When I tell you "ambivalence is key", mf I mean it
I didn't know I was moving to Chicago until I realized I'd locked down a job with full confirmation that I was employed and had evidence to show the landleech. I got the lease signed two days before I moved states. When my parents and I got to the apartment to unload the truck, all the doors were locked. Even then I wasn't worried bc I at least knew where I was supposed to be.
"Searching" for employment is not a specific enough term to describe my job hunting period after college. I put in the effort of turning over one or two rocks and being like "There's no salary under this one either!" I knew like two or three websites that said they would secure be a place to work and when it appeared I was unqualified for everything because I graduated with a "Digital Storytelling" degree, which may as well have came with a minor in Creative Drug Abuse and a record of every semester I spent on the Dean [of Discipline]'s List. After ten or eleven instances of basically throwing my digital resume through the windows of people with car's more money than me, I stumbled across a teaching/tutoring job.
Didn't say which school, didn't say what area. Just said "Chicago Math Fellow". I hadn't taken a math class since senior year of high school, but if I could lock in a teaching position, maybe I wouldn't need to go back to school two more years if I come to my senses and bail on the entertainment industry. Teaching's always been my fallback. And this one was listed with a $20,000 salary and a $20,000 stipend. Factor in an additional $6,700 education award and I went "Shit, I'm gonna be making a little money if I walk into this school." They were the first job to get back to me, and the first time I talked on the phone to them I was informed that the salary and the stipend were the same thing. But it's okay because I get food stamps if I sign up.
Part of the appeal was that the employer was listed as an affiliate of AmeriCORPS, which was a company I'd heard spoken highly of by a girl I used to casually hook up who scared the shit out of me. They help you with student loans and allegedly would look particularly impressive on a resume. I thought I was starting my professional life off on the right foot.
Corporate zoom training is a fate worth bestowing on my arch nemeses (Ryan Morris from pre-school and his like). Seeing your direct supervisors supervised by their upper management overlords is so conflictingly fun and humbling at the same time. You get to see your bosses brought down to your same level, then you remember that if this is how they get talked to, they're automatically gonna speak to you even more condescendingly. Logging onto team-building sessions with people you hate. Bonding with other poor saps over how disrespected these circumstances are making you feel. Waking up at 7:30 to turn your webcam on and be talked to slowly. After two weeks we were finally placed in our teams and assigned our schools.
I'll pick back up tomorrow.