Stupid Duck

I don't get great cell phone reception at my house, so often, when people text or call me, I don't get the message until hours later.  Last night, while skyping with my boyfriend, Andrew, my phone started going nuts and I got two voicemails and five messages at the same time.  Most of the messages and one call were from my college roommate, Ann (sorry, girl!) and one message was from a man who saw my resume on Monster.com and wanted to talk about an opening.

Now, at first blush, this may seem exciting.  Except for a few factors: 1. My Monster resume sucks, because I haven't used it in months, and 2. He didn't tell me who he worked for and what the position was.  So I figured it would be something sketchy.  Well, I called him today, and found out he works for Aflac Insurance.  So, he probably was not "very impressed with what he saw" on my resume, but was merely looking for unemployed college grads in the area.  Kind of a let down, but at least I saw it coming.

Because I have a hard time saying "no" to people (something I'm working on, and actually getting marginally better at) I set up an appointment for next week, rather than saying, "I'm not really looking to get into the insurance business at this point, but thank you for the call."  That would have been a much easier thing to do, because now, I either have to show up for this appointment, or call back later and say, something came up, or I don't want to do this, and then I will look like an idiot.  What to do?

I told my dad this story and he just said "Hang in there."  Which was nice.  He knows how frustrated I am getting with the job search.  He and Andrew tell me all the time, "Its not a reflection on you, you're qualified, its just the market."  And in my mind, I know this is true.  But in the part of me that doesn't specialize in thinking rationally, and just feels first (usually anger) it is becoming very difficult not to email a potential employer and say "We both know that I'm good enough! Just friggin' hire me because I know I can do the job better than most of the people already working for you!"  I wish you could be just flat-out egotistical in your cover letter.  I generally try to go for self-praise-disguised-as-modesty, but maybe that's not working in my favor.  Perhaps I will start my next cover letter thus: "I am the best employee you are ever gonna get, and I while I am going through the formality of writing this cover letter and applying, we both know you want to hire me, so just do it."

To all of those people in the same position (though I know you aren't reading my blog--I know exactly which two people besides myself know about it), believe me, I know its tough.  And as hard as it is to believe sometimes, we are good enough, smart enough, qualified enough.  But employers just won't give us the chance to prove that to them.

"Hang in there."