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to a place in the past we've been cast out of

  • Oct. 15th, 2007 at 7:59 PM
lion, ivoted, me, sadie
Ugh. So a woman I'd taken a writing class with this summer asked me to submit my resume for a position at her publishing company. I didn't think I fit the job description (it required more publication experience than I have, which is zero), and sent her my resume with that caveat. She got back to me today with the message that the hiring manager for the position thinks that "while you have a lot of great administrative experience, she is looking for someone with more direct experience with printers, a better fit for the position."

Ugh. Great administrative experience. I mean, I know that's what I have, and I know--I mean, I know! I knew I didn't have the experience for the job. And what I got was a compliment, and further, the truth. Further further, I didn't even want that job, as it is based in Santa Monica and temporary. Didn't want it! Just submitted my resume to not look gift horses in mouths! But how have I reached this point, at 29, with a resume chock-full of great administrative experience? This. . .is not the special unique snowflake life that I thought I would lead. I was in the gifted and talented program! Took the SAT in 7th grade! Editor of my high school newspaper! 500+ community service hours! I TURNED DOWN HARVARD, people. And this. . .this? Splaaaat.

I know assistant work is not easy. I know many have failed where I have tread. However, I also know. . .I just. . .I don't do anything. I don't produce anything. I'm a master of the Microsoft Office Suite of Programs and knowing how to handle people. It just seems lame, when I could have as easily been an I-banker or some sort of PR manager or a lawyer or any number of jobs that I find horrifyingly dull. But those, I'd at least feel less lame about.

Anyway, I'm more firmly decided now--if all I have is all this great assistant experience (PS: I MANAGED A WORLD FAMOUS BAND AND DIDN'T GET CREDIT FOR IT), I might as well take a job that pays a crapload of money for that experience. So that I can tool around in a fancy car back and forth to the library where I write my future amazing book series.

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[info]lovelypoet wrote:
Oct. 16th, 2007 03:12 am (UTC)
This. . .is not the special unique snowflake life that I thought I would lead.

*sigh*

Oh, the pain of being a creative person with *BIG DREAMS* and a proficiencty with Excel.

I'm not even being sarcastic, I swear to you. Because except for the part where you've actually done a lot more impressive things than me, this was like reading something from inside my own head.

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[info]worldforawhile wrote:
Oct. 25th, 2007 03:31 am (UTC)
Yeah, what happened to us? I am stoked about your progress, and I always thought your comedy nights were far cooler and more requiring of brass stones than anything I ever even plan to do. Seriously. I mean, yikes. So here's to. . .future awesomeness!
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[info]fonny wrote:
Oct. 16th, 2007 03:34 am (UTC)
Wait, why can't you get credit for that and PUT IT ON YOUR RESUME FOR ALL TO SEE??
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[info]worldforawhile wrote:
Oct. 25th, 2007 03:33 am (UTC)
I DO! But I guess no one cares, is what I mean. Hugely dramatized analogy, but it's like you used to be an astronaut, but now you want to serve tables at Chili's. "That's great and all about the moon, but we need someone who can handle a Saturday night with six four-tops, a 20-person birthday and five kids with 10 different allergies."
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[info]huehau wrote:
Oct. 16th, 2007 03:52 am (UTC)
I've been there. Hell, I'm still there. My life at 30 is nothing like the life I thought I'd be living if you'd asked me what my life was going to be like when I was 18.
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[info]worldforawhile wrote:
Oct. 25th, 2007 03:34 am (UTC)
Yeah. And you know, I wasn't even sure what I was going to be at 18, but I'm fairly sure it involved the cover of Entertainment Weekly (celebrity veterinarian who saved 12 babies from a rabid gun-toting burglar! Is also directing next George Clooney feature!).
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[info]rosewart wrote:
Oct. 16th, 2007 05:05 am (UTC)
I might as well take a job that pays a crapload of money for that experience. So that I can tool around in a fancy car back and forth to the library where I write my future amazing book series.

This is precisely what I intend on doing around Feb if the job offer is still there (position doesn't start until then).

I always thought I would be a published author by age 25.

I never wanted to be an administrator/receptionist/personal assistant/general office flunkey.

I wanted to be an author and Teacher/Librarian and here I am, 40 and I'm not published apart from one short story almost 30 years ago in this US publication OMEGA (and I wish like fuck I still had the magazine with dates etc) but I don't and nothing since.

Fuck even my mother has her own ISBN for her family history publications - Darling Downs Biographical Pioneer Registery is the most recent where she won an award for editing it from the Queensland National Heritage Trust... and I, who DO have talent for writing, have nothing to show.

I understand your frustration. To have so much promise from such a young age, and then to the outside world, have nothing to show for it... it's just frustrating and annoying. Worse still, SURE you could have been a lawyer (I'm doing my law degree home study one subject every 12 weeks just because I can right now - not to use it), SURE you could have gone to Harvard and had that diploma on your wall, but like you said, that would have ultimately been dull and unexciting.

I find being accomplished in the Microsoft WIndows Office Suite fucking dull to be brutally honest. It's NOT HARD!! yet so many people make out like it's learning Debian or C++ or... I don't know NeXT or something.

It's lovely to get a compliment, but it's pretty hollow huh?

I really hope you DO get your children's books published.

Me, I write what one teacher in my Professional Writing and Editing course told me is "Pathetic Prose". I also write great dialogue and what is ultimately adult oriented style books.

I ... will post an example of something I've been working on but only have excerpts and nothing cohesive.

What style of children's books are you looking at doing?

R.L.Stine did brilliantly with his horror books (Goosebumps etc) as did Emily Rhodda with her "teen power" detective books and Deltora Quest fantasy books.

Do you have a specific age group to aim at?

I'm asking lots of questions because as I said, this is a path I oneday want to acheive. I may only have the one novel in me (like To Kill a Mockingbird) but when it's published... WOW!

heheh THe other thing I've been working on is a family saga style but is actually autobiographical. I started all wide-eyed and innocent but gradually my horror at where the story is going means the ending is NOT going to be happy *lol*

goodluck
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[info]fearlesstemp wrote:
Oct. 16th, 2007 02:37 pm (UTC)
While I never had the opportunity to turn down Harvard, there are many parts of this entry I completely relate to. I took the SATs in 7th grade too! And was in a G&T program! I was supposed to Be Something by this point (27) and here I am typing to you from a part-time temp job. I spent a few years after school trying to figure out what I wanted to do, figuring that once I'd decided I'd have no problem succeeding (being a unique and special snowflake, after all), and lo and behold, got my Masters in Teaching and found that I didn't really love it, and also, can't get a job.

I keep telling myself that I'm still in the first act of my A&E Biography - that there's plenty of time in the show for greatness, or at least personal fulfillment. I'm sure that's true for you, too. WE MUST BELIEVE!
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[info]worldforawhile wrote:
Oct. 25th, 2007 03:36 am (UTC)
But now you have a real and awesome job (and it's gov't, so I assume there are all sorts of great benefits, like getting Speckled Woodsparrow Day off, you know). But. . .yeah. That's a good way to think of it. And when I/we ARE really famous and feted worldwide, we can say, "oh my TWENTIES [deep laugh]--darling, you know THOoooSE years are all a BLUR!" And no one will know it's because all the mind-numbing useless jobs faded together at some point.
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[info]teint_de_neige wrote:
Oct. 16th, 2007 07:29 pm (UTC)
Oh my. We have more in common that we even thought. Seriously, I could have written this, except that I've been too busy bitching out loud about it for the last two years. When I think about the fantastic life 18 year old me thought 30 year old me would be living, I want to stab things. The plans! The potential! Now 30 year old me is fantasizing about the glamorous life 40 year old me better fucking have.
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[info]worldforawhile wrote:
Oct. 25th, 2007 03:41 am (UTC)
Oh, in a way I'm glad there's someone out there who can comisserate, and on the other hand--I would only wish this current discomfiture on my enemies.

And for real, I need the fabulous 40 year old life. And I'm telling myself that if I had achieved world renown by this age, that I would have squandered it all in my soft, naive state. Or so I tell myself. I think it's kind of true, but. . .I can't keep pushing this deadline back.
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[info]phoebesmum wrote:
Oct. 16th, 2007 08:31 pm (UTC)
My CV is much the same. And I am almost twice as old. On the upside, I never was much of a special anything - I didn't even go to Uni - so I suppose I have only myself to blame.

And here I am, going round the same old recruitment circles all over again. Sigh. I hope, in 20 years' time, your career at least will be more in line with what you'd like it to be.
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[info]worldforawhile wrote:
Oct. 25th, 2007 04:02 am (UTC)
I always had this idea that conventional college stunted me--like, I could have been out there and Making It! I really have no one to blame but myself, it turns out.
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