Gabi and the Expectation for Employment but Anticipation for Unemployment

                                    

I work for one of my university’s federally funded outreach programs, and since we failed to use up all of the funds this past school year, the program will not be refunded for the fall. My hours are being cut fast; so, I am now back on the market, the job market that is. Ugh, this was already my third job this year, and I was just starting to get past the point where I’m not just comfortable with finally getting a steady income, but getting rather cocky about having a steady income. “Oh, don’t you worry your pretty little wallet, my treat.” Well, not anymore.

I have big travelling plans for the end of the summer too; so, I really can’t afford to let my already deprived bank account slip. So, I’m pretty much throwing rolled up applications and résumés at business establishments like a paperboy trying to cover a fifty mile radius in less than an hour.

My guess is, under such short notice and urgency, I’ll get stuck in retail for the rest of the summer. Meaning, I will be working weekends again. Wah! I don’t mean to act like a baby; I just don’t want to be treated like an adult.

I’m also trying to whip up an out-of-this-world/I-must-employ-you-now résumé for an internship in the fall. The catch is it needs to be done by tomorrow morning, writing portfolio and all.  Maybe it’s unrealistic, but I’m trying to convince an organization to choose me for the internship, even though one of the requirements is an ENG degree, meaning you have it physically in paper, you’ve walked the stage, shook the hand of the guy in the wizard costume, the whole enchilada, and I have not. I have a semester to go before all that shiny stuff that says I’m now tolerable within the elite academic community that puts too much weight on titles and gives too much credit to pseudo-intellectuals mooching off the real brains like brain-eating zombies with decent salaries.

Speaking of brain-eating zombies, I went to a friend’s family barbeque this past Monday at her uncle’s house. Now I had never met her uncle before, but he was… eccentric. I think he’s an old veteran or something, and maybe a little toasted in the head, which is really a whole other bag of worms about how this govt uses propaganda to mislead the young and innocent into war and then leaves them to cope in society on their own.  Aside from that though, while my friend and I were waiting in the living room for the food to be finished, her aunt walks across the room with a hunting bowie knife.

“What’s that?” I ask

She gives a small smile and says, “It’s… from our survival kit.”

I smile with my teeth because I think she’s joking. But she’s not. In my mind, I was picturing something like a small fishing bait box filled with some useful tools for them to use when the power goes out. However, when I ask if I can see this “survival kit,” you know, just to see how people’s ideas of what’s necessary to survive differs, I am totally caught off guard by what she shows me. To my surprise, there is an empty room with a wide closet filled with four huge hiking backpacks, each weighing about 50 lbs, filled with thermal blankets, axes, antibiotics, knives, flare guns, and whatever else you can imagine Bear Grylls would take with him if banished to Siberia by himself.

“…What are they for?”

“Well, _____ says it’s in case the economy crashes.”

“Interesting,” I say, even though I’m thinking he’s prepared more for a zombie apocalypse than a dip in the stock market. 

Is it paranoia or substantial preparation? Security is a sham, I got that. But is the job market so bad that some people are not just preparing but expecting a total chaotic uproar of workers? Maybe instead of passing out applications, I should pass out flyers that say “Economic Apocalypse Coming Soon! Just Quit Your Jobs and Run for the Woods!” Then these employers will be forced to hire me, by default.