career fairs

On Saturday, I braved the oncoming snow storm to attend a career fair in NYC. It was quite possibly one of the dumbest things I've ever done -- risk my life for a job.

I was really not looking forward to going because, as I may have outlined previously, career fairs are completely lame. You stand in line to talk to a person for an exorbitant amount of time only to realize that the person sucks and that they're just going to refer you to apply online. I could have done that without talking to you person-whose-name-I-no-longer-remember. Either that or they take your resume and stick it in a gigantic pile where it will magically vanish into a vortex of forgotten resumes.

Exactly this happened at the career fair, only this time I was more savvy about my endeavors. Yes, this time, I just walked around aimlessly, talking to people without any real expectation. I observed the undergrads at the fair, all eager about their future once they left school. I smiled knowingly to myself, knowing that they were destined to face a life of ineptitude, dissatisfaction, and unfulfillment. That's what happens when you sell your soul to The Man.

ways to remain unproductive at work

At the office, the work is really boring. I've resorted to juvenile, high school tactics to avoid work. I'm only mildly ashamed to admit them, but I figure you may also benefit from them.

The first tactic is to drink a lot of diuretics.

I usually roll into the office between 9:30 and 10 and brew myself a cuppa joe.

I usually limit myself to one only because I don't want to stain my teeth excessively. I also don't want to become severely addicted. One is good for me. Gotta cut myself off. 

week 2

Today my manager was going to take us all out for alcohol. Not drinks. No, no, he said alcohol. To get us crunked. Primed to brainstorm. No lie. We didn't end up doing it, but I'm pretty sure he was fairly serious about the offer. He just had some stuff to get done, so he ended up leaving the office early.

We followed suit. It's only reasonable because, oh right, we're exploited laborers.

Yes, we can take off at any time, thanks for reaffirming that. I wasn't sure. Thanks for making me feel bad for not getting there exactly on time. This is essentially volunteering.

synergy

As I've been working for nearly two weeks, I've heard used the same phrases over and over again. It's so irritating. What ever happened to spicing up your life with colorful language?

Here is a list of words and phrases that I'm tired of:

• synergy
• low-hanging fruit
• co-marketing / co-selling
• space
• sync up
• platform

That's all I've got for now, but I'm sure the list will grow longer with time. It's funny because what all these terms have in common is their vagueness. It's like they pretend to be more than what they are. They're pretentious words. They're words invented to refer to a meaning other than their original meaning, and used within the business context they simultaneously mean nothing and everything at the same time.

ungainfully employed

I've been thinking about renaming my blog to "ungainfully employed" because that's what I am right now, ungainfully employed.

Yesterday I went into the office early because I was sort of slacking off on Friday. I went to this conference and then bailed early. So right yesterday I went into the office early. Mind you, I'm not getting paid. I stayed the entire day and took my regular lunch break, which can be up to an hour. I used that lunch break to do an interview with another consulting company.

There I was, on the streets of New York City, trying to do an interview with a company that only alerted me about the opportunity on Thursday. They wanted me to interview on Friday, but I didn't have time that day. So the first few minutes were spent talking about my background and why I wanted to do consulting. The next forty minutes were spent doing a case interview. Yes, they made me do a case study over the phone. It sucked, majorly, because when you have no materials in front of you and a million distractions, there's no way it's going to end well.

week 1

Hello all,

I'm sure you've been missing my blog posts just as I've missed writing them.

It's a funny story really. Exactly what I predicted would happen happened. It's interesting how that tends to happen. Maybe TLC should give me my own show because perhaps I, too, am a "Medium."

I started my unpaid internship this week and learned that I essentially signed up to join a labor exploitation ring. The unpaid interns come and go, but that's what drives the organization - unpaid labor. The work isn't all that riveting so far. Basically I do "outreach," which translates to finding people to send mass e-mails to. I do that as well as make informational fliers. I never knew how important the flier could be until now.

5k

Today I ran a 5K for my town. (Yeah, remember Hurricane Irene? It destroyed my hometown and also took out my car. The streets where we were running drowned in three to four feet of water). It was the first 5K I've run officially. It was really painful because although I work out a regular amount for an average person, I'm still no runner. 

With every labored pace I took, I cursed myself for signing up for this torture. I can't believe people actually enjoy doing this kind of thing. 

english major

Every other day I curse the English major in me, not because it's utterly useless, but because it's actually the most useful thing on the planet.

Let me explain. Being an English major gives you this ability to think. And overthink. I overthink everything you can possibly imagine. Whenever an event occurs, I think about its symbolic meaning, its cosmological significance. I think about it so much that I often have this running dialogue in my head debating how different signs fit into my life.

Instead of, oh hey, my coffee just burned my tongue. I should have let it cool first. No, I think this: What did I do wrong to deserve nature's will punishing me by burning my mouth? I was probably too loose with my tongue earlier. From now on I will watch what I say.

froyo

This is a charge depicting my desire for froyo throughout the day. In case you haven't heard, I absolutely love froyo. Luckily, this place in my town just opened up so I can enjoy the delicious mixture of sweet and tart any time I feel like it.

graphs n charts

If you're missing my graphs and charts right now, don't worry, I miss them, too.

Ever since I set up this computer, I've been looking for the MS suite that I know I have lying around my house. The only problem is that I can't find it. I blame my very disorganized parents and siblings for this issue, because I am the only neat freak of the bunch.

I located MS 2007, only to find that the install disc was missing. Yes, these people are fiends, absolute fiends.

Now, I could always just use my laptop again; it's sitting here, conveniently next to me, but I don't want to.

tv

So remember when I was ranting about how I was going to find time to do all the other little side projects I like to do after I start my internship? Well, then 8:00 rolled around, and I was bored again.

I was planning on watching "Glee" last night, but it wasn't on, so I settled for "Cupcake Wars." I feel really dirty after I pull something like that, you know, watching mindless TV just to kill time. I hate killing time.

new computer

Ever since I set up my new computer, I've been in love with doing stuff. It's like I purchased the gift of productivity. So basically I've been sitting here, reading and photoshopping stuff to my heart's content. It's not sad, it's awesome. 

Yes, that's three computers running at the same time. 

in the interim

So, I have just about a week until I start my internship in the city, and I'm determined to pack in as much stuff as I can into this week. I'm actually getting a little nostalgic for this lazy life I'm currently living. How am I going to manage going into the city every single day and then doing all this stuff I'm doing right now?

I'm only half-kidding. I do find ways to fill my days, though they don't fit your average definition of productivity. I read a lot about business and startups, for one, because eventually I will start my own business. Lately I've been reading about different programming languages so that I can improve my web design skills. (One of these days I'll update the blog design and make it fabulous). I've also been reading novels and studying Chinese. Plus there's the whole freelancing thing, which comes in handy because that is how I'm going to fund my daily trips.

success

Well, it looks like I'm going to be underemployed for a bit longer. My interview on Friday seems to have worked in my favor, and I will begin interning at a startup consulting firm next week.

I guess I'm not useless. Maybe luck  has finally changed its course for me?

Of course, this would be the ideal situation if I were getting paid, but I do stand to learn a lot from this experience. For that I'm grateful.

As long as I don't have to fetch anyone's coffee, we'll be good.

The one thing that blows is that commuting takes a lot of time and money. Oh well, I'll still be freelancing at night.

That said, I have rejoined the Fbook community. Things are looking up.

autumn splendor

I once played a song called "Autumn Splendor" for a piano recital back in the day. The song sucked, I don't know why my teacher had me play it.

Anyway, the point of this post was just to discuss how awesome NY is when the weather is good. If you recall, the last time I ventured into the city a few weeks ago, I got totally and completely soaking wet. This time, I had a lovely stroll around the city before and after my appointment.

Here is Rockefeller Center. 

looking for a job ~ looking for a mate

I've heard a few people liken looking for a job to dating. In some ways I agree with the analogy.

1) Profiles. Sorting through company profiles and job postings is just like going through online dating profiles or scanning the singles ads. You apply, and hope for a match. 

craig's list

I've always been pretty sketched out by Craig's List for the following reasons: it's completely anonymous; Craig's List killer.

So when my dad sent me some links to odd jobs I could do, I was reasonably wary. I wasn't really qualified to do some of the jobs anyway, but one seemed viable. It was to translate letters from English to Chinese. I'm not fluent, but I have technology on my side, so I responded to the post. We've been going back and forth about the job for a while now, but nothing is set, so I'm losing hope that I'll even get to make a few bucks translating.

Yeah, I never thought I'd make some money off translating. See, maybe studying it in school wasn't a total waste.

perspective

Alright, alright, I'm going to put all of my complaints into perspective just for this one post so all you readers out there don't think I'm an insensitive jerk. And then I'll go back to being a little snarky. Ok, really snarky.

All in all, my unemployment isn't that bad in the grand scheme of things. I'm not starving to death. I'm not dying of cancer. I don't live on the brink of poverty.

someecards

I'm in rare form today.

In fact, I can only express myself through these snarky e-cards.

Card 1
Card 2
Card 3

If you get one from me, well, you know what I've been doing then.

depressing

Crap.

strategy

My job search strategy varies from day to day. Sometimes I attack head-on, and then sometimes I get sidetracked. Lately I've begun to cast the net too wide, so I think it's time for some self-reflection and refocusing.

Here are the methods I've tried:

Strategy 1 - University Career Center / Site 

First I use my University's career center and website. It makes sense right -- it should have the most direct access to companies. I made several appointments with career counselors, but most were exceedingly unhelpful. Heck, I didn't know what I wanted to do and every time I would sit down and talk about my skills and interests, they would treat me like just another of the hundreds of students. They handed me some papers and told me to read through them and network.

I know it's important to network, and I hate doing it. I did what the sheets told me to do. I prepared an elevator pitch. I went to the career fairs. I never found anything that interested me. Career fairs were such a bust because you'd spend most of the time waiting in line to talk to someone who didn't really want to talk to you anyway. I'm being negative, sorry. That's just what happened most of the time. Occasionally someone would take my resume and stash it along with the dozens of resumes they had already collected.