Lmao no fucking shit. She’s my mom, she raised me and I should be thankful but boy does she not understand what’s going on with the job market and the shit my generation (Gen Z) has to take.
Bit of backstory:
I’m only a couple years out of college, went through the whole pandemic and online classes thing, then had surgery after graduating so had a year of not be able to do anything because of recovery, then my parents and I moved to a different and I still live at home. But whatever not uncommon for someone my age.
I took a little bit of time to settle in and figure shit out and I started searching for work and it took me forever. After struggling to find anything, dealing with some rejections, but mostly ghosting, I finally found a part time gig that I’ve been doing for only about 3 months, and I almost got another part time job but they decided to technically hire me, then let me go after my long training period. At least got paid a decent amount but that’s still absolutely insane.
But again I haven’t been doing this part time thing for long. It’s not the most exciting work, issues come up from poor management, probably similar to the usual job bullshit everyone else deals with. And I know it’s not gonna take me anywhere, there’s no climbing the ladder from here because there is no ladder. So I only see it as a temporary thing and so does my mom, I remember here saying “it’s okay to this for awhile.” But I guess we don’t see eye to eye on the definition of temporary because she keeps asking me if I’m looking for other jobs and of course I am. In fact I sometimes feel like shit not being able to find one, there’s been moments where I’ve put a lot of pressure on myself, triggering stress and anxiety going through the process—taking the time to update my resume, searching to the bottom of the barrel of every job site and google search only to experience one of three things:
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Not finding anything/not being qualified even though some of these jobs are advertised as entry level.
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Being ghosted. No rejection, “thanks for applying” or anything just me taking the time actually find the job, touch up and carefully read over my resume, go through the whole application process (some of which are pretty ridiculous), submitting my resume and then not hearing back and slowly coming to the realization that I never will.
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Actually being rejected, which compared to ghosting feels kind of good because then at least I know. But this has rarely happened.
Oh but don’t worry my mom has a brilliant idea. Internships. But it’s the same as a job of course I’d apply if there were any and I have actually applied to one but, you guess it, got ghosted from a pretty well known, legitimate and respected company. But other than that there’s no such thing as internships unless you’re a college student. Internships don’t seem to be a thing, I rarely see them and whenever I do it’s something not related to my field or the “you must be currently enrolled at a university.” So I guess graduating from college makes you unqualified for an internship. Makes sense.
I tried to be polite and respectful and told her that the market isn’t the same as when she was young and that ghosting is a thing, it’s happened three times to my older brother (and she knows this) who’s a well established financial analyst. She said “Well that’s rude” and very calmly told her that it was the norm nowadays and her response was “Well I still think it’s rude.” Okay yeah I’ll be sure to let the companies that have ghosted me know that they were rude maybe that’ll get their attention.
I’m no economist but I try to stay informed and I basically broke it down for her: All you can do is apply/reach by email (which I’ve done several times) and the rest is out of your control. You don’t decide what jobs are available and when they’re available or what experience you need or don’t, you just do the best you can go to make a good impression on your resume or through a brief but through email and that’s it. That’s all you can do.
It’s frustrating because I have to deal with this shit situation so doesn’t help when my mom constantly asking me about jobs, especially when I already at least have a part time one that I’ve been at for a short period. I also do work in my free time with writing for self published blog that focuses on a subject I’m passionate about and it’s gained some attention, it’s not much but maybe it’s a path to something, I took the chance create my own opportunity doing something I’m good at and actually like, so who knows maybe I’ll be able to connect with someone and network by doing this. Either way I don’t need my mom’s approval or respect, and both she and I know I’m capable of more and I’m working on it but her constant reminders are extremely annoying and anxiety inducing. She has no sympathy towards my situation.
Needed to get this off my chest and talk about it with others you can hopefully understand and empathize.