meditation on: the job search
We were gifted children before we became resentful adults. Parents' friends told us we had, surely, the name of an author, musician, a politician. We were so wise beyond our years, then, so talented. We were placed quietly in groups of other gifted children, the faster readers, better writers, kids who knew their times tables, all the presidents in order, how to write their Christian name in cursive.
Adults (specifically not my parents, who recoiled at the word) would call my siblings and myself “gifted” until we reached about—17, respectively. At which point, we were only strange, no longer gifted. We were instead melancholic, unnoticed, drifting, hard to relate to. We were no longer wise beyond our years or a point of interest, no longer “talented” or praised for just being how we were and thinking as we thought. We had, instead, to go into the world and adapt to it in a way we hadn’t learned to. Foundationally, we were taught that things would come easily to us, that life was our oyster. What a disastrous wake-up call for our 20’s. What a reason to tell your kids they are stupid every day so that the world seems like a goddamn blessing when it offers them a project manager position in some dark corner of a state college. (I hope mine grow their own peas and live in a one-story home and are obsessed with their partner and have dirt bikes and rowdy, daft children, and a three-legged dog. That’s what I wish for them.)
All “gifted” children find near the end of high school: there is no oyster. The success of the world is based on money and connections and charisma, and in our case, we had, unfortunately, none of those things. It didn’t stop me, however, from then attending a school where people did have those things, and I further convinced myself that such an oyster was available to me. So much so that I moved to New York, the capital of economic connections—the oyster of oysters.
Finding jobs in New York reminds me of a story my aunt, who lives in Orange County, California, used to tell about trying to talk college apps with the other high school mommies. People she’d been bake saleing with since 2004 were suddenly mute. Not a single detail would be shared—you couldn’t even ask where it was where their children were applying. Silence among the white wine spritzers. So it is here, trying to “”””network”””” over a glass of “Mother” at Le Dive. Suddenly no one knows anyone in media, they’ve never heard of a single restaurant in New York that might be hiring, or someone who even knows someone who knows someone. Their family is dead. They only know two people on earth and they both work in Atlanta for corporate recruitment. Are you interested in that? They can put you in touch, totally.
The moment you mention yourself as an underemployed writer, you become a threat to the already fragile network the writer before you has established over a period of 4 years, working at a bird-themed Bushwick coffee shop, frantically checking for Dad’s Venmos, and lauding a mediocre hot sauce brand with the tagline “Spicy Slay.” It’s too hard out here! Too bloody! In my first Substack post, I said that it was stupid to believe that a True Writer would die without being able to write, but copywriters are proving me wrong. These people live and die copy. They work tirelessly for one shot at a subway ad for a ceramic pan brand.
The New York job market—you shouldn’t be surprised I’ve led us here—closely reflects the New York male market, in its scarcity of options worth pursuing, the ferocity with which intelligent women approach both, and their consequential willingness to settle for something vastly below their worth.
If you’re looking for a place where women are supporting women, it cannot, as it turns out, be in the nepo baby capital of the world, a place where there’s only two positions available at Condé Nast at any given time, and six, straight, male, Instagram-famous chefs to go around. Everyone else has to settle for two listicles a year at IndieWire and a non-monogamous DJ boyfriend motivated to make opium cool again. It creates a violently unprogressive, underemployed and undersexed environment. Even the Ivy Leaguers are employed as “program assistants” for sinister non-profits offering 50k a year and no benefits. They’re going to alumni galas hungry for openings in Development and a 5-inch spot at the open bar where they can shimmy in sideways to the only man over 5’9” at the function. He has dark yellow teeth but works for Google and looks good in the reflective glow of highlighter from the four women in his close circumference, cooing over photos of his terrier, Rutledge.
My roommate and I have been steadily applying to jobs for over a year with absolutely no luck and 5% interest on our student loans. We represent a very decent portion of America: over-educated adults approaching 30 and still making just $5 more an hour than minimum wage in jobs that celebrate our willingness to be completely stationary and non-confrontational (men also love this!).
Which is all to say, in an effort to be an ally despite just blasting women and writers and women writers for five paragraphs, I’m listing the resources I use to find a job (unsuccessfully, it should be noted) with crippling fear for my competition, but I will bravely approach this just like we all must learn to with romance: if you’re really right for them, they’ll Like You, Only You.
This is where I look for work in the sphere of writing, publishing, marketing, blah, blah all the other things we say we do without knowing what we do.
Every Thursday this woman posts job listings: @alilabelle
I use Listings Project more as a way of possible escape, sometimes there’s jobs upstate that are very tempting
Alliance of Artist Communities
Club Copy discord (lmk if you need invite to this?? I don’t think you do but I’ll send if so)
LinkedIn, obviously, but it’s a fucking landmine
If any of y’all are feeling generous and want to add to the list, comment away!!! Sumus fratres semper!!!!
review of: Road House (1989) (aka not the Jake Gyllenhaal one)
I could not be more obsessed with this movie, which is a fascinating encapsulation of ‘80s culture and what our moms found to be hot. Absolute freaks for that. The premise is basically that Patrick Swayze with his worst haircut ever is a Very Talented Bouncer (??), so talented he’s sought out by the bar owner of Kansas City’s “Double Deuce,” an enormous bar very closely resembling Seacrets, for those who are familiar, which has fallen into hellish disarray (also Seacrets). He needs Swayze to save the bar by breaking up fights. Swayze says okay, sure, I’ll demand an extremely medium amount of money for that. Then he starts breaking up bar fights, throwing people out of the bar, fires a bunch of the staff because they’re selling drugs, makes a bunch of enemies. And this 5’4” rich man runs the town and has a posse that terrorizes everyone and Patrick Swayze says has ANYone even considered class warfare in here? Let’s punch everybody until they’re dead. There is blood everywhere in this movie. It’s egregiously gory which usually I’m anti but it’s such a silly little movie that you won’t be bothered by it. There’s also sex to Otis Redding, which is a classic Swayze move, as we all know from watching Dirty Dancing 30,000 times. I recommend everyone watch this instantly, it required very little attention and zero brain cells.
recommendations:
This Connie Francis album, Gold, has been running my life recently. I especially love “Where the Boys Are” and “Frankie”
In the spirit of sharing, everyone should be doing their work from home from Anais which is the most calming place in New York. And now they have sandwiches. Idk if they’re good I didn’t get one because it was $12
I’m loving Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake because, as my roommates encouraged, I’m never reading anything Fun and Normal and I have really missed it. Last time I’m reading horned-up Herodotus (Annie Ernaux) for a while, that shit was awesome and so exhausting
Have I already recommended American Graffiti on here? I feel like maybe but if I haven’t watch it it’s soooo adorable
I’m anti-recommending Caraway pans. Mine looks like shit and I’ve had it for 3 months and also it is NOT non-stick. Do not buy. Not linking so you’re not coaxed by their aesthetics, that’s how they get you
On copywriting: "They work tirelessly for one shot at a subway ad for a ceramic pan brand."
And those are the lucky ones... I used to commute to an office every day in strict business casual to write 500 words on health insurance... Would be interested to hear your take on the AI impact. In the above scenario, losing my job to the machine overlords would have been an act of mercy.
basecamp outdoor has some digital marketing/social media content/copywriting jobs in their weekly newsletter! it’s brutal out here lmao.