As a university student, I’m constantly told that finding a job is flat fucking impossible, that even McDonald’s requires a BA, and that I’ll never achieve any level of success unless I release a sex-tape featuring something weird, like people in mascot costumes or Angelina Jolie.
But we all know what that would look like.
Just call Brazzers, because my body is READY.
Yeah, I doubt anyone would be fighting to buy that shit.
Anyways, like every university student (and I’m sure no one will argue with me) I was freaking the FUCK OUT as classes ended this spring. I didn’t know where I’d be working, how I’d get some decent life skills on my resume, or basically how I’d be able to avoid becoming a nanny for rest of my life.
I also wanted some mothafuckin’ DOUGH.
Awww yeah. Just keep doing it niiiiice and slow. That’s the stuff.
By mid-April, I was panicking so hard it was like someone had told me I had to go into the Witness Protection Program to escape a murderer who liked to make his victims watch every season of ‘Big Bang Theory’ before killing them.
Me.
It was not a pretty picture.
Then finally, on a warm spring afternoon, I got a phone call- a single glorious phone call.
It was from a Marketing & PR Agency and they wanted to interview me for a summer student position!
WHAT A FANTASTIC OPPORTUNITY!
My insides got all warm and shit. I must have looked like this:
Easy, breezy, beautiful.
I went in for the interview. All seemed well. They were going to send me out to different marketing events and I’d form useful connections that would advance me forward in my otherwise bleak career!
HOORAY!
So, the company invited me back for an orientation. They told me they’d send me to one of their events so that I could get a feel for what the job would be like, and I learn and observe, etc., etc.
I put on my fanciest blazer (aka my mom’s, cause I don’t own that shit) and strut into the office on my first day like I was Jay fuckin’ Z.
Just me on a weekday.
They gave me a Google Map printout and told me it would take me to the event. I was all pumped up on adrenaline and first impressions and jumped right in my car, speeding towards my destination with all the horsepower my lil’ Ford could muster.
Imagine my surprise when the secret destination turned out to be a goddamn gas station.
Yeah, that’s right. They sent me to an Esso in the middle of buttfuck nowhere to sell car wax.
THAT was their big event. Selling car wax at a gas station. And that car wax company was their only client.
The guy I was working with set up a rickety plastic table and put what must’ve been two dozen boxes of the stupid frickin’ car wax on top, then proceeded to harass people as they pumped their gas by insisting that they NEEDED the car wax- their cars were simply worthless without it.
I was immediately like:
First of all, why would they send ME, someone who clearly knows NOTHING about car wax, to a country gas station where everyone is either a trucker or a farmer- those guys have a love affair with their automobiles for chrissake.
Did I mention that they paid based SOLELY on commission?
How the fuck would I sell enough car wax to supplement my sexy swaggin’ social life?*
*More accurate representation.
Either way, I knew that I wasn’t passionate enough about auto detailing to make any sort of dough.
So…I left the job- and thank God I did!
A couple weeks later, I got another phone call telling me I’d been offered an Editorial/Social Media Internship at one of the country’s top online publications- Trend Hunter.
Basically, I get to spend my days finding cool stuff around the interwebz, writing about them, and marketing them via social media.
Not a bad gig.
I love it so far, but if I hadn’t left my other job when I did, I might’ve been roped into an inescapable contract and I wouldn’t have been able to work at Trend Hunter at all.
So, to all you uni students or recent graduates out there who are scared that you’ll never find a job that you enjoy or, you know, just general employment, know this: there is hope.
As much as profs, parents, and satanic statisticians like to freak us out, there are still jobs out there. You don’t have to work the lamest, most back-breaking, soul-crushing job just because you think there isn’t anything else out there- that’s being defeatist, and mama don’t like no negative nancies!
So here are my final words to you:
Amen.
If you want to check out Trend Hunter, you can do so here.
My portfolio, filled with fun lil’ articles about awesome new stuff can be found here.
Wind Tunnel Days 