interesting times ahead for yours truly.
besides the obvious holiday weirdness, that is.
beside the "joy" of Christmas (read = staying up until 2am assembling all the toys we buy for my 3-year-old son just to be awakened 2 hours later so that we can disassemble them in a flurry of Christmas-cookie-induced destruction), we also have my son's birthday (read = more "joy" similar to Christmas). we also have my graduation ceremony.
that's right. Greyfang will finally be officially receiving his bachelor's diploma next week. while this sounds awesome, the reality of it is that i'm still looking for a new job in my chosen career (after sending out something like 50+ applications, and that's not an exaggeration) as the deadline for having to begin repaying my student loans draws distressingly closer. i know the job market right now is rather less than ideal, but i took that into consideration when choosing my major. you see, i chose one of the most "in demand" occupational tracks, with the hopes that as long as i earned excellent grades, i would have no problem finding a job.
my grades are excellent. a 3.97 GPA with multiple Dean's List and President's List honors. 10 awards out of 10 semesters, in fact. basically, one poor midterm aside, i had a perfect 4-year record at college.
only now am i discovering that it doesn't mean a hill of beans. you see, my major is IT. IT jobs are easy to find if you have IT experience. unfortunately, they're almost impossible to get if you don't. i have faith that you can quickly discern the Catch-22 of this situation. can't get a job without experience, can't get experience without a job. this leaves one very hopeful Greyfang who is slowly becoming disgruntled, even though my academic record shows that i bust my hump every day in order to achieve academic perfection.
just for kicks, i even tried applying at Best Buy as a PC tech. you ever talk to the PC techs at Best Buy? they're clueless. don't believe me? there are more than a few people out there who agree with me. like this guy. and this guy. and this guy. (i'll stop here, but the list goes on and on). don't blame the techs, though... it's the corporate structure that insists to the general consumer public that their employees are qualified to fix these problems while simultaneously offering zero training or education to those same employees. it's not their fault, they're just kids trying to make it through the day without getting yelled at by all those people who paid good money to have their PCs repaired only to be informed they need to purchase unnecessary parts, being overcharged for labor, then getting home to find their PCs still don't work correctly. but i digress...
so, i applied for the job (for kicks, really). the online application process took almost 30 minutes. no kidding. i'm rather shocked that these kids have the patience to get through it, which leads me to believe that the ones they actually hire for those positions are probably friends of some other employee based solely on the fact that they are young and will work for $12 an hour. anyway, i'm abundantly qualified for the position, and they're hiring at a new location opening close to my house. i thought i'd at least get a call back. i was wrong. chances are, they don't want someone not in their early 20s who actually knows anything about PC maintenance and repair. i'm not really disappointed about that specific job, but if i can't get a low-paying gig for which i'm qualified at a location which desperately needs people who actually know what they're doing, it doesn't necessarily bode well for me finding an quality job in the industry.
i'm trying to remain optimistic here, people. i really am.
