Never Stop Networking
Who's bettering themselves during a pandemic?!
Well, it’s almost April and the Year of the Rat I was so excited about is sure shaping up to be quite some bullshit. I just wanted to get a new newsletter out into the world while we are all still here.
By bullshit, I mostly mean money and lack of it. Not the impending end of the world. I may not have a job--or any prospects--but I do have a fairly large comfortable house with a nice kitchen and yard. At least for the time being. I’ve toyed with moving to Seattle. (I’ve even resorted to cold emailing companies in my areas of expertise to see if they needed content, which, trust me, is pretty out there for me. I even started this waste of time before the coronavirus crisis, and, no, I didn’t even get a nibble.)
Staying indoors, eating crap, and fretting internally about things I can’t control is simply my natural state of being, so quarantine or not, it’s just business as usual over here. Would you hate me if I said I was just chilling out? I don’t want to say any more about the current state of the world because I fear I’ll just come across as callous. For whatever reason, things like pandemics and global warming don’t upset me the way that threat of nuclear war and AIDS loomed over my childhood. Growing up, I always assumed the future would be a Mad Max dystopia anyway. I don’t think I’m a sociopath (I’ve done quizzes!) or I’m a product of NW rugged individualism/selfish libertarianism. Big things don’t phase me; little things do. I would prefer not to live through a cannibalistic and/or zombie apocalypse, if I had my choice, though.
Every missive threatens to turn more and more into a job-hunting newsletter, but I just remembered a few months ago when companies were still doing interviews, I had a video call, which I’m already sensitive/paranoid about, and the young woman leading the call said she had to mention the elephant in the room. Nothing turns one’s blood colder faster. [Insert sound of elephant trumpeting loudly.] Shockingly, she said I was too experienced for the role, i.e. old. No shit. I’m astute enough to steer away from job titles that include specialist, coordinator, associate, or even manager for the most part, but what can you do when that’s all there is?
Anyway, so now everyone is out of work, so being too old for a low-paying job is just par for the course. Thankfully, we have always-hustling, productivity-obsessed sites to publish chilling content like “You can network while stuck at home.” Always be bettering yourself!
For a taste of the unemployed life, when I started writing this newsletter, I had just miraculously received an email wanting to schedule a 15-minute phone screen for a contract copywriter job at a shipping and logistics firm in Austin. Yes, that’s what counts as a score these days. Now, that I’m pretty much done with this newsletter, I went back to gmail and noticed in the interim I had received an automated rejection from the very same company. How can I worry when everything is arbitrary?
You may (or may not) have noticed I moved to Substack from Tinyletter. That’s because Substack allows comments/discussions on newsletters, which sounded kind of fun, especially since we’re all cooped up. It’s not like I have so many subscribers that I fear anyone going nasty and rogue. We’ll see...