adventures in semi-unemployment

At the age of seven, I knew that I was going to be a writer. I had no concept of “career viability;” I just knew. The idea was imprinted on me from the second I cracked the spine of a composition book and meticulously scribbled my first story. At nine, I tore out and threw away all of my old work. I was that kind of a writer.

By middle school, I had gained some understanding of identities are conceived, and I became comfortable with branding myself as “the writer.” I felt that I had a place, a standing; I was the person to come to when you needed a synonym. This was right.

At the same time, I transplanted from Long Island to South Carolina, taking along a medium-sized violin and a few early Suzuki books. I was nothing special on Long Island, a frustrated and awkward second-fiddler. My classmates spouted nonsensical yet academic-sounding phrases such as “I’m going to play Flight of the Bumblebee for my tenure.” (For the life of me, I can’t figure out what that kid thought he was saying. I only wish I could remember his name, so I could stalk him online and figure out if he graduated from Juilliard or was finally beaten about the head and shoulders for using words like “tenure” without knowing what they mean.)

I was the bottom of the barrel in the orchestras of my old life, but things were different in my new life. Slowly The Writer faded away and was replaced by The Violinist. I thought I was the shit; I had quite the ego.

It was only a matter of time before I realized that context is key, and in the context of a decent university music department I was back where I started; my identity meant nothing anymore. I was no longer The Violinist, I was A Violinist, and a Pretty Crappy One at That.

I stumbled into an English major for lack of anything else to do. Some positive remarks on papers in a Modernist Lit class I was taking on the side spurned me to abandon the past twelve years and start fresh (Professor William Maxwell, if you’re out there somewhere, thanks again). My tiny insignificant secretary job that I’d had since freshman year somehow became a contributing editor position to a news-magazine, and a couple of semesters after that job ended I wound up with what amounted to a paid internship at an academic press. I bought and read my own Chicago Manual of Style. I was The Editor, bitches, and The Editor does not tolerate inconsistent use of the serial comma.

Nine months of constant job searching later, I feel The Editor has become disheartened. The Editor is ready to ebb. The Editor wants to throw down her red pen and crawl under the covers until her time comes.

Which is why I’m applying for a job at my favorite dairy farm. As a cheesemaker. Or possibly, someday, The Cheesemaker.

For about an hour this afternoon, I contemplated graduate school. This brief session of pondering culminated in specific research of my university’s English graduate program, whereupon I discovered the following:

- The Director of Graduate Studies was one of my favorite professors, who for some odd reason seemed to like me. This is surprising because I was an absolutely incorrigible undergraduate: I rarely showed up to class; I almost never spoke in discussions; and for the duration of my senior year, I never once began to write a paper before its due date. I would like to add that my GPA in English was 3.25, which is pretty good for someone with the academic commitment of an undercooked egg.

- The program requirements can be completed in one year if one does not intend to teach (one does not).

- It is implied that entering the program with a Bachelor’s in English from the same university might or might not be a total cinch.

And, last but certainly not least:

- The application deadline for Fall 2010 was December 17th, 2009, and

- The program does not accept students mid-year.

So concludes my brief flirtation with the thought of furthering my education. For a moment, I fantasized about responding to the query “What are you doing now?” with “I’m getting my Master’s in English Literature with a concentration in Modernist fiction” rather than “I’m working in the electronics department of a major retail store.” That, kids, is what happens when you don’t dare to eat a peach.

There are many things about my new position as a Schlaples tech associate that I resent. There’s the fact that, having been hired at the start of the season and as a probationary employee, my holiday work schedule resembles the sadistic scribblings of a deranged HR employee named Mr. Grinch. Or the fact that my status as a tech carries with it not a higher salary, but instead a weeks-long intensive training schedule. Or that this training is not done face-to-face with another human being, or even by being thrust headlong into the daily workings of the store, but by sitting in front of a computer for five or six hours at a time and trudging through endless online “certification” courses. Or that these courses have never seen the righteous pen of a copyeditor, and therefore before the end of my training I fully expect to be found lunging at the screen in a fit of proofreader’s anxiety, red Sharpie murderously in hand (Seriously, it’s downright cruel. There’s a vein in my eyeball that bulges when I read the demand to “Hold you mouse over the an image*). Or that my uniform shirts are the dorkiest things I have ever worn — and for the duration of fifth grade I willingly donned an ankle-length denim skirt that buttoned down the front. Or that the same fifty or so holiday songs are piped into the store in a cruel loop, and that most of these songs are “remixes” of classics — at one point, for example, I heard the beginning of “Happy Holidays” from Holiday Inn and, for the first ten seconds, thought to myself “Wow, this sounds like the original! I love this movie. This almost makes me feel like not committing hara-kiri with this cordless telephone! Merry Christmas, everyone!” And then in swept the overlaid beatboxing, as hip as acid-washed overalls, and my last wincing ounce of holiday spirit slunk out of the store.

As many things as there are to complain about, though, there is one thing that I can appreciate. Almost everyone I have met so far is kind and outgoing and energetic, and I’ve already met one person who still has a dream (that doesn’t involve working for Schlaples). Many of the employees are passionate about their work, and losing their holiday to a major retailer is just a sad fact of life. At least I find myself reassured that if I am to be held hostage this holiday season, I am in good company.

*This is not an exact quote, but a very close approximation of a commonly used sentence in a training module, and very representative of the state of Schlaples’ training courses overall. They read as though they were written by particularly demanding and moderately tech-savvy two-year-olds.