The Flight, Mrs. Mackey & The Goat

I went to a bachelorette party in Chicago this weekend. It was attended mainly by unemployed graduates of my law school. While I can't say that made me feel better, it was certainly more comforting than if they had all been employed but me. It wasn't super wild because we're all poor and depressed (except the bride, who seemed to have a great time, which is the whole point) but it was ok. I promissed to set this one girl up with this Harvard guy I briefly dated who's working at some BigFirm out there now. Because.... I apparently thought I was still in touch with him... I guess. Who knows. I thought they would be perfect together at the time though. She's unemployed and he's rich, and she's independent and he would obviously never be home. Perfecto.

The plane ride out there was the most miserable one day or less experience of my life. I'd had a touch of the sniffles for a couple of days, so I pumped myself full of nasal spray before I got on the plane just in case, although I'd never had a problem before. But now I have. Oh my yes. It started with a stabbing pain in my front left sinus, then both my ears simultaneously stuffed themselves shut with something most foul. I couldn't pop them at ALL. So for two hours I frantically opened my mouth as wide as can be and desperately tried to clear them out, with limited success. Then we started our hour-long descent into Atlanta (thanks AirTran, for sending me three hours out of my way!!!) That's when it occured to me that I was going to be deaf forever and I started crying. Eventually we landed and my right ear mostly opened up, but not my left.

I bought decongestants. I used more nasal spray. I relunctantly got on another plane bound for Chicago. When we started to descend this time, the pain was UNBEARABLE. I felt like I was being stabbed in both ears, up under the base of my skull, and down both arms. I started crying and called the stewardess, who said their was nothing she could, but that we would probably be on the ground within 45 minutes, and that it would probably "get worse." Awesome! So I spent those 45 minutes sobbing hysterically and yanking on my ears, while my fellow passengers looked on nervously and whispered about me. Although I was 100% completely deaf at that point, so I'm not sure whether they thought I was a terrorist or an escaped mental patient. I was honestly completely deaf, to the point where I couldn't even hear those xxxtra loud announcements they always make about your tray tables and whatnot when you're about to land. Mis-er-a-ble. And they're not even completely better yet. They hurt when I lie down and I still can't hear everything.

I could, however, hear the instructor we had today in training, who kept saying Mmmkay - I swear to God, and she even sounded just exactly like Mr. Mackey. If she hadn't bored me to absolute desperation, I would have peed myself laughing. She went soooooooo sloooooow over everything, and then went back over everything, and we had her for four hours, right after lunch. I was like thisclose to chewing my own arm off to escape. I'm not sure how that would have helped, but my deepest most primordial animal brain had taken over at that point, and it was insisting that chewing off my arm was the way to go.

I haven't heard a thing from Homeland "What Did We Spend It On? Certainly Not Your" Security, and I sent two emails last week asking what was going on, so I finally called today when I knew that post-dumb bitch would be out and asked to speak to her supervisor to find out what was going on. Apparently they faxed something or other to the Boston office to see if they would be willing to start me at a Grade 6, but at something higher than Step One. I don't even know why I'm pursuing this, but it just shaves my goat to think that they might offer the job to someone else before I have a chance to reject it, which I what I suspected was going on. And shaved goats are the angriest kind.

Homeland $ecurity Is Cheap As Hell

Based on my interview last Thursday, and the evidence previously gathered from the Exploding Car Tire Interview, I would say I'm pretty well obviously cursed in my job search.

On my way out the door Thursday morning, late already, I managed to lock myself out of my apartment and car. I did have my cell phone, but I did not have the piece of paper with the directions, name, and phone number of the person who was supposed to interview me. My landlady was on vacation, so I had to make Boyfriend come rescue me after I determined that I couldn't break down my front door like they do in the movies (see Exhibit A - huge disgusting painful bruise on hip and upper thigh), nor could I get in through the fire escape through the storm window, screen, and locked window, although I did briefly consider smashing through them all with a flower pot.

I eventually got back inside and called them 45 minutes after I was supposed to have been there. We rescheduled for 11. I arrived early at the building just in time for some sort of security lock down, which shut down the security screening point and the elevators and generally prevented me from getting past the lobby until I was 15 minutes late. Fantabulous I tell you.

At the interview itself, I found that rather than the paralegal position the HR department had described, they were hiring for something more along the lines of a... how do you say... not file clerk, because that sounds too important... they were basically looking for someone to pick up each piece of paper in Stack A and move it to Stack B for eight hours a day, but, like, totally worse. I was horrified. They made me admit to being a licensed attorney. I was ashamed. I gave one word answers to their remaining questions and got the hell out of there.

The thing that bothered me the most was that they might offer me the job. How on earth would I be able to choose between repetitive, menial drudgery (current job) and an $8,000 raise to perform, quite possibly, the worst job on earth (well, aside from ones that require one to gut things, although I did think about this for a while, and I do think it would still be worse than gutting, say, salmon, but still not as bad as maybe pigs and cows.)

Then, today, to my horror, HR called to offer me the job. And they offered it to me at a GS 6, which is one grade lower than what they had previously said I qualified for, which means it pays practically the same as what I'm doing now. Hmm... wretched job soul-suckingly comparable to wringing chicken necks knee deep in blood vs. job I already have that's comparatively not so bad. I think I'll pass on the figurative factory farming thanks. But I repressed my urge to laugh bitterly at the HR woman (who, btw, was dumb as a post - she honestly believed she had talked to me the night before because her clearly erroneous notes said she had - I had to tell her three times that she hadn't before she sort of believed me and told me why she was calling.) No, instead I said sure I was still interested, adn asked why I couldn't have my GS 7.

And so they are looking into it. She emailed to request that I fax my current yearly salary information. I wrote back that I don't have a salary since I'm essentially unemployed and have never really been employed before. I should have just said I wasn't interested right away. I cannot properly express to you how insulted I am that these cheap bastards are trying to offer me $3,500 less than they already told me I was worth for to demean myself in an office full of attorneys with real attorney jobs. This is a yuckity mess, my dears, from which I long to extricate myself most expeditiously.

Already Spent

Oh I also got my check from BarBri today. I'm converting that $125 directly into the Bar Dues I feel I shouldn't be forced to pay since I can't get a goddamn job in the field. And it doesn't even quite cover it. Yeah baby.

I <3 The Sixteenth Amendment

I have so much to tell you my dears, but I am so completely, utterly exhausted. I started my IRS job today. My drive took 45 minutes, and I was going about 75 virtually the entire way because it was 6am. We have got to hurry up and move in the next six weeks before I have to start getting there at 9:30, because my commute would double, and that would be entirely unacceptable.

Here are some of the things I retained from my 8 hours of orientation:

• They have their own set of secret police, with guns and everything
• During Prohibition, the IRS was apparently the big anti-liquor enforcement agency
• We have to back our cars in to our parking spaces to cut down on how many children we might potentially run over
• Paper clips, rubber bands, and office chairs can, and in fact are very likely to kill us.
  
• We can't spend our break time looking up how much our exes and/or celebrities made last year or we will get fired
• When we are drinking and driving and get pulled over, we are not supposed to threaten to audit the cop to get out of the ticket because we can get fired for it, despite the fact that they then spent an inordinate amount of time telling anecdotes about just how effective a strategy it is
• Without ever mentioning it, they passed out half a photocopied newspaper article about a guy in San Diego who shot a bunch of people at his office
• You can eat lunch for $3.05 in the employee cafeteria
• Treasury employees are unionized

It's a lot more like working in a factory that I envisioned. The union people scared me to death. They demand $25 a month. That seems like an awful lot, considering what we're getting paid. It also sounded like the only real reason people join is peer pressure, since you don't get any particular additional benefit from being a member.

My favorite part was when the woman kept admonishing us to pahhhk our cahhhhs backwards. She must have said it twenty times.

Today's News

I just found out that the stupid crappy paralegal job would start me at Grade 7 - this is exciting since the IRS has me at a 5. That's the difference between $14.85 and $18.40 an hour. It's also more than several lawyer jobs I've interviewed (and apparently not been qualified) for. Of course, as I have alluded to previously, I would be doing something fairly morally reprehensible. But it would be such a much easier commute. So now I'm slightly less annoyed that I have to miss half a day of paid training to go.

Tomorrow, speaking of things that are morally reprehensible, I have to go to the DMV to get a new driver's license and register my car in this stupid state. I'm taking a few hours off from my awful temp job and going in the morning in the hopes that the illiterate degenerates won't have had time to line up in front of me. So hopefully it'll just be me and the other unemployed uberlosers. The only catch is that I can't find my title. Do you think they'll just take it for granted that I own my car? Yeah, me neither. Luckily the dear, sweet state of Maryland, which I wish I could keep my cute little license plates from forever, will let me print a new one right off the internet. For a fee though. Stupid fees I can't afford! I shake my fist at you!!!

I just found out my next Spanish class is going to be just me and one other person. What do you think the chances are that this person is smart and cool and not some kind of nervous twitching super freak? Pretty slim I'd say. I got a voicemail from the school today and it sounds like they're condensing the class to 2 hours down from 3, which is kind of nice on the one hand, and kind of makes me feel like they're screwing me out of my money on the other. I've got to hurry up and get motivated to study before next Wednesday. I want to be the smart one going in.

Nanny Nanny Boo Boo

They can string me along. They can demean me. They can force me to work for nothing. But they can't keep me away from the tax code!

Oh yes, I'm going to be an Assistant Manager at my low-income tax center this year. Take that you nasty evil lawyers who won't hire me. I'm adding another line to my resume despite your best efforts. So pthhhhhhhhhhh :-P

My Weekends Suck, II

This weekend we put in the hardwood flooring in the attic. It took 16 hours. And I'm working with an expert. My job was to crouch on the floor over a chop saw and cut both ends off of about 4000 pieces of old, dirty, dusty, stanky wood. Some of them had 50 year old animal pee on them too, which added to the fun considerably. I'm horribly allergic to dust, and I'm also sick, so I spent about 50% of the time trying to stop the flow of snot, which was black with the aforementioned hideous dirty old wood shavings (sorry I had to tell you that, but I felt you should know) and 50% of the time trying not to chop off a finger, put out an eye, or leap out the window to end the monotonous drudgery. I cannot WAIT to get back to sorting checks at work tomorrow. At least I get to sit in a chair half the time at work. I hate manual labor. Hate!!!

On Friday I got a call from someone at the IRS about some other job I applied for there. As near as I can piece together, it's salaried, temporary, and in Boston. I've got to call on Monday to see what they want. I also scheduled my interview for that paralegal thing. Instead of doing interviews this week, which would have been overwhelmingly convenient since I'm temping right next door, they're doing interviews next week, when I'll be about an hour away from Boston by car. Not that you can reasonably drive a car into Boston, mind you, since people here can't seem to operate a car and their brain at the same time. The parking is also outrageously expensive near where I have to go. And, oh yes, the best part is that I'm going to have to miss a whole half day of my brand new other IRS job during my first week of training, because they only want to schedule interviews smack in the middle of the day (which I presume is inconvenient for everyone, not just me). When they told me the times I could pick from, I almost just told them to forget it, cause it's going to be so freaking inconvenient, it's not even a REAL job still, and I have suspicions that they don't realize I'm an attorney and wouldn't even consider hiring me if they knew. I still might cancel it. Someone tell me what to do. I apparently only make crappy job search decisions.

No Law For Me

I wrote to the state tax people to see where they are in their process. They wrote back to say that the other two people are their first two choices because they both have SIX OR MORE YEARS OF EXPERIENCE! What the fuck are these people doing stealing my entry level job from me??? Shouldn't they be off making partner somewhere??? This is so completely unfair.

And I'm going to have an interview with this other place for their paralegal position and they're going to be like "So why are you applying for this job? Don't you want to practice?" and I'm going to burst into tears because I DO WANT TO I JUST CAN'T BECAUSE NO ONE WILL LET ME! /sob/

Although that's not entirely acurate - what I really want is to go back in time and convince my past self to just go ahead and apply to the same awful, shitty jobs I'm applying to now, because at least then I would only be suffering the indignity of tearing out staples for 9 hours with a college degree, instead of with a law degree and $100k+ of fucking debt. Of course, past me wouldn't GET any of those jobs, because she would be underqualified compared to all the vastly, disgustingly overqualified people, like future me, who are stuck applying to the same shit because they can't get jobs in their field.

I haven't paid my bar dues yet. I think it's completely unfair that I should have to. On my way home tonight some asshole was screaming at me on the street to smile. I don't think I should have to walk around smiling right now either.

Sick & Tired

I've got a new temp assignment - the most menial to date! I'm in the accounting department of some kind of investment bank that's about to have its year-end audit done. They need someone to go to their monstrous file room, pull checks, take out the staples, photocopy them, staple them back up and refile them for 8 1/2 hours a day until its done. I told them I was an attorney right off the bat so they'd be a little more respectful than the people at the last place. They were horrified that the temp agency sent me to them. They must have apologized 15 times yesterday for how boring what I was doing must have been to me. Awesome.

In real estate land, Craigslist decided to be totally evil and administratively delete all my listings. This does not please me. They did the same thing to another guy at my office. I sent them an Esquire email to see what happened. You know...

Dear Blah,

What's up?

Love, X, Esq.

P.S. Esq. means I could sue you, so answer up quick, bitch.

I doublechecked all my ads and there's nothing illegal about them, so they'd better offer up a groveling apology, stat. Somehow though, I doubt that's going to happen.

So I've been applying to basically anything that sounds like it would be something I could do in state & federal government. I got an email yesterday offering me an interview for what sounds like a paralegal job at a Federal agency (I can't say which agency this time because it's embarassing - it's one of the evil ones.) It's year-round and one grade higher than the IRS thing, although it's something I'm less interested in (and maybe a little bit morally opposed to.) So we'll see how that goes.

Ugh. God. I don't want to go to work. This assignment sucks so very, very much. Plus I've got some kind of awful cold/throat thing. And I have to ride the filthy, dirty train. And my "comfy" shoes pinched my toes all day yesterday so now all my shoes hurt. Whine whine whine! Whine!!!

Horror On The 13th Floor

It's been two weeks now since my 3rd interview with the state Dept of Revenue. I haven't heard from them. My puny earthling brain keeps insisting that it's the holidays and it's the government, so it's reasonable that I haven't heard back yet. But my higher consciousness off on Nematode 5 knows that it's because they already hired someone else AGAIN and just don't have the common decency to tell me AGAIN.

Now don't ask me to explain why I would ever attempt to involve these people in my lives still, but I had also written to career services (which I know causes you all to scream Agh! No! Don't Go In There!!! all horror-movie style - and yes, they are actually located on the 13th floor, nice touch, non?) to ask for help in letting the state folks know that the Feds were interested to help them make the right decision and just hire me. I sent it to the general question email address they have in hopes of getting a faster reply. One of the ladies who used to work with me, back before I graduated without a job and became a total pariah that they normally try to pawn off on the part-time lady who sucks the most, wrote back right away and was like "Oh that's great! Call me and we'll talk about this!" Well you know...if I were in a position to be making phone calls during the day that would be great, but I wasn't because I was temping. I tried at lunch though, twice, and couldn't get ahold of her. Then I got an email from her on the 22nd saying "We're off for Christmas now for the next two freaking weeks but I'll try to call you from home." Yeah right. So that never happened obviously. So I'm sure by now I totally missed my chance to try to leverage this thing to my advantage since they probably made their decision within the first few days.

Thanks again CDO!!!