California, 2007

So. I’ve been in LA for a month now, and the only one to actually respond to my applications was a university, a hosting company and three recruiters.  University  called me in for an interview the week after I emailed in my resume (which come to think of it looks more like a CV). Haven’t heard from them in three weeks.

All three recruiters and the hosting company failed to respond after an e-mail requesting my salary requirements. What?

I’m not that expensive…

Tuesday night I spent 10 hours sending out resumes to fifteen ads.
Individualized cover letters for each one. Now I realize I should’ve
cut down my three-page resume to one page. Oh mistakes, mistakes… but hey. I wanted university jobs anyway.

So. Fifteen applications in a single night nets me a phone call the following day. It’s an agency, again, but this time apparently one of the bigger ones. They set an appointment, and we rent a car and drive off Thursday morning (more money down the drain).

It’s a temp placement agency. Temporary and short-term jobs only. The waiting room is filled with fresh college grads. There’s a couple of older people, but I am stuck competing with mostly twenty-somethings. Should’ve known - you move to the US, you shift careers, and your past doesn’t mean a thing. Zero credit rating. No previous jobs in-country.

Start from scratch.

And I get put through a set of standardized tests. I claim I am a Solaris and Linux administrator, and they give those tests to me. Thirty minutes later (for both tests) I am staring at my scores. I suck. I take tests with no preparation whatsoever (and I haven’t touched a # prompt in one and a half months) and I suck. The interviewer isn’t around when I finish, and the secretary sends me home.

Not good.

Me and my brother decide to hang out on the Santa Monica Beach pier for an hour or so. And then traffic on the 405 on the way home.

Two messages on the answering machine when we get to the apartment. Apparently the guy from the agency was looking for me after the exams, and he claims I "blew them away". Apparently, I’m "15-20 points above average".

Sniff. I am merely "above average". I suck.

Thing is, I’m on a clock here. Have to move before next month (this apartment is too expensive) but I have no idea where. I need a job before I can decide where to look for an apartment, and I need to find an apartment before my lease ends. My lease ends when I run out of rent money, and to get rent money, I need a job.

Something my sister said made me realize something.

This is punishment. This is karma.

I used to be a child prodigy. I learned to read before I was toilet trained. I breezed through school. Scholarships to high school, college, graduate school. Got a job I liked immediately after graduation.  Didn’t pay much, but it was walking distance from home. And I stayed with that job for eleven years.

I had lots of free time, I had lots of friends, and I had lots of fun.

I’ve had it easy for the last thirty-two years.

Now it’s payback time.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 23rd, 2005 at 10:41 pm and is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.