TMI & a Conspiracy Theory to start your day off right...

November marks a few personal milestones for me: 4 months since I left New York, 4 months since I got mono, 4 months since I made-out with someone, 5 months since I’ve had sex and 4 months unemployed with no job prospects. I can’t decide which part of that list depresses me the most. It’s sort of a five-way tie at this point.

I think the whole “job thing” depresses me the most because once I get a job, everything else will fall into place. Behold my logic:
Job -> Money -> Move out of Parent’s House -> Ability to go out Guilt-Free and Afford Alcohol -> Meet Mad, Crazay Hawt Dudes = Sex. THEREFORE: Job = HI-OH!

There is one slight problem in this equation: I cannot physically get a job to save my life. Upon hearing this, most people don’t believe me and assume I’m just a lazy, drunk, blogger who doesn’t try. Which is only half true. Name a non-profit, government agency, design studio, marketing firm, law firm, architecture firm, college, gallery, museum or private company and I guarantee you, I’ve applied there. I have written an encyclopedia’s worth of bullshit cover letters sent out with my resume and haven’t gotten even one preliminary interview. Who do I have to blow around here to get an interview??? Because as God as my witness, I will!

By the way, I find it irritating when people tell you not to freak out because you haven’t been looking for a job that long. Not only is their entire point condescending, but they say it in this horribly judgmental way where you end up feeling like a complete asshole for being understandably stressed out:
Me: Oh man, I’ve been looking for a job for a while now, I feel like I’m never going to get one.
Friend: Umm Meg, you’ve only been looking for a job for four months. That’s really not that long at all. Some people have been looking for years. It’s really not a big deal.
Me: Oh good call. I’m such a pussy for being freaked out that I can’t buy my own food or afford to pay rent in a radically declining economy, which might become a Depression. My B*! LOLZ!

…Call me when you lie about where you’re going at night because at the age of 23, you still need your parent’s permission to go out, and then we’ll talk. In the mean time, shut your pie-hole. I digress.

I got a good design job in NYC pretty quickly after graduation, so you can understand why I’m slightly miffed that after another year of professional experience designing for a national entertainment magazine, I can’t even get my foot in the door at Kinko’s. My first thought was: maybe I’m just a straight up shitty designer. I can handle that. It’s concrete logic. And I embraced and accepted that logic until I met with six agents from Aquent last week that reviewed my portfolio and pretty much fell in love and went down on it. As psyched as I was that my portfolio got some ass, this meant I had to go back to the drawing board about why I can’t get a job. However, I think I’ve come to a conclusion.

This might sound slightly paranoid and neurotic, but…I think I’m part of a government conspiracy aimed towards avoiding massive layoffs by keeping an unnamed amount of people in a so-called “holding pattern” designed to ensure that they never get and therefore laid off, which would generate public outrage demanding an immediate solution because layoffs are ostensibly more disturbing to the public than an unrealistically tough job market where inability to get hired puts the blame on the candidate and not their government, thus avoiding said public outrage and solution.

AND I AM BLOWING THE WHISTLE! Hear me out…

When I say, “I can’t get a job,” it’s not in a “Dear Diary: I can’t get a job and Tommy is never going to realize I exist and ask me to the dance. And am I ever going to grow boobs like Sarah’s??” kind of way. No matter what job I apply for, whether it’s a Junior Designer or janitorial position, I never get an interview. As you know, I’ve ruled out my suckage, I know for sure that my resume is perfectly designed and grammatically correct and my e-mail is fully functioning. Thus, I believe that any e-mail I send containing a resume or cover letter is never actually sent out, instead blocked by the government. To test this theory, (and I’m not exaggerating this story for the giggle factor,) I sent out 20 fake resumes, which made me appear ridiculously over qualified for the position, while still being believable. I tailored my major and minor to whatever job I was applying for, enhanced my GPA and gave myself more honors and recognition than a Vietnam veteran missing a leg. And yet, four weeks later, I haven’t heard from a single one.

After that, I went one step further. I sent out 20 more fake resumes, but this time I applied online and checked off various minorities in the ethnicity box. I’ve been African American, Latina, a South Pacific Islander and my personal favorite—a Native Alaskan with Cherokee blood and a handicap. I realize this is unethical and probably illegal, but ethics are for people whose mother’s don’t analyze the fat content and carbohydrates of every meal they eat giving them an extreme complex. Plus, I have to take some risks to see if this really is a conspiracy.

And alas! Weeks later I haven’t gotten an email from a single possible employer. It’s obvious that I’m not a lazy ho, but rather a victim of a government conspiracy. And I want the Bush administration to know that my walls are COVERED in a networking web and I WILL find a job!

…Although I sort of hope I never hear back from anyone because it might be slightly uncomfortable to explain how Meghan Riverdance McPotatoFamine is Asian (despite the Irish name, fair skin and red hair) and served in the Gulf War at the age of five…