This blog was originally published on Xanga March 26, 2013.
Hey
Xangans! Both on and offline, I have discussed how ridiculous it has been trying to find a job a lot throughout the last 7 years.
The last time I worked was 4 1/2 years ago. Throughout my early
to late 20's, I have struggled to find temporary to permanent work.
Growing up during the 1980's and 1990's, I was ALWAYS told "Stay in school, don't
be a fool," and if I attended college, I would be wealthy, have a
better career, and an education.
Well, here I am at 30
going on 31 years old. My BA is in Asian Studies and my Minor is in
Creative Writing. I attended a prestigious college YET have little to
show for it.
My chapbook is bound at a
supposed Mid-Western "Ivy League College." That same college has also been
listed in The Princeton Review.
Nevertheless, my student loans have been
in deferment, since graduating in 2006. I was supposed to study abroad in Japan my college senior year but fell ill, during my last semester. I purposely attended college to pursue
a career in Writing and Japanese Consecutive Translation.
In
6th grade, I was introduced to Japanese and took it, throughout
7th-12th grade. During all 4 years of high school, I earned Achiever's
Awards for taking Japanese. Our Japanese teachers considered me to be the
"star pupil" of Japanese classes.
In addition,
classmates had a great resentment towards yours truly for always getting 3
Japanese Awards each year and for usually breaking our classroom's
curve. They nick named me "The Curve Breaker" for this very reason.
That's not including being a female of color.
Before
graduating, we regularly translated English to Japanese and vice versa.
Because I was 1 of 2 classmates with the ability to translate both
languages, I considered pursuing a career in Translation. Then, I
thought about how much I enjoyed writing poems and short stories.
Eventually,
I researched colleges, which offered degrees of my personal interests.
There were several colleges 12 years ago, offering Japanese and
Creative Writing.
After conducting additional
research on these specific colleges, I realized that most of those
institutions annually ran ~$30,000 for tuition and fees. This made me
feel hesitant.
My mother didn't have money to put me
through college. This led to me applying for financial aid, which
allowed me to take out student loans and grants. I never wasted time
applying for scholarships.
Besides the fact, that
students can easily lose their scholarships all because of a slightly
dropping grade point average, I didn't want to be like all the other entitled students, depending on scholarships to get into
college.
It was already outrageous enough constantly hearing racist stereotypes and jokes about minorities getting into
college because of Affirmative Action and for playing Sports. Instead of doing any of that, I took baby steps.
To get better acquainted with college, I attended a 2-year community college (MATC) for 1 year my college
freshman year.
Then, I transferred to
my first 4-year college, which was UW-Parkside located in Salem, WI. Originally,
the university claimed they offered Japanese.
After transferring to Parkside, Admissions told me that I could take Japanese at Carthage, which is literally 5-10
minutes away from UW-Parkside.
If Parkside did not claim in their course catalog, that they offered Japanese, I would've completely transferred to Carthage anyway. This led to me doing the Cross Registration Program.
There was a grandfather's
clause between both UW-Parkside and Carthage College.
As long as the
student was enrolled full-time with at least 12 credits, the same
student could freely attend the other college for additional credits.
Fundamentally,
I juggled two 4-year colleges at once and attended 3 colleges
within the same year; I started college at 19 years old and was on my
3rd college at 20.
Shortly after transferring to both
UW-Parkside and Carthage College, I became a College Radio DJ/Hostess
for my own radio show, All Things Frightening. I wanted to be a DJ,
since 14 years old. Luckily, that dream position fell into my lap.
While
doing my laundry in UW-Parkside's Ranger Hall Dorm, I met this guy in the campus
laundry room. He told me, that he was a Radio DJ searching for a "Special
Guest Co-Host" for his show. Gradually, I took him up on his offer to be
his "Special Guest Co-Host."
Then, he made me fill
out tons of forms, before co-hosting. His radio show was more of a
Sports Talk Show with periodic music. If you're not a Sports fan, you
would've thought it was extremely boring.
Eventually, I
started complaining on the air. I cannot remember all my exact words 11
years ago, but I remember saying something along the lines of, "Dude,
why don't you play Fear Factory or something? All this talking about Sports is boring me to tears!
Zzzz!"
His regular co-host was almost in stitches LIVE
from laughing at me on air. I was bored out my mind and I didn't care
about any Sports discussion. Gradually, they started playing more music.
After
their radio show ended that night, I received a phone call 1 week
later, on my dorm phone. The manager wanted me to attend a radio station
meeting. So, long story short, I became a Radio DJ/Hostess.
At that
time, it was SO unreal. I was living 1 of my 3 dream jobs. It would've
been so MUCH better, if UW-Parkside's campus radio station went full power
because we could've been paid. Being a Disk Jockey was labeled as
"Voluntary Work" on campus.
Considering, that we were required
to know how to work radio station equipment and censor music live for FCC
regulations, we SHOULD'VE collected a paycheck.
I had a college friend
that same year at Parkside, who was paid to be a nude model for $12 an
hour yet we weren't paid to know how to work radio station equipment.
Being
a Radio DJ/Hostess at Parkside had its advantages and
disadvantages. It was cool having total access to a music
library of old and new releases, playing songs from any music genre(s) and
sub-genre(s) I wanted uncensored and LIVE after 10 pm was fantastic. This included albums premieres, as long as they were either pre-censored albums, or censored on air before 10pm.
Sometimes
I ended up hosting DJ Madness, which was during Safe Harbor Time. Safe
Harbor started at 10pm and we could play uncensored music. Because
songs were being heard both locally and online, we had to censor them.
DJ Madness was usually, when all the DJ's partied at the radio station,
co-hosted, and played uncensored music. Sometimes we ordered in pizza
from Papa John's.
On the other hand, my personal disadvantages started outweighing my advantages. I later had to listen to horrible demo tapes.
Being
objectified, battling sexual harassment, sexism, misogyny, overblown
male egos on the job, post 9/11 racism, and 2 creepy manwhores stalking
me around Parkside's campus led to me withdrawing from UW-Parkside 10
years ago. The post 9/11 racism and stalking especially hurt my housing
situation.
In order to regroup from being stalked and the post 9/11
racism, during the first 25 days of my original 1st
semester of my junior year, I HAD to withdraw from not only UW-Parkside, but also Carthage College.
Within days, I re-applied to other colleges. I dealt with my fair share
of rejections from grandiose and pretentious institutions. Later, it
dawned on me.
Since I was already a part-time
commuting student at Carthage College, I already had an academic
standing. This led to me re-applying. Luckily, I was able to convert from a
part-time Carthage commuting student to a full-time on campus student.
After
transferring again, I failed to assimilate. Parkside had students
attending from all walks of life. Meanwhile, Carthage consisted of a few
townies, foreign exchange students, and mostly pretentious, new money,
and extremely entitled, trust fund brats from IL with grandfather's
clauses.
Carthage College originated in Carthage,
IL. During the 1960's, Carthage relocated to Downtown Kenosha, WI. I felt as
if I was in those John Hughes '80s Teen Angst films like The Breakfast Club and
Pretty In Pink, my last 2 years at Carthage. That was how sickening most
of the student body was on that campus.
I only miss the cuisine meals, fast food restaurants on campus, very few professors, and meeting comedians and public figures.
The classism and struggling to assimilate at Carthage College made my chances to be hired for campus jobs more difficult. Enduring Baby Boomer white women for gatekeepers working in HR and privileged trust fund brats being immediately grandfathered into working on campus because their family previously attended Carthage was a losing battle before getting started.
Other
students I personally knew, including my high maintenance
drama queen of a roommate monopolized ALL the student jobs. She alone already monopolized 5 of the campus jobs, when I couldn't get 1 simple job.
She
had a 3.99 GPA, double majored in Music, collected disability, grants,
and scholarships. This was along with graduating with Honors. She's also
white.
Several months before my personal health scare,
during the 1st semester of my college senior year, I applied to be an on
campus Tour Guide.
While on my way to a class or buying something to
eat, alumini from The Silent Generation, at least several years or so older than my grandparents CONSTANTLY stopped me for on
campus directions to certain buildings.
Otherwise, I was usually the only student on my way to either shop inside our campus bookstore, or to a restaurant, if not going to an office for something.
Some would
assume by the time a student became a senior, that he/she would have
seniority over student positions. That was NEVER my situation.
I applied
to be a Tour Guide only to be snubbed and overlooked for a freshman.
WHY WAS THAT?
Because her mother was a Carthage sorority sister decades ago, she was automatically
grandfathered to work at Carthage College.
Based on what I have already
told you, I am constantly being overlooked for jobs. It never fails. Regardless of my
race/ethnicity, gender, qualifications, etc, I am not the only person
suffering from these exact same problems.
We can
continue blaming who's the president at the time and the economy, until
we are blue in the face. The overall problem is women working in HR. THEY are the gatekeepers.
Whenever
I read job classifieds in the newspapers and apply for jobs on and
offline, these employers have unrealistic expectations and job
requirements. I always read the Clerical position ads from companies and
they usually want candidates to have 2+20 years work experience and a
GED.
I am amazed by employers at some companies
expecting their candidates to know how to use Powerpoint, have a GED,
and 2+20 years of work experience. They also expect someone to work at a
job, which only pays $7.50-$8.00 per hour. Seriously?
Their
expectations are just as bad as a woman dating some bad boy from the
trailer park or the hood and expecting him to miraculously have a Ph.D.
Then again, what am I talking about? Those ARE the same people working in HR, right now!
A lot of companies especially run scams and feed us unemployed people bogus lies. Some
of you would be absolutely amazed at the number of job interviews I have attended for certain
positions.
I get ready for a Clerical job interview or something else (depending on the ad). Suddenly, that interview later becomes an interview for a completely different
position than what they advertised.
The
last "interview" I attended was supposed to be for a Receptionist
position, last December. That same company sent me an e-mail about my
so-called "group job interview" being scheduled in the evening for a
"Promoter position."
I really loved that they
included in their message, "IT'S NOT A SALES POSITION. IT'S A PROMOTER
POSITION." That line was a total lie.
Anyone with some common sense
knows, that promotions is a part of sales. I called and e-mailed them
several times. They would NOT give me a straight answer.
I
ended up going to the supposed "group job interview." It was nothing
except a group meeting, searching for Door-To-Door Canvassers.
I told those
morons, that I applied for a Receptionist position, as they sat there
with their dumb ass facial expressions.
The "meeting" was
so preposterous that 2 of the men, who originally sat next to me ghosted without me noticing. There were also 2 girls, who literally ran
outside the building, and another guy walked outside the building with a
disgusted look on his face, while complaining on his cell phone.
So, my fellow Xangan friends, viewers, and subscribers, has any of this ever happened to you?
