Job Interview

Today I had a job interview, and it went less terribly than I thought it would. It is for a job in the construction industry that pays 16 dollars an hour. It would be a wonderful opportunity for me. A full time job with benefits and profit sharing, a full year mentorship to learn the trade from the ground up, and ability to work independently after I am properly trained. In the city where I live, the cost of living is low and 32,000 dollars per year with benefits is enough to live independently.

And yet, after the initial rush of enthusiasm that the interview seemed to go well and that the job sounded like a great fit, I began to become depressed, because I am what I unfortunately am. It’s the same old stuff. The friends I grew up with make close to six figures or more. Some of my cousins are millionaires, and they are not yet 40. And then there’s me. I like to read articles online about millennials who are struggling, but I don’t see them anywhere. I think that’s a myth. I know not a single person who is like me, who is my age. I can’t even find stories of people like me on the internet. And I have looked everywhere. I feel completely alone and absolutely isolated.

Why do I care so much about this? I hate caring about it. I wish I could let it all go. How freeing it would be to just not give a shit about where I am in life, to embrace a great opportunity (if I am given such an opportunity), and to finally move forward, building a truly authentic life for the first time ever. But it doesn’t work that way with me.

I was born into well-to-do middle class white people culture, and I was expected to succeed by birthright. I was told growing up that I was smart and talented, and that life would be pretty easy for me. No one ever suggested that I might struggle for any reason. I am also white and male. And heterosexual. Life should have gone pretty well for me. It did for everyone I associated with growing up.

I’ve been thinking a bit about privilege lately and how it plays into my situation. Privilege has both protected me from many of the harsh realities of the world and largely stunted my growth. Like many middle-class white people born in the 80s, I grew up sheltered and I learned to fear everything. My family is wealthy enough that I don’t have to work, at least not for the time being, and I can live in a nice house with my parents. If I weren’t so privileged, I might have been kicked out at 18, forced to work for a living, given no choice but to succeed in college (if I had an opportunity to go), and expected to live independently. I don’t know what this means or what it says about me, but I think about it a lot. All I know is that it makes me feel like an absolute, utter failure.

My friends were able to to take advantage of their privilege, and I was not, for some reason. I was given every chance to succeed, and I totally blew it somehow. I desperately want to blame it on my mental illness, but I can’t. Everyone in my OCD group has a job, lives independently, etc. Many of them are married, certainly all of them have had serious relationships in the past, if they are currently single. And then there’s me. I desperately want to blame all of this on my sleep disorder, but that’s even more ridiculous. Everyone is tired all of the time, and all of those tired people function just fine. And then there’s me.

Also, sleep disorders and mental illness are the exclusive domain of middle class white people, I’ve come to believe. If I were a person of color or working class, I would not even be given the chance to consider that I might be suffering from such impairments.

It’s a frightening thing to think about, but I think this is how white men become radicalized on the internet. I really, really hate myself for failing so miserably at life, when life should have been so easy for me. I blame myself entirely for my failings, and I feel completely alienated from the rest of the world. It would be nice if someone were to come along and convince me that none of this is my fault, that it’s someone else’s fault, that I’m a victim, and that there’s a whole group of struggling people out there just like me. I will never go down that dark path, but I’m starting to see how it begins.

At the end of the day, all my bullshit angst about getting a decent job that isn’t as good as my friends’ jobs is likely all for naught. When the company I interview for does a thorough background check on me, they will find the gaping holes in my work history that are not quite so painfully obvious on my carefully crafted resume. And they will move on. And who could blame them?

I will then need to revamp my job hunting strategy. I will need to make my resume a little more straightforward (there are no lies on my resume, it’s just tailored a bit to cover up those gaps), and I will have to somehow come straight out about my absence from the work force in interviews, if I’m able to get them. I will also need to abandon my search for decent paying full time work and start looking at low wage part time jobs, as those are likely the only jobs I will be able to get. I guess it’s nice I can live with my parents while I spend the next couple years trying to wedge my way into the full time work force.

But I don’t think I’ll do any of those things. At the end of the day, I don’t want to be 35 and flipping burgers, living with mom and dad, while everyone around me seems to be living the American dream. What’s the point? What kind of future is there after that?

My sister’s birthday is less than a month a way, and mine is in less than 5 months. I want to celebrate with her one last time, but don’t want anyone to celebrate with me, not like this.

I was supposed to be a winner, and I turned out to be a loser, and I can’t live with that. And I’m not going to.