The Logline Lady: September 2014

I graduated from college four weeks ago. And I've been aggressively looking for jobs since. Before graduating I had this idea that I would find a job, any job, nothing career oriented that would take up too much of my mental space so that I could focus on my writing (you know, my ART?) on nights and weekends. And I would slave away doing that. Because that's a romantic notion. I saw myself working at the vegan doughnut shop nearby or maybe as a barista or most probably a receptionist, since I had experience doing that. I also cycled through ideas of trying to freelance full-time or actually looking for a job in a creative field.

After a month of job hunting, I have nothing to show for it but rejections and one offer to transcribe for eight hours a day at this really strange tech outsourcing company. I'm taking the weekend to think it over. The pay is only $10 an hour, which is barely more than I'm making now at the library (my job there expires in a couple months). I also told myself that I wouldn't settle for less than $12 an hour. This is how desperate I've become. The commute is also pretty far. And I can't decide if sitting at a desk typing and very little human interaction all day would be awesome or a nightmare.

There's something oddly appealing about it though. And I think it stems from the way I tend to romanticize mediocrity/average/low-paying/shitty jobs. I don't know why, but there's something romantic about the hustle. Like working yourself to the bone somehow makes it more fulfilling or worthwhile. It's weird that I think this way because I grew up in a poor/working class family headed by a single mother who worked two jobs. And every since I left home at seventeen, I've never once not worried about money and making rent each month.

Maybe it's a product of our culture's romanticization of it. When I see cool and beautiful people in movies working low-paying jobs, it always seems appealing. Like, if they'd do it, why wouldn't/couldn't I? And it's strange because since being offered this position, I've teetered between being disappointed because I feel like I could do better, and asking myself why I'm too good for it.

The shitty, low-paying, no-benefits, dead-end, mind-numbing desk job is like a right of passage, right?

Maybe I'm not supposed to and it'd unpopular opinion, but every time I watch Ghost World, I romanticize and really identify with Rebecca. I think you're supposed to see her as a boring sell-out yuppie, but there's something nice about the way she seems so together by the end of the movie. So normal. So stable.