17 June 2021

I’ve been unemployed for just over two weeks now. I still do not have the perfect body. I haven’t written a bestselling novel. My apartment isn’t cleaner than a hospital.

I felt the weight of my so-called failures yesterday. I’m pretty sure my period’s on its way, but I felt ugly from the inside out. My calves ached. My bottom right tooth, the one all the way in the back, throbbed periodically and hurt every time I gnashed on a brownie, of which I ate three.

Hormonally, I was a mess, and I let it eat me up yesterday. In the past couple of weeks, I’ve walked at least a hundred miles, exercising both my body and Bubba’s, and likely our minds, too. I’ve listened to more music than I probably did the entirety of last year. I compiled a resume, which I now have to revise for a third time after watching a TikTok informing me of improper diction and syntax. Did you know that even if you were a leader of some kind that it’s not in good taste to say so? Words like facilitated, anything to remove some of that hard work from your direct field of accomplishment are better for prospective employers. You’re allowed to be good, just not too good.

Resumes are a lot like credit scores. The jumble of words meant to highlight your achievements don’t really say anything about who you are as a person. Unfortunately, if your buzzwords don’t make it through whatever search engine they’re put through, you won’t even get the opportunity to present a professionalized version of who you are in a face to face interview.

It’s all a fucking game. A game, sadly, that I have no idea how to play. I had a hard enough time juicing myself up in a generic way. I don’t know how I’m going to exude any sort of greatness in person when the time comes. I’ve had no training. Unlike a lot of my millennial peers, I have spent the entirety of my adult life working in one place, something I thought might work to my advantage. And perhaps it would have if my chosen field was a well-respected one.

Ideally, I’ll find a job I can do from the comfort of my home, in my underwear if that’s how I feel like doing it. I won’t have to deal with the public, because I’ve done my time already. I want to write. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.

What can I say to make someone want me? I worked overtime during a pandemic while helping my mom through a double mastectomy and chemotherapy. I worked my body and mind to better the interests of a giant corporation that showed little care for my well-being. I showed genuine empathy to the suburban alcoholics who filtered in and out of the automatic doors every morning, sacrificing their lives and the lives of their loved ones for their next buzz.

I scrubbed shit off the floor.

Does any of that make me worthy?

I could always apply for Amazon. The levels of abuse I’ve taken for the bottom line make me a perfect candidate. A report came out that Amazon experiences a yearly turnover of 150%. Jeff Bezos, king of reading the room, believes this is due to people being “inherently lazy.” How wildly out of touch this guy has to be to believe his workers are lazy- I just have no words. There are plenty of people who have beautifully stated his complete lack of basic human decency. I don’t have it in me.

All I can think about is how unbelievably boring he would be to have a conversation with. What do you even talk about with someone like that? I feel kind of sad for him (not that sad.) There’s a certain point where you lose all relatability, where you are so far removed from normal, everyday life that living must be so boring and sad. If there is any shred of humanity left in there, the guy is probably miserable knowing his mere existence is an antithesis to the real world. He cannot understand what it means to be human the way the rest of us can. The only people he can relate to are void of the same understanding, so even those conversations with his peers are probably lacking the sort of depth between real friends discussing real things.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe underneath it all the guy is just great, a real gas to be around. Funny, thoughtful, deep, and kind. Maybe everyone’s wrong about him and he’s got some master plan to use his obscene wealth to better the entire world. We just need to prove to him we deserve it by not being so fucking lazy.