Unemployment

If you've read anything that I've been posting over the last month or two, you really should know that I'm unemployed. My degree was posted to my transcripts on Thursday of this last week. With that, I am now fully unemployed, with no doubts about it. I've also been rejected from just as many jobs as ever recently and have been applying to yet more. I honestly don't think there's anything more that I can do... legally... that would more effectively help me find a job. Also, at my interview with WTI, I found out that I would be perfectly qualified for the job, that they wanted to hire me, and that I could start almost immediately, however, the job pays a glorious $11 and hour. And lest you think, "Well, you should just take what you can get," I should inform or remind you that my education was, in large part, financed with debt and that I owe in the neighborhood of $20,000 on those loans. A paltry $11 an hour is literally not enough for me to pay my bills and eat. (Trust me, I made an Excel spreadsheet and tried to squeeze my finances as much as I could, but without selling my blood plasma 6 times a week, I can't live on $11 an hour.) So, I'm pretty much left at square one. I have no job, no offers, have had one joke of an interview, and very few prospects for the future. To convolute matters, my father has issued the ultimatum that I must move out of his house by February 13th, 2011... which is about the same time my student loans come due.

So, all of this makes me really wonder what the *H* I'm going to do with my life if I don't have a job by that all-important date on the calendar. At this point, I think I would pack some limited amount of my crap into a bag and make my way back to Provo, somehow, someway. At that point I would probably bum places to sleep and meals off of whoever I could until I could find something on which my time is worth spending. One of my friends in Provo, Paul Bascom, mentioned that it would be a good idea to start an Arrested Development-esque banana stand in Provo. Honestly, I think this is a great idea and wouldn't mind contributing. Heck, since I'm genuinely unemployed, I could work there pretty much everyday that we'd be open, and maybe even make enough money to pay my bills... who knows.

At the same time, I've kind of been wondering if I should just become a legitimate hobo, since we're in the midst of the Great Depression v2.0 and my preferred industry has been hit especially hard. I think I might enjoy hopping on trains and making my way across the country; meeting up with other hobos and swapping hobo stories. Maybe find someplace to shower and then drop off a few résumés along the way. And heck, with Obamacare, I don't even have to worry about getting dysentery, since all expenses are paid by the United States government. Eating out of the dumpster behind Fazoli's just became that much more practical. At the same point, there are some implicit occupational hazards associated with being a hobo. Douchebags like the kind of douchebags who watch Jackass like to pick fights with hobos wherever they may end up. And people just generally like to kick and assault hobos just because they can. I think I'd have to cover this problem by carrying around a hobo knife with me. Like the hobo from the Simpsons sang, "Nothin' beats the hobo life, stabbin' folks with my hobo knife!" In this case, I think I'd have to carry around the Sog Seal 2000 that I got for Christmas a few years back. This thing has about a 6-in long, hardened steel blade that could puncture just about any portion of the human body... and is used by the Navy Seals, in case you couldn't tell. And if you're a hobo, the government can't come and collect you student loans. I'd have no permanent address and no assets to speak of... what are they going to do? Seize my ephing knapsack? I don't think so.

You might also wonder why, if I'm going to live as a hobo anyway, would I not just take a crappy $11 an hour job and then live under a bridge with a PO Box. Well, I've clearly thought of that, and there are several problems. Not the least of these is that, when you have a job, your boss co-workers, and everyone around you expects you to shower more or less daily. Not happening as a hobo. Additionally, I have the slightest sense of entitlement that tells me, "If I'm going to be working my @$$ off to make some money, I'm going to have a roof over my head." Honestly, I don't think that this is too much to expect. The last problem that I could foresee would be the lack of flexibility. The only reason why I'd live the hobo life is so that I could hop trains and end up in new places based on my arbitrary desires. I would be the master of my own destiny, regardless of how bleak that destiny actually was. If I had to be my boss' b*tch during the day, then get kicked by douchebags at night, with no promise of reprieve, I would almost certainly go homicidal... and probably suicidal too. It would really be the worst of both worlds.

All aspirations of being a hobo aside, the BYU STEM career fair is on the 22nd of September... and there's even another one on February 1st of next year. I'm hoping that I can find something remotely promising at that event, or at least pick up some good schwagg that will help me live my life as a hobo. I'm also just going to keep applying for jobs and try to have the blessing of the Lord with me, since I think we both know that that's the only way that someone's going to find a job in this crapconomy.