I got laid off a couple weeks ago. It was a crap job, so I wasn't too sad to see it come to an end. I should've been prepared more than I was, but I still managed to slide into something new like a pickpocket moving between subway cars. Didn't even miss a day of work.
But it's a temporary gig, so I gotta keep moving. I had an interview on Thursday, and it didn't go too great. Maybe it didn't go terribly either, but it certainly feels that way. Some of my professional deficiencies were highlighted and I made a few missteps through the process.
What's interesting was my internal process directly following the whole ordeal. "Well, I just failed one interview. Let's see how many more I can bomb through before someone makes a mistake and accidentally hires me." What a dark and self-defeating mindset. But not.
I seem to interpret my default state as failure, and I pay for that with self-esteem and whatever tokens of optimism are rattling around my pocket. It's not a great place to be, and I wouldn't recommend it. And yet here I am, harnessing this bleak energy for the better. It's helped me do three things: come to terms with my immediate shortcomings, keep pressing on, and brace for future let downs.
I'm going to keep applying for work not because I feel hopeful and think I'd be a catch for a potential employer, but because eventually someone will slip up and I'll slip through the process of infinite rejection. And maybe once I make it through to that other side I'll find or prove some sort of worth. Until then it's a game of odds.
So I'll keep plugging away and find other places to apply to. I know that tailoring my resume to a specific company won't be noticed. I know the effort I put into personalizing cover letters won't impress the AI filters before it gets deleted. But there's gotta be hole in this wall somewhere.
I wish that my reaction to these disappointments was closer to "their loss" rather than "that figures". The whole thing's just frustratingly sad. But I guess you can't argue that it isn't effective. The mind is a strange, strange thing.
Onwards.
-Cril
