I used to laugh at the insipid columns The Chronicle always runs this time of year, the ones that feature overeducated Duke students whining that no one will hire them. But I'm not laughing anymore. I have now resigned myself to three facts (drum roll, please): I'm graduating in May, I don't yet have a job, and I'm writing one of those columns about the fact that I don't have a job yet.
It's all my own fault, of course. I could have had a job by now if I'd followed up on a single one of the pamphlets I picked up at the Career Fair. Consulting, PR, diplomacy-I could have cashed in on any of those.
But I didn't. Every job I considered was the equivalent of a one-night stand. Public relations was slick but not honest enough to spend several years with. Diplomacy seemed glamorous until I realized it entailed stamping passports in Bhutan rather than attending parties in Gay Paree. And Andersen (it was still Andersen back then) made my eyes dance and my head spin. But I knew that if I "hooked up" with a consulting firm, I'd wake up after my two years feeling a little guilty and not being able to explain why.
I had enough journalism experience to snag a hot job at a major newspaper. But I didn't like the daily grind, and being rejected by The Washington Post didn't exactly fire me up (no pun intended) either. So I decided to wait for the February magazine deadlines-which are passing me by even as I write this column. I have applied to several magazines, but I won't hear back from them until April. By then, I'll practically have graduated.
To top it all off, at some point last month, I realized I didn't know if I wanted to be a journalist for the rest of my life. I could see myself practicing the trade for the next three or so years, and I could see myself writing books at age 50. But there was this huge gap in between, 25 years of my future that I just couldn't visualize. I wanted to write; I knew that. But what on earth was I qualified to write about without more education?
After several weeks of hand-wringing, web-searching and neurotic, drawn-out dialogues with Mom, I decided I'd eventually go back to grad school and become a hominid paleontologist. (Not as random as it seems.) And I'd write about it-long, languid articles for Scientific American, op-eds on creationism for The New York Times, tightly packed textbooks with brilliant illustrations and even more brilliant prose. Who said I had to be a professional writer in order to write?
It's nice to have the rest of my life figured out, albeit for the 17th time. But this doesn't help much with the next three years, which I want to spend at a magazine-and not at a grad school. So I'm stuck where I started, with a great long-term plan but no clue as to the short term.
A friend told me last week that her roommate has a similar dilemma. She's got plenty of job offers, good ones, but she keeps turning them down. Right now her master plan is to go to New York and "see what happens." She's afraid of commitment-a player who schedules interviews instead of dates.
I've been doing the same thing in advance-I don't even let it get to the interview stage. I am, to continue the dating analogy, a flirt. And I think I've figured out why.
I know I'm not getting "married" to my first job. I hope it will be the beginning of something beautiful, but it may be just a summer fling. Regardless, it will go on my Permanent Record-a concept I never even believed in until now. I am terrible at making decisions, and this is a big one. So I've inadvertently avoided the decision altogether by limiting my choices. I am picky, picky, picky. It's not a smart strategy, but it's easy.
How do I live with all those missed deadlines, those one-night stands, those unfollowed leads? The same way I've learned to deal with wanting anything so badly I can taste it. I've convinced myself that in May, I may walk down the aisle committed to The One, the career I'll have, hold, love and cherish for the rest of my life. But even if I don't, I know that someday, my job will come.
In the meantime, I'll be waiting by the phone, just in case some dreamy employer wants to give me a... ring.
Mary Carmichael is a Trinity senior and executive editor of The Chronicle.
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