Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. It has been…months since my last story.
A million apologize for that, but in April I made a big decision and, to quote the Fresh Prince, “my life got flipped, turned upside down.” I quit my job, turned in my minivan full of candy, and moved to Atlanta. Then, there was that joyful process of buying a car, some time spent reacquainting myself with my family (from 6 years of living 250+ miles away to living across the hall…it’s been a rocky re- acquaintance to say the least), and my life since has been devoted to finding a job. I can tell you from my daily pursuit in the world of online unemployment that there are WAY too many blog posts out there already about job hunting tips, bitter unemployed people complaining about the lack of jobs, and 20-somethings bragging about how they found a job and promoting the “self-help” book they published on the topic. Needless to say, I didn’t have a lot of fresh material…until my friend got involved in a pyramid scheme!
It’s not often that I write about other people’s lives on here, primarily because I’m selfish and I don’t like to share the spotlight (they say honesty is my best quality…), but there are just some occasions where I cannot ignore a story–it needs to be told. One of my college friends has been job hunting for awhile…like the rest of the country. The problem here is she graduated with a degree in Biology and decided against Med school, Dental school, or 8th grade teacher, so she has had the challenge of convincing corporate America that her extensive knowledge of animal skeletal systems would be useful in growing their customer base and negotiating contracts. I’m with HR here, I just don’t see it.
Regardless, things started looking up a few weeks ago when she got an interview, then a second interview, and then a job offer with some up and coming company doing “Entry level Marketing”…yes, any job seeker out there immediately saw the red flags on that one I know, but my dear friend was so stoked for an offer that she decided to ignore the Negative Nancy voice in her head and go for it–straight down I-16 for “training.”
Now, this training should have shot another red flag into the eyes of my friend–she was being put up in a hotel in a middle of nowhere Georgia town, paying almost all her own expenses, and working with 6 other new hires from 7am to 8pm…and to make matters worse, the cult leader, excuse me, I mean Sales Trainer, in charge of them declared the training “alcohol free”–they weren’t even allowed a beer at dinner on their own expense. She did kindly offer to sponsor anyone unable to handle this abstinence at the local chapter of AA, but I’m pretty sure that would only drive them all to drink more.
Needless to say, after 2 weeks of this South Georgia exclusion, with no alcohol, no paycheck, and 2 broken pairs of heels, my friend decided it was time to hit the road. The only upside to the entire visit into the world of “grown up jobs” was when a store owner she had been soliciting (the broken shoes came from 10 hours a day of walking from store to store selling something useless) gave her a free mini-bottle of gin, saying “here, you look like you need this.” Let this be a lesson to us all: any job in corporate America which restricts the ritual of happy hour is just not worth the hassle.
Seriously, get a job in consulting.