I now find myself spending at least an hour a day, usually at inappropriate hours of the night, looking for a job. I knew that this was coming. School ended for me in December and I’ve been applying since October, but now that it’s March, I’m starting to stress.

I feel like I’m finally an adult, but the world won’t let me be. I could go to work daily, and pay my bills, and buy my groceries, and cut back on the amount of Real Housewives I watch, but instead my mom cooks my dinner while I am fully caught up with all of the Kardashians.

Over the summer, while working a TV programming internship, I did small interviews with a few people within the network to see exactly what their jobs entail.

I was told, multiple times over the course of 10 minutes, that I need to be specific about what I want to do. I can’t just say, “I want to work in TV or movies,” I can’t say, “I want to write for TV.” I’m supposed to say, “I want to write for Saturday Night Live before moving onto sitcom work and I will do nothing less.” And while that certainly has its merits, I’m not super trusting of any conversation that happens in a dark office with The Doors movie playing on an old TV in the background. (The meeting was not as sketchy as it sounds)

But that’s not what the job market is right now. Right now, my checklist for applying to a job is:

1. Have I heard of this company?

2. Am I mostly qualified for this job?

3. Apply

I’ve got at least 100 applications in at this point and have only received one official rejection letter. On some of the company sites, I can see the status of my application, and by doing so I can see that 4 positions have closed, and 2 positions are (and have been, for over a month) reviewing my application.

Right now, I lack complete confidence that I may ever get a job. The fundamentals of getting a job are being thrown out the window. Nearly every job I have applied to goes through an application system, so there’s no following up. Think your qualified and would like to talk to someone? Too bad. Have a question about the position? Keep it to yourself.

I’ve even applied for some jobs that don’t want a cover letter- just a resume.

But there’s almost nothing that can be done. The people I know who are just out of college and working in the industry are in such low positions, that they cannot pull any strings for me, and it looks like it’s going to take some time before they ever move up. There’s an overall feeling from older generations that young whippersnappers just aren’t willing to work and the youths have to work their way up just like they did.

But there’s no way to move up because they aren’t leaving. Upward movement has frozen and there’s no entry level left. Personally, connections are getting nowhere because there’s not much left.

I’m looking to move to California too. Not only will it open my job market to another state, but as the winter goes on and the cast of Glee keeps tweeting pictures of them on the beach, I can’t help but want that. I just bought a ton of summer clothes and I want to wear them.

So right now, I’m flailing. I’m volunteering at the local library (where I want to tear my hair out), while trying to creatively avoid part time jobs (what if my middle school bullies see me and think I’m not doing well for myself? I need to be doing at least 3 times better than them at all times). I’m saying I get a lot of reading done and plan to go to the movies more, but I don’t get changed out of my pajamas and read a lot of fanfiction.

And I guess now I really do feel like a “twenty-something” in the worst way possible.

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