I Want a Job That Doesn't Feel Like a Job

I have been looking for a full-time job since December 2020, and the outlook feels more bleak with each round of applications I send out. Out of well over 200 applications, I have been called for only two interviews thus far. I don't know how many different iterations I've written of a cover letter, but I'm sure those list in the dozens too. I've even tried to format my resume in a plethora of varieties just to spice things up. And this is with having taken Business Writing courses in college.

What does this all mean? Basically—I think all my schooling and "qualifications" are backfiring on me in a bad way. I no longer can attract part-time work because I'm overqualified, yet I also do not have the experience recruiters want to see on a resume. So what if I've worked in a customer service position for going on a decade? It's frustrating to be told again and again that you don't have hire-worthy skills despite the necessary education you endured just to have a career with better income outlooks in the future.

I know: I'm spouting the rallying cry so many millennials have taken up in their weeks, months, and years after college. Despite the common malady of my generation, I don't feel encouraged. Rather, the whole situation just makes me look at my fellow millennials as the foes I have to outrun and outclass in this corporate Hunger Games scenario. Think it's a dog-eat-dog world now? It's not getting any better, boomers.

That leads me to my next point: every person over the age of 50 I talk to has the same old spiel. "Oh, you need to do this, this, this" and "I'm sure you would have been called for an interview if you did X"—I get it, you're all spilling with wisdom and anecdotes, but the job market of today isn't the same way it was twenty, thirty, forty years ago. When I was an elementary school kid, I didn't remember seeing a listlessness in the eyes of the high school seniors I saw and looked up to, but I see it in today's teens. At my last job, I worked with girls who were just about to graduate high school, and they were so disenchanted by the idea that they had to figure out what they wanted to do for the rest of their lives RIGHT THEN AND THERE.

I once thought youth meant you had hope in spades, no matter where you came from, but I'm not so sure anymore.

My Dilemma

I'll be real with you: I'm not the sparkly snowflake who thinks my "writing career" will suddenly launch itself into the greater galaxy's heights. Contributing to sites like Vocal and Medium are my play time and my escape. Without them, I would just likely be writing in a journal with nothing ever seeing the light of day.

But what do I mean in the title of this article, "I Want a Job That Doesn't Feel Like a Job"? I guess it's this: I don't want work or a career to become my life. It may sound idealistic, but I want something I can detach from and set aside when the work day ends. I don't want to carry baggage home with me. That's why I didn't try to become a doctor, a nurse, or even a psychiatrist or therapist.

Storytime: my uncle worked in the construction business for thirty years and retired at age 55. He rose through the ranks, worked twelve-hour shifts, and even became a foreman for many expansive projects over his career's run. But what happened as soon as he retired? He found he had no life except the time he spent at the local bar. Hobbies? None. Identity outside his career? Paper thin.

Sure, he made a lot of money and has had a comfortable retirement, but what does all that mean when almost his whole identity revolved around a job?

I see it in other people too. There's a hollowness that follows in their time in retirement. It's as if they've invested so much time in their working life that, when it finally falls away, they're still stuck in the shreds of the cocoon that constrained them for so long.

And guess what? I don't want that.

The Allure of the Dream Job—if it even exists.

I get it. All the talk of the American Dream has left its own taint on us Americans. We think we have to work more hours in the grind just to have more things to show off how successful we are. My dad, for one, thinks he's somebody because he has three cars in the garage. Who cares? It's just stuff. And you can't take it with you (though the Ancient Egyptians tried).

I guess my "dream job" is the one where I'm actually happy to be putting my time in. So far, I've worked retail jobs, and every single one left me with a dread before every shift I had. That kind of experience has left me with this worry: will all the jobs I have in my life make me feel that awful?

The truth is that I want a job that makes me feel like I'm bettering myself in some way. Am I my generation's cliché for voicing that? Maybe so.

But here's the thing: the American Dream is always touted as the end destination if you work hard. But how hard? What quantifies that? Is it the hours put in? Then why aren't the people working minimum wage 40+ hours a week at McDonald's living in penthouses? I'm sure they work just as hard as, if not more than, someone like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos. But there's job disparity rampant all around the world. And the service industry jobs themselves? They're probably the worst of the bunch, right next to the sweat shops of more impoverished countries.

Dream job—sometimes I don't even want to imagine it because I doubt I'll ever get there. It feels like a fantasy to wish for anything beyond a cubicle somewhere, working for The Man every Monday through Friday 9 AM to 5 PM.

I have the degree you told me I needed to get ahead. I put in my time in a university. I even got the grades you praised me for all through my formative years. What? That's not enough? Then, tell me, what will be enough?

I'm not looking for a handout or a ticket to Easy Street. I just don't want to whittle away my precious time on this earth chasing after pursuits where the only gratification comes deposited in a bank account.

Tell me: is it so wrong to hope for more?

If you'd like to support my writing in these trying times for millennials, then please head on over to my profile page for more stories of all kinds. Thank you for reading, and I hope you have a job you love to do.