After two years encapsulated in the protective cocoon that is grad school, I have reluctantly been pushed out of it by my alma mater who basically said, “Good luck with the job hunt, we are now going to solicit money from you until the day you die.”
When I recovered from depression about four years ago, after hitting rock bottom twice (I don’t know, I guess I had to make sure it was still there the second time), I took some time to evaluate my life circumstances. I was thirty-four years old, working two jobs and still barely scraping by. With a spotty resume and a practically useless undergraduate degree I was unlikely to find work in a field that I enjoyed, and the idea of answering phones for the rest of my life made me want to cry. And so, I followed the societal messaging all around me and decided to “invest in myself” by going back to school.
At first, I thought I might enjoy being a librarian. However, being a deep introvert who has mostly been in customer-facing gigs for the entirety of my working years, the last thing I wanted to do was sign up for a career that dealt primarily with the public. Thankfully, there is an adjacent career that is geared more towards introverts called “being an archivist,” so I applied to three schools in Canada that offered relevant programs. And despite taking six years to eke out a degree as a severely depressed person, my grades were somehow good enough to gain acceptance to all three schools. I picked the University of British Columbia because it had a great program and was close to my family, packed up my belongings, and with my sister’s help drove to Vancouver to start my new life as a grad student.
Returning to Calgary upon the completion of my degree was not my first choice. In fact, when I left Calgary, I made a quiet promise to myself that I’d never go back except to visit. However, life has rarely worked out for me as planned, and the combination of my mother’s declining memory and the cost of living in Vancouver made me reconsider my decision. So now I am back in Calgary, desperately trying to convince a company to give me a job while the world is burning.
Like the viral 2019 tweet that says, “I do not dream of labour,” I would much rather spend my time writing, exploring my passions and building community while we still have an Earth left to enjoy. However, I also live under a capitalist society that functions on the exchange of labour for cold hard cash, so here we are.
Still, there are several things that are making my re-entry to the working work a bumpy one:
1) The “you need experience to get a job, but you need a job to get experience” paradox. My program lasted two years, but I could only do so many co-ops, professional experiences, etc. As a result, I have about 8-12 months of solid experience in the archival field, but most jobs are looking for a minimum of 5-10 years. This does not make my resume stand out, and since all of my archival contacts are in Vancouver it’s making new connections pretty difficult.
2) Depression is reflected in my resume. As mentioned, I had severe depression for 16+ years, beginning at age 17, and as a result I jumped from job to job frequently. I would start a job full of enthusiasm and hope, and then my depression would slowly strangle my will to live until I was absolutely miserable and had to quit. It’s only been my last two jobs that I’ve been able to keep for a record of four years each. And it’s not like I can add a cute note to my resume saying, “Hey potential employer, it looks like I have no brand loyalty or work ethic, but that’s only because I regularly wanted to die :).”
3) I’ve also worked in many differed fields. I have been, among other things, a baker, a farm worker, a day camp counselor, and administrative assistant, a kennel worker and manager, a barista, a tech support specialist and an English tutor. And while you could argue that this has given me a wide breadth of experience, in practice there has been little chance to advance in any field because I never stuck to one long enough for promotion.
4) While Vancouver is a hub for archival jobs, Calgary is…less so. Traditional archival work is hard to find here because the few archives in existence are either with the City of Calgary (notoriously hard to get into), or with various academic organizations. Thankfully, I chose a career that has another, more employable option, which is records management. Still, the need for junior-level records managers is low right now, and so far, I’ve had zero call-backs from any company.
I have never known, in the history of my 38 years of existence on this planet, a single person who enjoys the job hunt. Most people find it absolutely soul crushing, and as someone who once spent a full year unable to find a job after being laid off, I have a lot of bad feelings about applying for work. I got really disheartened with the whole process and told my sister, who kind of paused in the conversation and then carefully said, “Well, maybe don’t get totally discouraged just yet. After all, it is your first official day of job hunting in Calgary.” The plan right now is to job search for two months, from Monday to Friday (I am taking weekends off so I don’t lose my will to live). And then, if I do not have a job offer, I will re-evaluate my situation. The idea of working outside my field until I can land an entry-level position fills me with unmitigated dread, but if it comes down to it I will because, again, I have very little choice in the face of capitalism.
I am also sitting in an extremely privileged position. Having a good relationship with my parents and wanting to be there for my mom, I’ve been allowed to move back into my childhood bedroom in midst of a terrible housing crisis. I have some savings to cover my basic expenses while I look for work, and my family is incredibly supportive. I do not take it lightly and although living with my parents has made dating exponentially harder, I know that I am lucky to be in this position at all.
Still, it is a very weird feeling to be courting a job while the world is burning. From great swaths of BC to the Northwest Territories, to Tenerife and Maui, fires are raging all around, and can we pause just for a minute to talk about how wild it is to be looking for work in the climate collapse? People are literally losing everything they own while I’m here writing cover letters and doing the whole “please hire me!” song and dance?! It feels utterly surreal and absurd to me, and though my heart wishes for a political system that would put people before profits and thus face this growing climate disaster, my faith in politicians and the general public is at an all-time low.
So, what do you do when the world is burning? I’ve tended toward community and dark humour, but everyone has their own way of coping. I feel like no one is coming to save us, so it follows that we must save ourselves. And I don’t have all the answers, or even many of them. I’m just writing because maybe there are other people out there who feel the same and can find something useful in my work.
I don’t want to end this essay on a down note, so I will say that I am slowly making connections and most days I make it through with my soul intact. Leaving grad school has meant that my ability to be creative and write for fun has come back, and most days I write at least a little bit. It keeps me sane and if I can make it a habit maybe I will be able to build a small community of like-minded people. I will eventually find a job, but these things take time and I refuse to have survived depression only to be defeated by capitalism. Things feel very uncertain now, both in my immediate circle and the wider world, but hope springs eternal and I’m trying to enjoy my free time while I still have it. In the meantime, I will write, spend time with friends and family, and remember that everything is temporary.
And on that note, here is a list of things I do when the world feels really heavy. Please note that if you are deep in depression, these things may not help. I had to get to a certain baseline of feeling okay before these methods actually worked. If you are really struggling with basic tasks and living feels too overwhelming, please talk to your doctor. Also, I am not a medical professional – these are just things that I’ve found work for me when I am feeling especially anxious. Take what works for you and leave the rest.
Things I do when living feels extra hard that might be helpful to you, too:
· I write it about. Not just in essays, but in my journal. When feelings are overwhelming it sometimes just helps to write them all out on the page so that you can get them out of your system and gain some perspective.
· I complete thought records that I learned to do in therapy, and they really help when my anxiety is peaking. You can google the method, but basically you write down the situation that is bothering you, as well as your feelings with a rating for each one from 0-100%. You then write down all the intrusive thoughts you are having and pick the one that is the loudest. Write down the evidence for and against that thought, and then write a more balanced thought like your therapist or coach might tell you (imagine what you would tell a friend if they shared their thought with you). Finally, re-evaluate your feelings on the 0-100% scale and see if they’ve gone down in severity. For me, they’ve always, always gone down, even if only a little bit.
· I call up a supportive friend or family member. Right now, I’m at the age where a lot of my friends live in different parts of the world than me, but calling or video chatting with them to catch up helps. And as an elder millennial I do not simply pick up the phone and call them; I text them first to see if they have the time and space to talk. Because I am not going to be the asshole who sets their friend’s heart racing with anxiety from a random call.
· I read a book. Escapism is still a valid way of dealing with the horrors of everyday life and reading forces me to relax and my breathing to slow. Just maybe don’t read any heavy non-fiction about the state of the world because that is double-dosing reality, and nobody wants that right now.
· I go for a walk with a podcast, audiobook or music. Listen, I hate that my therapist was 100% correct on this point, but in recovery physical activity really does help me with my mental health. I have bad knees so a lot of physical activity is currently out of reach for me, but I can still walk, even it’s just around the block.
· I take my meds. Because we are not making things worse by getting bitter about needing to take medication, okay? That is a mistake I have made previously, and it leads to darkness.
· If I can afford it, I talk to a licensed professional. Among other things, climate grief is very real and having someone trained in therapy can really help by giving you unbiased support. I know this is not possible for a lot of people though, so I will also suggest finding a free local support group for whatever you’re gong through. They really can help you feel less alone.
· Get involved in organizing or do one small thing to make the world a better place. Inaction can be devastating. I was recently talking to a close friend over coffee, and she told me how getting involved in local politics has given her hope. But it doesn’t even have to be that big. Just try to inject a little kindness into the world. Reach out to someone who is (also) having a tough time, pay for someone’s coffee or shovel your neighbour’s sidewalk. There are a lot of things out of our control right now, so focus on what you can control, even if you don’t think it will make a big difference. Brightening someone else’s day is always worth it.