Social networking among states–and states of being.

Maybe Texas is the better state, compared to Mass, that is.  I mean, at least there I never had a problem finding a job:  daycare worker, after school program worker, wedding consultant, librarian aide, even my brief stint as an accountant at a jet aviation fuel company.  And now, I actually have a degree, like a real college degree, not even one of those fake ones you can get online, it’s actual, just not framed.  But apparently having a degree means little to nothing, it’s experience you need.

Well, so they say.  Like, to be a receptionist, I have to have receptionist experience, and apparently answering a phone for over half my life doesn’t qualify.  And to be an office assistant, I have to have experience with Microsoft, but just because I use them all the time doesn’t mean anything either.  I have to have had a previous job that involved me working with computers.  I can’t work in retail, because the only retail experience I have is in David’s Bridal, but apparently wedding doesn’t count because it’s not the same as standing and folding clothes for 40 hrs a week, even though I’ve done that since I was five and my mommy stopped cleaning up after me.

But when I tried to just transfer to David’s Bridal at Dedham, I was met with criticism, saracasm, witchiness, and the feeling that the first time in my life I was actually being snubbed and bullied–it took me 22 years, but it wasn’t until I graduated with a degree that I was bullied by “peers”–and the overall thought of my co-workers and managers was that I did not have enough experience in the Dedham store to qualify me working with the Dedham employees, a store that is fourteen times smaller in size and clientele than the one I happened to work in.  Go figure.

And now that I’ve thought about it, it’s not experience that I need, it’s people I need to meet.  Because every job I’ve ever had I’ve gotten because I knew someone’s Dad, or the girl in my class got me in, or because my roommate worked there, too.  So now that I’m in New England, with one of those pieces of paper I paid a million dollars for so I can get a real job, turns out, I don’t know a single person up here, so it makes getting a job that much more difficult.

Now, I’m not complaining, promise, although those of you reading I’m sure are adding my sarcastic overtones into this.  But seriously I’m not complaining.  Yes, I’m very frustrated, frustrated to the nth degree, my poor husband’s ears I’m sure are bleeding from hearing my whining and moaning and groaning about this topic.  I’m not complaining because I’m supremely happy to be in New England, to be really close to Boston, to be living with the best husband ever, and “working” from home as a community newspaper reporter.  I’m not complaining, I just wish I had been more prepared for this job hunt/life search than I was.  Where were all those college classes on how to get a job instead of talking about truth trees?

Turns out, social networking is so much harder than what you experience with facebook and twitter on a daily basis.  In fact, if you want my naive opinion, social networking in real life doesn’t really exist outside previous existing relations.  As in, perhaps if I grew up in Norwood or Boston, went to school here, went to college here, had an uncle working in a high class office downtown here, then perhaps I would be better off.  But as a southern speaking sometimes shy and introverted Texan with really no stronghold of family or people connections here, I’ve got nothing to boost me up in the professional world–except for a couple new skirts and cardigans I’ve purchased since I’ve been here, but I don’t really think that’s going to do the trick.

Social networking I think is the single most absolute hardest obstacle I’ve ever faced in my 22 years of life.  School?  Done.  College degree?  Finished.  Marriage?  Piece of cake.  Perfecting my resume by using my computer and grammar skillz?  Written.  But trying to figure out how to get myself out there?  The jury’s still out on that one.

All I can really do is clean my 800 square foot apartment over and over and spend loads of money at the laundromat washing load after load of laundry, and cook three course dinners for my husband when he gets home from work, all the while perusing craigslist, the paper, and the websites my google searches bring up trying to find someone to send this resume of mine to.  Because that’s what social networking is, right?  Just sending out emails all day long in hopes that one day I’ll get a response to test out my talents.

But we’ll see.
Until then, I’m going to bore the internet world with my blogging.