning pizza-making into an art form, even learning how to toss it up to spread the dough. It was truly my source of comfort and joy. I would take a few hot slices, head over into the living room and watch General Hospital so I could catch a glimpse of my dream girl at the time, Rebecca Herbst. The fantasies of getting snuggly wubsy woos from her and the exquisite tastes of my homemade pizza helped get me through some very dark times then.
You could have had my pizza anytime, baby....
I’m not sure if my parents ever figured out I had been able to get into their bedroom, but they must have been suspicious. One day when I was going through the usual morning routine of unlocking their bedroom, I stepped in and suddenly saw an empty seltzer bottle rolling around on the floor.
Hmmmmmmm… where did that come from?
When I picked it up and tried to get a read on where it had been before, I realized it must have been right behind the door. There was no way to avoid knocking it down when you opened the door either, and that’s when it occurred to me that it was placed that way on purpose. My parents had set up a primitive boobytrap to see if I was indeed invading their bedroom while they were away at work. If it hadn’t rolled around in my view the way it did, I might have never noticed it, and it would have made for a very awkward conversation that day.
Ah well.
I took the bottle and placed it upright again behind the door before leaving and locking the room.
And so it went, week after week, unlocking their bedroom, knocking the bottle down, and then putting the modem back and setting the bottle upright just before I locked the room up again. I felt like James Bond. Fitting that they would use an empty bottle for this too. They always did see the glass half empty. *sound of corny 007 music playing*
I think after a while my parents finally started to mellow out and realize I was indeed going through a hard time here. After about 18 months of job searching, I hit my lowest point when I was even turned down for a job as a cashier, but not before enduring three humiliating interviews where they put me through a psych test, a counting test, and a few other tests to determine my knowledge of all things cashier related. I got the rejection letter 2 weeks later.
That last rejection had me throwing up my hands in defeat and ready to jump off a bridge somewhere, but shortly afterwards a recruiter found one of my resumes in a databank, at long last leading me to my first full time job, 19 months after I graduated college. Finally, my recession had come to an end.
Of course I would soon be laid off 5 months later, but that’s another story. :-D
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You’re a great storyteller. I enjoyed reading this! Completely reminded me of my own parents, my boyfriend, friends, etc. and how hard they were on me. I had gotten a job as a flight attendant and was all excited about it. My boyfriend, at the time, kept hugging me and saying, “My little flight attendant…God, I’ve always had a crush on flight attendants…” And I felt so justified since he was a drop-dead gorgeous babe with an MBA from Xavier. Since I had no college degree, I always felt like a steaming heap of dung in his presence. But I lost my job after six months due to downsizing, lost my respect…all of a sudden he was disappointed in me, my parents were disappointed in me. It was a pretty miserable time.
Not to mention the financial hardships of living alone. I lived in an apartment that was as cheap as I could find – $400 a month. I was living in hotels for weeks at a time. Who wants to spend high dollar on a place where you only live a week or two a month? After I lost my job, I got turned down for unemployment for reasons unknown to me. I admit I don’t know much about the system because I don’t USE the system all that much.
Four months went by where I went nowhere, did nothing, couldn’t go out with friends – it cost money, couldn’t drive – gas was expensive, couldn’t go out to eat – too expensive. I bought lots of macaroni & cheese, bread, peanut butter & jelly and that’s literally what I lived off of for that time. I couldn’t call my parents or I would hear, “Found a job yet?” I stopped going to see them after my mom implied that I was an anorexic. I was at 87 lbs (literally, after being healthy at 107) and approaching being homeless if I didn’t find something really soon, but my scary, gaunt appearance made fast food joints not even want to hire me. Eventually, when the money ran out, I had to notify my landlord that I couldn’t pay my lease. They told me I had a week to have my stuff out. My boyfriend told me to move in with him, though neither of us liked that arrangement. I was able to get healthy enough to find another job waiting tables. A year later, I finally found a real estate position and moved on.
I sympathize with those jobless, right now. It literally feels like you’ve been castrated…or that you wear a big “I’m an an idiot who can’t hold a job” sign around your neck. However, I guess those going through the recession, right now, at least sacrifice a small bit of personal dignity knowing that it’s nothing personal – everyone else is going through it, too.
@Barbie: I think for both of us we should be grateful that such experiences are behind us rather than in front of us. I have the blessing of being in a recession proof job so that I have the luxury of waiting in ease until a better one comes along. :)
FBI? Do you have anything to do with FOIA?
@Vince: Nah, but that’s quite a leap though from the feebies to the FOIA.
there is something to be said for good taste and smarts.
I actually mad a funny at the local custard shop after I had graduated… ‘Well I could work here’… the guy said ‘not really- your over educated.’
The tuff part is being smart and honest; that just doesn’t seem like qualities [general] employers look for.
I had an ‘interview’ with a law office and having had an appointment time to work with I sat there wondering why I had to wait more than a half hour. Finally the assistant came to the front office and introduced her self and said follow me; as she turned around I noiced her long blond hair was tucked inside her shirt (like it had just been put on)… it was 3 in the afternoon…
She must have never heard the saying ‘You don’t get your meat where you make your bread.’
@Annie: I love the over-educated excuse too. Over-educate THIS dweebs.
True that however when I seen which agency you worked for I had to ask. I lost my properties I beleive due to being blacklisted. It was either DC or the FBI. I had an affilliation with another agency. In business you meet people and learn things and I on a number of occasions went above and beyond. But I also ruffled some feathers. I am going to file a FOIA to see what lies are out there.
I don’t work for the feebies, that was just the dream I had when I graduated college. I might end up working for the feds though once I rework my resume and submit it to the OPM database (though I’d have to apply to the FBI separately).
I submitted an FOIA request once before, and though it took about a month or so, they were pretty good about it and sent me a ton of information.
I’m still wondering if going to school was actually a good idea or not; people (here) don’t seem to want to hire smart people. It kind of takes away the opportunity to take advantage of the employee…
This does not give me hope for when i graduate!! :(
You’re going doooooooooooooooooooooooown!
Nah, just because I went through what I did doesn’t mean that’s your future as well. :)
No no- have hope; Times like these call for creativity.
And it would help me if I wasn’t old enough to have ‘that look’ in my eyes. The look of not taking crap from anyone because I, personally, have been through the mill twice at this point and it is a little tricky to suppress the ‘Bull $hit’ sensor when it goes off.
Have hope, faith, a good attitude, a heaping handful of patience, and a decent sense of humor…