The Amateur Fatalist Looks for Work

It's been almost a year since I left Japan and moved back to the United States. In that year I've sought permanent employment...and failed delightfully. My job-seeking chronicles were meant to be an essay. I've decided to turn them into a self-deprecating series of blog posts instead. I hope you enjoy this first installment. Oh, and let me know if you're hiring. You may find yourself in future posts.

The Search Begins
I moved back to the United States in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. I was returning after two years spent in Japan teaching English. The ex-pat community there stayed abreast of the worsening situation in the States, but with our cushy teachers’ salaries and government health plans, we couldn’t really relate…the 5,000-mile-wide ocean added to that separation, too. After my term was up I hopped on a plane and returned home, adding myself to the tired, the poor, the huddled, unemployed masses. But I wasn’t worried. I was certain that any employer in the country would be lucky to have this more cultured, wiser version of me. I was well-traveled, well-published, and far more interesting than when I left America. Unfortunately these things do not translate well as “qualifications,” which is what all of my potential employers were so hung up on.

I quickly found that weathered columnists were being laid off left and right. Freelance writers and under-seasoned editors like myself didn’t stand a chance. In the interest of making rent, I cast my job net a little wider than I first intended. I broadened my search from publishing companies and magazines to anyone that would pay me in money.

It turns out that finding a job was pretty easy. Finding a job that I could see myself working for more than two or three months, however, proved a little trickier. Over the course of the next nine months I accepted employment with ten different companies. Some lasted hours, others months. I sold, I typed, I filed, I wore a hairnet. I took an oath of office with the U.S. government. I went dumpster diving for books. I peddled diet bars and hamburgers and photos to Irish dancers. I was home at last and determined to stay, no matter what I had to do to afford it. These are my stories.