Employment (and other things)

Maybe I'm putting the cart ahead of the horse, or buying the ice cream before I've got the fridge, or (insert silly metaphor about doing things in the incorrect order), but should I really be so disappointed in the e-mail responses I've received lately from prospective employers regarding jobs that I've applied to that I failed to get? Maybe I rely too much on long compound sentences like the one previous to this one, which to some could be construed as a run-on? Or maybe it was my awkward and hesitant tone in the cover letters that turned those folk in HR off to me and my list of achievements and accomplishments? (Enough with these rhetorical questions!)

Perhaps it was the fact that I made some blunders in my salutations? Maybe. The fact that I've still not completed my thesis isn't helping things, either, but progress is being made. Regardless, I need to have a glimmer of hope –  an interview would suffice, really.

But I think that the main thing is, is that I remain patient. Too long in my life I've rushed headlong into some endeavor without thinking it completely through. Not that I've done anything that I regret, but I made some choices in school and work that were far more detrimental than beneficial to my future. I once worked for a car dealership, for just one spring back in 2002. I made some money and I got myself out of debt, but I took off a quarter of school to do so, and I set myself back at a time when I was just starting to really hone in on what I wanted to do with my life.

After the car dealership gig, I worked for a summer as a delivery driver for Pizza Hut. I worked with two of my best friends and whenever I wasn't delivering pizzas, I was hanging out and eating gross, greasy pizza. I was probably in the worst shape of my life at that time, due to my smoking habit and my love for eating junk food. I left that job, however, to take a job as a busser at Jean-Robert at Pigall's. I worked at Pigall's for three and a half years, with a brief intermission as a valet parker, but it seemed like I worked there for forever. That place was such a huge part of my life, and I truly do feel a deep connection, both pleasant and not, to that restaurant and the people I worked with and for. I learned so much about myself (and French cuisine and service) while working there as a busser, food runner, and eventually, a server. I learned how to open a bottle of wine properly; I learned how to properly pronounce 'terrîne'; I learned some of the deepest, darkest secrets of some of Cincinnati's most elite families.

In my heart, however, I knew that once I graduated from the University of Cincinnati, I would do my best to get out of Pigall's. Always, that job was only mine until I had earned my B.A., and once I had, I quickly found a new job as a legal researcher and put in my notice. That was back in December of 2005, and it was only in June of this year, 2007, that I finally went back into the restaurant to say 'hi' and see some familiar faces.

Until I went to graduate school in August of 2006, I worked for a lawyer, Robert S Brown, as a legal researcher (but in actuality I was more of a glorified secretary). I made decent money, got to wear street clothes to work, and got to drive a 500 horsepower Ford GT supercar. That job was so low-key and stress-free that it bordered on being boring at times, but the office paralegal and I found ways to have fun on those days that the hours just crept by at a sloth's pace. I was sad to leave that job, but in the blur before I moved to Athens, my bike accident, and being apart from Allison, I was pretty unaffected by the departure of that element from my life.

And so here I am, sitting in front of the computer on a Friday night, waiting for friends of mine from Cincinnati to come into town for an alleycat race. Ice cream is in the fridge and Mr. Show DVDs that need to be watched, so it's not like my life is particularly sour at the moment.