Four months ago, with my mortarboard held high, I took my red pleather folder from the hand of Joanne Boyle and I was ready to begin my new life. I’d been job searching for the previous two months, and I was sure that I would be employed any day. Every time a job opportunity passed me by, I said to myself, “Well, at least I get a nice break and some time to help out my father.” Sound jobs came and went, and eventually, my mother’s place of employment asked me to fill in. I said to myself, “I’ll only be here for a week or two. I’ll be getting a job in my field soon.” Well, I’ve been here at Midstate Tool for over a month now, and the lack of chemistry is starting to get old and fast.
I’ve been job hunting since March, and the lack of positions in my field hits hard every day that I look at online classifieds. I’m not limiting myself to my hometown (which would be career suicide), but rather am looking at jobs all over the state. I have submitted at least three dozen applications to various companies in Pittsburgh, Johnstown, State College, and Lancaster areas. I have currently had three interviews to date. Maybe a 10% success rate of applications to interviews is pretty good; I somehow still feel overlooked.
I went into chemistry because I don’t always feel comfortable dealing with people on a social level. I never wanted to be a teacher, I’ll tell you that much. Whenever I was younger, I wanted to go into fields that had little interaction with people. Some of my first career aspirations were “dancer”, “veterinarian”, or the ambitious “astronaut”. Right before I graduated high school, I strongly considered a career in landscape architecture. I was more than happy to deal with plants or animals, but people? Count me out. My current job at Midstate Tool is as greeter and phone operator. While this position deals slightly less with people than some other service-oriented fields, I have two problems that make me ill equipped for these roles; I do not recognize people’s voices easily, and I am bad with names.
My first interview was a long time ago, when I was still at school. That opportunity did not pan out, mostly because I was not at all interested in the position once I heard the details and saw the facilities. Part of the position I had interviewed for was sales. Yeah, service-oriented field, and very people heavy. How ‘bout pass. Luckily, in the recent weeks, I’ve had two interviews, and I’m waiting to schedule a third. I haven’t heard from the first two interviews yet, so I’m still holding out. The third interview that’s waiting to be scheduled is also quite exciting. I keep hoping that somebody, anybody will give me a job I’ll enjoy. (Oh yeah… I just now remembered, I had interviewed for a temp job in the Greensburg area. But I didn’t want a temp job. Too unstable).
So for now, I’m just biding my time until someone wants to hire me. They say you don’t know what you have until it’s gone, and I am certainly starting to miss lab coats and test tubes. While I had times where I doubted my chosen career path (doesn’t everyone?), feeling an emptiness without science in my life has further reaffirmed my love of chemistry.
Luckily I’ve been busy at work (which is why this entry has taken so long), but it’s not the kind of busy that I enjoy. I like computers as much as the next guy, but formatting Microsoft Excel spreadsheets so that they look like pretty reports is not my idea of fun. And the phone has been ringing like crazy, in turn making me crazy. By in large, the people are really nice, but there are those limited few that think I should be able to solve all their problems, including people being too busy to speak to them or people on their phone for several minutes at a clip. God forbid people have to stay on hold for more than thirty seconds. But others are so nice that I just don’t know what to do with myself. One gentleman told my mother that he wished he had a son for me to date, and then told me that whenever I get another job “we’ll miss your beautiful face.” Holy crap. I don’t remember the last time someone called me beautiful.
And yet I wait patiently for my cell phone to ring. The three phone calls that I’m currently waiting for are all great job opportunities, and I’d be excited to get any one of them. I’m looking forward to moving out, gaining independence, and teaching myself life skills. Come on, real world. Bring it.