SO ANYWAYS, I’ve read somewhere online that voicing your problems can at times be detrimental in that instead of feeling a cathartic effect from verbalizing the issue out loud (and on the Web), it actually adds more power to the problem and causes it to have a bigger negative impact on oneself as a result. Oh well. As you may all know from this journal entry I posted in January, I quit a warehouse job after a 3-day stint there after losing my previous film industry-related employment 5 days earlier. Needless to say, the effects of that warehouse job had a major (negative) impact on my job-searching efforts shortly afterward. The day after I lost the film job, I drove to different places where I applied to two retail stores in person, and applied to two more jobs via online later that night. (I even went to a nearby hotel to see if it was hiring new people as well. Nope.) It was also later that night that through diligent Web surfing, I stumbled upon the warehouse job that would put be in a rut two months later. Anyways, on the following day I applied online for two different positions at a single company (Allstate Insurance). I would receive e-mails two days later where I was told that those positions were already filled.
So why did that warehouse job have a negative impact on me, you ask? Well for starters, quitting that job caused me to lose my unemployment benefits (which I started to receive in May of 2010 since my film job was a freelance/part-time gig, and in California part-time employees are eligible to receive unemployment insurance). Turns out, the paycheck that I received for the 3-day work at the warehouse was only 5 BUCKS more than what I would’ve received if I continued to get unemployment checks. So yes, I worked there for nothing. Second reason why that warehouse gig screwed me over? It made me wary of working at a company where the majority of workers there were of a certain ethnicity...and seldom spoke English (I live in Southern California, so you can guess who I’m referring to). Sorry to sound racist (if you guessed the correct ethnicity), but it’s true. Third reason why my job-search is at a standstill? That warehouse gig started to make me SECOND-GUESS applying for any job posting that I looked up on the Web...even to this day. Whether the job is in the entertainment industry as hoped for or at a local company, I’ll try to picture myself being employed there and see if I would love or hate it with a passion. What are the consequences of doing this? Well— I’m now constantly going on Google to see how I can overcome being an "over-thinker" and coping with "analysis-paralysis". Lots of online self-help articles on these two topics.
In terms of being an over-thinker and analyzing things too much, there’s another major reason why my job search has come to a standstill: The fear of doing interviews. In early February, I had to wait more than a week to do a phone interview with the state's employment department after reporting that I quit that warehouse gig. That wait made me constantly worry about what I would say (in order to continue getting checks in the mail) when I finally got called...despite the fact that anxiety I felt was all for naught since I lost my unemployment benefits anyway, as mentioned earlier in this entry. Not focusing on the present moment and worrying 'bout the future has also made me dread doing that one thing that would bring me back into the workforce: The job interview.
Earlier this year, Honda aired this TV commercial where after some dude shakes hands with two hiring managers following a job interview and walks back to his car, one hiring manager looks over to his co-worker and remarks, "Seems right." The co-worker, seemingly unimpressed with the interviewee, responds with an "I don’t know, Hank." (At the end of this commercial, that interviewee would apparently get the job since he drove a Civic.) Even though the hiring managers and interviewee were obviously played by actors, and this commercial was written by some douchey writer, this ad began to make me wary about going to job interviews. (I'd provide a Youtube link to that Honda ad, but I refuse to bring additional attention to a commercial that has had an adverse effect on my prospects for re-employment.)
What didn’t help matters much regarding doing interviews are the constant MSN.com articles I stumble upon during and after I log off of my e-mail account. (For those of you who don’t use Hotmail, you automatically go to the MSN webpage after you log off the e-mail site.) MSN occasionally posts links to pages that talk about how to handle the interviewing and job-searching process. I obviously understand that these articles are meant to help me master the art of interviewing, but for me personally, it’s more detrimental to read about how interviews may be 60 minutes long, may be a "group panel" interview, how you need to prepare hard and do lots of research on the company with which you're doing the interview, how you need to behave a certain way during the interview, and the etiquette of having to send the hiring managers a "thank you" note a couple of days after the interview was held. It seems like these articles are geared towards interviews for a high-paying corporate job, but still— These damn articles make interviews sound a lot more complex than they need to be...and make me want to read about movies and NASA stuff online instead of job searching. Yes, I'm well aware that I don't need to read these articles in the first place. Is there a way to log off of Hotmail without going to MSN, by any chance? Probably not.
So here I am— Two months later and looking for a job every um, week. One good thing that has come out of being a jobless bastard right now? The numerous walks to the nearby park that I’ve done over the past month or so. Facetiousness Alert: You’ll be surprised to see how many hummingbirds fly around my neighborhood, and how many squirrels and rabbits live at the local park I go to almost every day, haha. I’ll post pictures that I’ve taken from my many stints to the park a few days from now. So what's the gist of this journal entry? Working at a warehouse is not for me. Over-thinking and analysis-paralysis suck really bad. I need to overcome my dread of doing job interviews. And...gloomy weather doesn’t help when you’re already in a gloomy mood for being unemployed. It’s currently raining here in SoCal. That is all.
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