I'm Jurgis, and this is my story.

Baby got Backstory:


I graduated from an expensive private college a year ago with a Psychology/Anthropology double major -- yeah, I know... I decided that I didn't want to be a psychologist this year, but apparently you can't do that. My parents and I are now deeply in debt to the tune of about 5 figures. I've experienced the joys of unemployment for a year since. The local (state) economy's not that bad compared to the rest of the nation, but so far, I've had 0 luck/opportunities, after a feverish search that admittedly mostly took place online with the occasional job fair/office complex jaunt where the prospective employers... promptly sent me back online. Since I'm an introvert who feels that my odds of making a good personal impression on a potential employer are quite low indeed, I feel most comfortable with an online job search. Being online also cuts down on the odds of being discriminated against due to my race, which allows me to procure opportunities -- however few they may be -- to practice my interviewing skills. I've recieved about 6 or so interviews, but no offers -- a third of the interviews have been with temp agencies.

White-collar, "true" (meaning no experience required) entry-level jobs are like unicorns nowadays. I’ve applied to a variety of jobs, mostly clerical, since that’s where my minimal experience lies, but also for jobs like residential cleaning, apprentice exterminator, Wal-Mart cashier, entry level processor in a fish processing plant, and a variety of retail positions. I applied for a plumber’s apprentice job yesterday, and the applications, like their resume brethren, seem to just vanish into the ether.

At first, I was extremely uncomfortable with my status. My father was pretty much a stay-at-home dad due to chronic long-term unemployment, and part of me worries that I'll give up one day and drift off into the ranks of the "hidden unemployed" -- the people that don't collect unemployment and are no longer looking. The highest degree either of my parents have is an Assoc., and in some respects, a four-year degree of any kind was seen in my house as a talisman of sorts... holding some kind of unknown magical property that allowed a person to escape from a life of manual labor, minimum wage jobs, and yes, long stretches of unemployment. So I admit, I took it for granted that I'd be able to get a job after school. What started as a leisurely dip of the toe into the job pool turned into frantically clawing at the surface when I realized that things weren't going well at all. I graduated in the midst of a deep recession -- workers weren't thinking about quitting and retiring as often as they usually would, and companies weren't all that interested in training new grads. The music had stopped, the chairs were full, and I was left standing. But I didn't know that then. All I knew was that for the first time in my non-social life, I failed bigtime, and it hurt.

Somewhere along the way, my inner student kicked in, and I began to analyze my plight. When I started college, my difficulties with other people inspired me to study them from a safe distance, and so, again, I coped by detaching myself from my situation -- if only for a moment -- and devouring books on unemployment. Despite the fact that it profoundly impacted my family, I'd never studied unemployment as a social phenomenon before. It was seen as our secret shame, something to be concealed, as a personal failing, not as a common transitory state or structural flaw. So interspersed with my personal adventures and misadventures in joblessville, there will be some of the info I've compiled on the job market.

During the summer, I'll be following various tidbits of job hunting advice that I've received from family, friends, and random Internet folks... from the absurd to the mildly annoying. I admit, I'm a "Yes, but" person. I'll ask for advice when I actually want vindication or a certain answer that I give no clue about and/or may not even truly know myself. It infuriates people, and in retrospect, it's the conversational equivalent of "I'm thinking of a number." Following the glut of advice I've been given will be my atonement. Hopefully, I'll get a job. If not, I'm going to be "House, RN" when I grow up, and no one wants that.