Help Wanted

By the time I graduated college I was sick of reading articles and posting responses. In my final semester of undergrad it seemed like all I ever did was read some scholar's opinion on a topic and then after I had spent hours reading it, understanding it and supporting it like I had been assigned, the next day in class my professor would tell us all how said scholar had been proven wrong. And the topics were always ones I found completely irrelevant, like the global economy and the dangers of deforestation. You know, nothing that actually matters in the real world, like what I was studying in my other classes, the long-term effects of surrealism in Iranian literature.

But if there's any practice more frustrating than reading and responding to 6 articles a week it's crafting 6 new cover letters every week. Writing a different cover letter for different career fields is taxing enough, I mean I only have so many skills. There are only so many synonyms for organized. And there are only so many people willing to be a reference for me. But the worst part of writing and rewriting cover letters is the manhunt it takes to find out who you need to address it to. It takes me about 3 minutes to rewrite a cover letter for a specific job, and about 3 hours to figure out the name of the HR contact.

After a couple of months of applying for jobs, I am more determined than ever to be a trophy wife. I'm just not cut out for the rat race of sitting at home alone watching TV, eating cheese in my pajamas and clicking "send resume" over and over again, it's exhausting. Today's post is about what I'm actually doing when I'm "applying for jobs online".


Netflix
I think a large part of this issue is that whenever I see the word resume, instead of thinking "reh-zoo-may", my mind sees "ree-zoom video" and I head back over to where I left off on One Tree Hill. If binge-watching Saturday Night Live is wrong, I need more cowbell. It's just so easy to rationalize. "Well, I spent 15 minutes on E!.com and it appears they have no reality TV openings, so I can reward myself with 3 crappy rom-coms and a Disney movie."

LinkedIn
Hey, this sounds productive! Until you realize that I've never actually applied for a job via LinkedIn I just constantly find people on there I can't believe I haven't already connected with and look for a different profile picture.

Buzzfeed
My internet-obsessed friends often begin a conversation with "Have you seen that Buzzfeed article on..." and I stop them right there because the answer is yes. I have. If it's been on Buzzfeed I have almost definitely seen it. I may not have read the entire article or taken the quiz, but I probably saw the icon and read the headline. It's a sickness. It takes no thought. Open laptop. Log in. Open Firefox. Open Buzzfeed. Lather, rinse, repeat. I read a few articles, take a few quizzes to find out what my second favorite ice cream topping says about me and skim a couple of definitive lists and before you know it it's time for dinner.

Wikipedia
I could spend hours on Wikipedia. In fact, I do spend hours on Wikipedia. There are 2 main ways in which I end up inevitably sucked down the rabbit hole for the better part of a Tuesday morning. 1. Something prompts me to look up the Middle East and I hyperlink myself into oblivion. I start in Afghanistan and keep clicking on links until I end up back in America. 2. A movie or actor pops into my head and I go all 6 degrees of separation until I've discovered that Brad Pitt's cousin's nephew was once in a film with Tom Cruise's uncle's au pair. Or I just read the plots of any movie title that sounds familiar. If it's a classic or a pop culture reference, I have read the plot line according to Wikipedia. This drives my friends crazy but I just hate not knowing everything.

Paying Bills
I stopped to pay a bill while writing this blog post. It's just so rare that I think about paying bills while I'm actually online that if it happens, I'm going with it. And this always takes so long, each and every time I have to look up my password and username because they're so secure and elaborate. I mean sometimes my password is my first name, sometimes it's my last name, who can keep track?

Online Quizzes
I ain't got no type. Buzzfeed quizzes, personality quizzes, Myers-Briggs, Sporcle, geography quizzes. I can't explain it, in my day-to-day life I never ask myself what kind of flower I am, but as soon as I see an online quiz for it, I just have to know. And in my never-ending quest to memorize the globe I'm constantly searching for a European geography quiz that gives hints. South America took me all of a week to cover, capitals included, but Europe just will not got down without a fight. Was that an accidental metaphor?

More TV
The only thing that could rival my internet addiction is my television addiction. These days, if it's not on Netflix, it's likely on the channel's website. Not even 24 hours after a new episode airs you can watch it online. This is great for those with an active lifestyle, if you're like me and constantly missing your favorite shows because you're in the middle of a movie, you can catch up online. Once I watched an entire half-season of Degrassi when I should have been writing a paper on the influence of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia. I regret nothing.