How long does it take to get what you want?

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I’m trying to get a job where my boyfriend’s living and it’s just not working!


Cary’s classic column from THURSDAY, MAY 5, 2005

Dear Cary,

My boyfriend and I were together for the first year of our relationship, then moved to separate cities after college. That was two years ago. I’ve planned to move up there as soon as I get a job, but in two years, I haven’t found anything. I’ve had some interviews. They all tell me they love me but I’m either overqualified (because of my education) or I have no practical experience in the field (which is true but how can I get it if no one gives me a chance?). In the meantime, I’ve been getting my master’s (which I am now finishing up) and working a mind-numbing administrative job here but I haven’t gotten any of the literally hundreds of jobs I’ve applied for. I’ve tried recruiters, family, friends, colleagues — I always get great feedback, and no one can tell me what I’m doing wrong. I can’t quit my job to do an internship or volunteer in the field because I really need the income. Not only is this extremely frustrating professionally — my self-esteem is in the toilet right about now — but I feel like my relationship can’t move on until we’re in the same city. I am so tired of doing the long-distance thing and it’s really straining our relationship. My boyfriend can’t move here because of his career (unlike me, he’s very successful). He tells me I should just quit my job and move there. I can stay with him in the 450-square-foot apartment that he shares with his odd roommate who doesn’t speak to me!

Cary, I have enough trouble with his tiny apartment just when I come stay with him — tripping over my suitcase, contorting into strange positions just to use the toilet, going nuts over how cramped everything is — the thought of living there indefinitely makes me want to rip my hair out. He simply does not get that I need at least a little personal space for sanity’s sake. He thinks I’m being prissy and stubborn. Even more pressing than that, I have no money and he lives in one of the most expensive cities in the world. He’s generous and offers to take care of me, but I don’t want to depend on someone else financially — it’s just not an option for me. I am not comfortable with the idea of moving to this city with no job, no financial security. If I could just get a decent job up there, I could figure the rest out, but it’s like some cosmic force wants me to remain miserable in my boring job and distant relationship forever. I’m at a complete loss and would really appreciate any words of wisdom that you could offer.

Frustrated

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Dear Frustrated,

It is taking you a while to find a job in the city where your boyfriend is living. There is nothing unusual about that. It will probably take longer than you would wish. Meanwhile, you have an excellent opportunity to learn how to be patient and tough — lessons life may have neglected so far to teach you. Patience and toughness are qualities some generations are taught earlier than others. Wars and economic depressions teach patience and toughness; peace, global empire and unprecedented economic prosperity, as Jon Stewart would say: Not so much.

I saw Christina Hoff Sommers on “The Daily Show” the other evening. She was promoting her new book, “One Nation Under Therapy: How the Helping Culture Is Eroding Self-Reliance.” Some of what she said sounded shrill and kind of silly, and she has been accused of intellectual sloppiness, but I agree with her that trying to shield children from difficulty is dumb. And I have witnessed firsthand the pampered, fuzzy-headed, glazed look of inflated self-esteem that is the purported fault of our national softness. So when you mention that as a result of these setbacks your self-esteem is “in the toilet,” I can’t help thinking: Perhaps your self-esteem has merely experienced a natural correction.

I’m sorry, that sounds mean. Maybe I’m just being bitchy and jealous of the young. Perhaps I am hungry. What I want to say is that you are young and when you are young the waveforms of experience are short; you are just beginning to experience the yearlong and multiyear fluctuations of fate and circumstance that try the soul and harden the will. So treat your current struggle as an object lesson, and be prepared for similar setbacks. Self-esteem is cheap and, as Sommers pointed out, if she’s got her facts right, it does not correlate with morality or achievement. Persistence, patience, toughness: These qualities are dear and will last you a lifetime.

There, I’ve eaten. Life seems better now. Let me stop bitching and try to be helpful. The main thing is just to be realistic.

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So do this: Make a list of the things you want and are having trouble getting. The list might look something like this:

Finish your master’s degree.

Live with your boyfriend.

Get a job in your boyfriend’s city.

Find your dream job.

There might be other items, I don’t know. And these items all affect one another in complicated ways. But for the moment, clear your mind of how they interrelate, and just pick the one thing that is most important to you right now. If it helps, pretend you are dumb. Simplify. Just pick the one you want the most and put it at the top, without worrying about how doable it is.

Then consider how long that one thing might take.

Write that number down.

Then double it.

That’s probably a realistic target.

You get what I’m saying? Stuff gets harder once you’re out of school. It takes longer, costs more and isn’t as much fun.

But there are compensations. For instance, it’s your life and you can do what you want. Some would say that’s compensation enough.

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7 comments

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  • Lately I’ve become fixated on upgrading my skills so that I can be paid more for the hours I work, so please forgive me for projecting my own obsession onto this letter and the responses.

    I can’t help but wonder what the OP’s master’s degree is in. If it is in something in high demand, then she won’t be in an administrative support role for much longer.

    But of course I suspect it may be in something purely academic–which is great in many respects, but in today’s economy that’s a pretty long and expensive way to become a secretary.

    We read a lot about girls stuck in these kinds of situations (dead-end job, dependent on boyfriend’s support, unhappy about living conditions), but not nearly enough about girls spending their time preparing for higher-paying careers.

    There is no getting around the fact that a lot of work sucks. So, you might as well be paid well for doing it, since you are there all day anyway.

    I read something once where an economist claimed that too many women are in jobs that pay such low wages, they might as well be considered “volunteers.”

    We have to stop thinking that being a “volunteer” at work is enough. It’s not. We need to be in skilled jobs that are valuable, and paid appropriately.

    • The problem is that once many women enter a profession, the profession is devalued (e.g., teaching (early on), the professoriate, psychology, law). It’s not a case of women choosing low paid professions, but rather of the professions women choosing being marked as low status BECAUSE women are in them.

      I agree with Ella below and see the boyfriend’s behavior as a sign that he doesn’t really want to do what it would take to have her there.

      • I agree–I have faced exactly this issue as a graphic designer over the last 20 years.

        But in many cases it’s not just that women enter formerly “male” positions in large numbers, it’s just that certain careers become “hot” and get flooded by thousands and thousands of new graduates of both sexes so there is no shortage of applicants for the most desirable jobs–thus wages and salaries get lower (law and pharmacy come to mind).

        When I first started investigating graphic design as a teenager in the 80s, skilled graphic designers were relatively rare and the hourly rates were high. Now, even though I earn a good salary, there are thousands of community college graduates each year willing to do certain kinds of more fashionable work, for not much more than the minimum wage. There are just too many people competing for fewer and fewer projects. (That is why I have to move on.)

        The argument about “feminization” of work and accompanying lower pay only goes so far. When you keep in mind that rates of pay depend heavily on the difficulty, rarity, and level of need for certain skills, you find women earning the high salaries alongside men.

        I have female friends, colleagues and acquaintances who are engineers, lawyers, dentists, and medical specialists all earning very high salaries, and I also have friends working in entry-level administrative support roles that barely pay much more than a living wage.

        Who knows what could hypothetically happen in 20-50 years if thousands upon thousands of women all flooded into into engineering schools–would the overall earnings in that field decline? Possibly. But until that day, doesn’t it make sense for a young woman today to develop skills that are more in demand in the job market, and at least make an effort to obtain a career that has more earning potential than the dead-end admin-support “pink collar” jobs that so many get stuck in?

        Also, I know it is a different situation in the US, but in Canada, the two most traditionally “female” careers of public school teaching (depending on specialty), and also nursing, are very decent-paying, secure, unionized jobs.

        Even though these careers used to be among the very few jobs actually open to women shouldn’t diminish their validity as career paths today. If anything, both of these careers have become *more* respected and professionalized than they were decades ago. And surely either choice would be better than the miserable admin-support role that the LW is stuck in.

        I also know some women who work in trades–good trades, not “dying” ones, but technology-based trades that require skill, responsibility, brainwork, math and physics, like Process Operator, Geomatics, or Quality Control/Non-destructive testing. These girls are making big bucks, but the work is demanding and and much of it is outdoors in very cold weather. They aren’t settling for low-wage admin work . . . so I guess what I’m asking is . . . should our LW?

  • Sometimes other people’s problems seem so simple. She says the guy is very successful. So what’s stopping him ditching the odd roommate and getting a bigger apartment to share with her. For her part, she moves to his city and gets another mind-numbing admin job while she looks for her dream job. There you go, simple!

  • Because I was a musician and refused to quit, while I got older, the average age of my musician friends stayed the same. This gave me an opp to watch what happened at around 25 years of age. A swift shift towards bitterness and disillusionment, “What do you mean, I won’t get my way and fulfill my dreams? But I’m so awesome and cool! What’s wrong with you?!” More recently I see another shift in those I still know from that time. They’re around 40 now and singing a new tune: “OK, being pissy hasn’t helped me and being cynical is starting to get lame . Maybe I can try something new! Something no one ever thought of before me: gratitude for what I do have!” I think it’s a good answer, but you can only access it when the time is ripe.

    I also think that hiring an interview coach was warranted for this letter writer. When we do shit that’s intrinsic but doesn’t work NObody tells us. Sometimes you have to pay somebody to give you the skinny.

  • I’m in a similar boat as the OP, too. I recently moved to a very expensive city without a job for my husband’s job. It’s very hard on the self esteem to get rejected over and over for jobs. I think it just goes with the territory of applying, though. I think I’m a little older than the OP; I’ve had some major life set backs already–the best news is that when you bounce back and realize how strong you are, the next set back doesn’t hit nearly as hard. Good luck to all of us!

  • I feel the same way these days.

    I wonder if the OP ever did get to move or if her relationship ended long before she could get another job.

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