Notes from the office

My challenge for last week was to find a job--any job--to pay the bills and kill time during the summer. On Monday I applied online for a position at an arts and crafts store, but after spending two hours extolling my love of creativity and customer service, attesting that my coworkers would describe me as "friendly" and "helpful," and completing a 12-page assessment wherein I was required to know the opposite of the word "qualm" and the first letter of the word who's definition is "a grassy, open-air space with many hills and few trees," I decided I wasn't really intellectually equipped to sell glue sticks.

Then on Tuesday night, while having drinks with a group of her friends, my mom mentioned that I was an English composition and rhetoric major in desperate need of summer employment. Her friend told her that she was looking for someone to write copy and press releases for her web development company and wondered if I'd be interested in such work. And oh yeah, would I also be able to do it all from home? My mom figured that position was right up my alley and told her friend I'd give her a call. Now, you know that question that counselors ask that is supposed to help you figure out what to do for a living? "If you won the lottery and never had to work again, what would you do with your spare time?" Well, "sit on my duff and write" was pretty much my answer verbatim, so yeah, I gave her a call. She asked for a resume and writing samples and I spent all of Wednesday afternoon perfecting everything and sent it in six hours later. Early the next morning she sent me an email and asked if I had time for a "meeting," so we scheduled one for 2:00 on Friday afternoon. I was so nervous about my perceived interview that I spent the hours leading up to 2:00 pacing and quizzing myself over grammar rules because I HAD TO GET THAT JOB OMG. Then at 1:00 my mom's friend called and told me that she and her business partner would have to reschedule AND THEN SHE SAID, "but we really want you to get started right away: can you write a magazine article for us?"

So here I sit in yoga pants and a t-shirt next to a friends' poodle in the friends' house that I'm looking after for the next two weeks, taking a break from the article by watching Designers' Challenge on HGTV in high-def. Minimum wage and glue sticks be damned.