Day Nine -- NETWORKING

Warning: this post is very raw but I am up against a deadline

I’ve heard it said that it is not about what you know but who you know (or is it how much you love – perhaps a different saying?). But upon the advice of my dear friend – let’s call him Ben because that is his actual name – I have gone forward with the essential step of the job hunt I had somehow forgotten about – NETWORKING. And my sincere apologies, if you are a periphery acquaintance who I have all of a sudden gotten back in touch with to that end, I need to leave no stone unturned. The best people to help are those who work in similar types of fields where you want to work. Tell everyone you can think (except in my case, my immediate family) the kind of work you would like to do and see if they have ideas, leads, are hiring or will just straight up give you money.

I know that the truth is people want to help and if they precisely have any role in hiring for a given business/agency, they would probably rather hire even a remotely familiar face than a total rando. However, what I can’t help but wonder (I know that sounds so Kerry Bradshaw-esque), if these “friends” knew of the opening, why they wouldn’t tell you regardless? Maybe they didn’t know you were unhappy with your present employment, but who isn’t looking to make a change?

The truth is, when the shoe is on the other foot, so to speak, I am happy to help. In fact, I think I am really good at streamlining these types of connections. Maybe I should become a recruiter because there is so much demand for that.

What type of work would I like to do, you ask? Well that is a part of the problem, a topic maybe I should wrestle with more specifically in this blog instead of USC and being bi-polar (which I am not by the way). Point well taken, and as the Chicago Tribune declared bankruptcy yesterday (the parent organization of the LA Times) any illusions I was entertaining about becoming a professional writer have been flushed down the toilet. Maybe that is at the heart of this fire under my belly – all of the media attention to the sorry state of our economy has gotten me worried. Maybe I should be so flippant about whiling my life away on a perpetual vacation when the truth of the matter is that I am UNEMPLOYED. I should feel more of a sense of urgency about this whole situation. I need a dose of “beggars can’t be choosers,” to snap me out of this ambivalent, mediocrity I have been wallowing in (not whiling away in). What if I have car problems? What if I have a medical emergency? What if the sky starts to fall? How long can I eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and sell plasma to make ends meet? Those are both very bad ideas. Maybe it was the terrible episode of Dr. Phil I watched, or was it Desperate Housewives?

Back to what kind of work I would like to do – I would like to get paid to sleep till 9am daily (noon would be greedy), muse about life for a few hours/write, read novels in the afternoon, sometimes squeeze in time to listen to Mars Hill podcasts but not daily (maybe every other day), cook/bake, hang with children, go to Lucky Baldwin’s (but there again, maybe not a daily activity as I would both become a lush and grow to be fat) and parallel parking. So, a nanny who moonlights as a valet parker/freelance writer is my perfect job? Those types of positions are completely in demand.

I think I would like Dave Eggers’ life. He is an established/successful/published/acclaimed writer and on the side has this very cool project to help children become better writers. I could get into that type of gig.