When the job hunter becomes the hunted

Living with our parents, idling the days away and wasting hours cultivating soap opera addictions are all things that we fear in the twilight. These are symptoms of the disease -- the pathogen is unemployment. Even if you hold down a do-nothing, go-nowhere temporary job, you still lack the elusive "Real Job." A "Real Job" is a job with health insurance, a 9-5 work day, retirement opportunities, company softball teams and drunken office party sex romps in the copy room with the tramp from Accounting. The Willy Loman angst, the tiny cubicle, the priggish and overpromoted boss -- I would give anything for that. Alas, that's something that those of us with humanities degrees only dream of having. Those jobs belong to the Business Major intern-whores. I'll have something to say at a later date about how my employment goals have declined since college, and Pangloss probably has a thought to offer on the subject as well, but I'd like to riff for a second on one of the things you do when you realize just how far in the distance that real job lies.

Let me set the stage: You graduated from college filled with bluster from that shitty commencement speech. Your parents welcomed you to their house, referring to it as "Your Launchpad." Optimism was plaguish. You took your Hope to the internet, scouring CareerBuilder for available positions. This is the future of employment, you told yourself. Hope sang in your heart. Your nerve quavered at posting a résumé devoid of actual content, but Hope popped it back into place, telling you that you had the requisite chutzpah. A few positions caught your eye, and thinking to yourself that you might get lucky trying for a job which demanded 3-5 years professional experience, you pressed send.

No reply from the employer, so you tried again. Nothing. Hope looked a little listless sitting in her corner, what with Realistic Appraisal of the Job Market and Your Lack of Actual Qualification tag-teaming at the other side of the ring. You started to think that maybe Hope had been inflating your odds. You couldn't blame her, though -- after all, you had taken some liberties in your résumé as well, stretching the time you told the new work-study kid how to operate the department copy machine into "Trained New Employees in Technology." All the while, you received a couple of unsolicited emails. "Marketing Consultant." "Customer Commitment Specialist." Vague titles, offered by companies like B-Line Marketing and Not Quite a Pyramid Scheme.

At this point, Hope made a play. She curled up next to you, like Othello to Desdemona, and whispered something soft. It sounded like, "Maybe they are real jobs. Maybe you could make a living on 100% commission. You're a hard worker -- you said so on your résumé." So when one of these jobs asked you to come for an interview, you said sure. After all, it's an interview, right?

The interview lasted for five minutes. You were asked to list your positives and your negatives. You were asked to talk about a time when you led people. You were asked to believe that this is a real job. When you were asked if you have any questions, you played hardball. "Can you describe a typical day at this job?" "What does a person with this job do?" "What is the actual title of the position for which I'm interviewing?"

The answer to all the questions was, "I don't really have an answer. If you come back in an hour, we have a video we'll show you and all of the other applicants that will answer all of the questions." Sort of what it's like to buy a timeshare.

Hope, that bitch. She tricked you. And no, once again, they do not validate parking.