A Transitional Period

I've been pretty lax on posting lately, kind of because I was just lazy and uninspired, but also largely because I was applying for a job at Google. They own Blogger and I was paranoid that this blog was somehow going to affect my getting the job potential. I didn't get the job, so now I'm free to post again. I think probably they did read my blog. I mean, I told them I had one and I had a total of 8–yes, EIGHT–interviews/assessments with them. They're pretty thorough, so I imagine someone read my blog at some point.

They couldn't/wouldn't tell me why they didn't hire me, aside from saying that they were sure I was capable of the job, but thought someone else they were considering was a better fit. It's weird (to me) that they can't give you any constructive criticism because of legal reasons. Do people sue companies for being mean?!?! I don't really get it and no one's really been able to explain it to me, so if you can enlighten me, I would appreciate it.

During the course of the interviews, I started having working-at-Google fantasies. These mostly revolved around all of the free food they provide (I got to the point of thinking that maybe I didn't need an apartment with a kitchen) and their you-can-bring-your-dog-to-work policy. So I'm a bit sad about that loss (of something I never really had). I freaked out for about 15 minutes after I got the bad news. Okay, I was sobbing. It was terrifying. It is terrifying. I dropped out of school and am now homeless and jobless, with no opportunities for remedying either clearly visible at the moment. I still don't regret leaving school and C did an excellent job of calming me down, so I'm relatively good now.

But I'm back to square one. Maybe square zero.

Shortly after the Google rejection, I thought, "Hmmm... maybe this is a sign that I should try to pursue that career in carpentry (kind of my secret dream job)." I [sigh] googled "how to be a carpenter" and learned that you're supposed to start in high school, so, uh, oops. I have to admit that the prospect of having unsightly hands does sort of dissuade me from carpentry (but the creation of neat furniture!).

I've been looking at marketing, advertising (I have to admit that I don't totally know the difference between the two), project management, production, market research, etc. Oh, and volunteering at the dog shelter. And I briefly (very briefly) considered selling my toenail clippings to perverts, inspired by this article. I'm kind of all over the place, but I like to refer to it as "keeping my options open."

After lots of phone tag, I finally got the chance to talk to an old college buddy (L) last night. He's in a major transitional period now as well. He, in fact, coined this time period as "transitional," while I was calling it "floundering." His term is more positive, so I'm sticking to that. My best friend (M) is also on the verge of transitioning I think. Maybe it's because we've all recently turned 30. Well, L's job was basically uprooted for him, so I guess that's his reason. We all have our own reasons, but we all want change. And we're all a little unsure of what we really want and how to go about that.

I've reached that end of the post area where I start to ramble. If you have any words of wisdom, let me know and I'll pass them on to L and M for karmic purposes. And because they're great friends and I would do whatever I could to help.

As L suggested when we were trying to figure out if we'd be in the same city any time soon, "We can grab beers and cry into them. By which I mean be positive and determined, happening to life instead of letting it happen to us." Cheers to that.