Diary of an Unemployed Class of '10 Philosophy Major in New York City, Part 3
I am not entirely sure what networking is, and I'm not sure anyone else is either. I am somewhat sure that I am not doing it. I've been given the gist of it before. I know that it's all about meeting the right people, and making new contacts, and following up and other italicized things. L___ takes it upon himself now and then to explain it to me-frustrated, exasperated-how one can turn a stranger into an employer. L___, who graduated with me, has a very good job, and is in a constant state of networking. He networks on the toilet. He networks during acid rain storms. Were the Nazis invading Manhattan he would network to the bitter end, and might even extract himself from the ensuing occupation with a few deft emails.
Sometimes I help L___ with his laptop, and in return he sublimates his disgust and horror at my lack of careerism into a sort of benevolent mercy; the kind one might direct toward a friend's mentally challenged younger brother who needs help tying his shoes. He wants the best for me. He knows I have it in me, somewhere. He saw the zeal and determination with which I used to lie on my couch and watch MTV Jams in college-if only he could bring Mystikal out of retirement (prison?) to help him coach me.
I suppose the crassness of it bothers me. But I'm not naive-I know that getting ahead requires the killer instinct, the Will to Handshake. I'm not afraid to be cutthroat to find work that I want. I'm cynical enough. I can be coldhearted. I registered online for a Bolt Bus account not for the convenience, but just so that I could board before the rest of the line and see the looks on their faces. But to feign a jolly round of schmoozing and winking that underlies asking-but-not-asking for a job-is this all there is? Would it really be so taxing on the self to just call networking bald, shameless self-interest? Ethical egoism has a long, proud history here-nobody should be afraid.
I couldn't even attend most networking events-are those even real things? I don't even know what a ‘derivative' is, no matter how many times L___ patiently explains. Are there networking events for people like me? I've sent pleading emails to editors and staffers of publications I enjoy, throwing myself at them. I will do anything for you. I will fact check. I will answer phones. I will sort a pack of Skittles into the different colors. I will blow compressed air onto your dirty keyboard. I will blow compressed air down your pants. Do real writers network? If so, is it secret? I imagine a vaulted loft, a hushed password, an iron door. Inside bloggers and columnists in ocher robes exchange login info and freelance gigs, pausing to make paper mâche masks with strips of old Times Literary Supplement issues. Can I come?
R__ and I sat jobless in Tompkins Square Park the other day, eating pretty good sandwiches wrapped in tinfoil, talking about sad, idle white person things like why Twitter won't use banner ads, and how sad it is that nobody goes on AIM anymore. Just then it occurred to me that I wasn't networking, so I looked around, in a panic. And there it was: a plaid-shirted, glassy-eyed multitude. The park was teeming with people. No grassy spot was un-lazed upon. It was a Wednesday afternoon, and it was-my God! It's 3 p.m.! What are you all DOING here? The park was swarming with people who, the more I thought about it, simply could not have been employed. They were reading magazines. They were well-dressed, but sprawled out as if they had been tossed there. They were fanning themselves with Blackberrys in the humid daze. It looked like a scene from a World War I field hospital, had the allies invaded the East Village instead of the Argonne.
They looked like they should, in some fundamental sense, be employed. It was as if they mustered themselves for a day of earnest work and then realized, Oh, right, and headed to the park with an issue of Wired instead. They were unconcerned. Some were passed out entirely, prostrate, skin baking under a v-neck, dreaming of upcoming book readings. If everyone is here, if we are all here, who is in charge? I was gripped with fear. There was no solidarity here, no order. It was a dystopian scene; a post-apocalyptic scenario, in which the sole survivors were people who had apparently wandered out of a Vassar alumni event or something. Where were are these people all going to go? Are these my people? Why aren't we organized? Why were we all under this brutal sun instead of doing something?
A piece of avocado fell out of my sandwich and the entire thing was getting kind of soggy anyway so I threw it out and brushed off my pants. I thought about the week before, to a night when K___ was promoting (a word, like networking, that means absolutely nothing and yet so many bad things) a party at a club by the High Line. Inside was another multitude, this one having spent its day working at a coveted internship, or for their mom's friend-exhausted, depleted, eager to preen and regenerate. Tall, proud, dumb looking boys leaned against their tables, faces puffing with drinks and the hope of licking someone.
Were you to transcribe the conversations taking place, they would all be typed out in Comic Sans. Nobody in New York ever wants to be where they are at any given moment, and so bars and clubs serve mostly as a loud, dark place to text other people and ask what they're up to. All mouths were constantly agape-I was greeted with a hoarse chorus of HeyyEyeyyHeyyyHeyyyyyyyyyy! Were I a CIA operative, this would be when I started desperately chomping at the emergency cyanide tablet wedged in my molars. This pack had networked well, and would now claim their prize. The song changed, and hundreds of thousands of girls threw their hands in the air. The jangling of bracelets quaked the room. Now you're in Newwww Yooooooooork!… There's nothing you can't do!
I brushed the rest of the sandwich crumbs off my lap and was glad to be in the park.
Previously: Diary of an Unemployed Class of '10 Philosophy Major in New York City, Part 2
Sam Biddle is a recent college graduate in New York City.
Photo by See-ming Lee, from Flickr.
Keep writing like this. Someone should hire you to be an observationalist. I'd pay 15 cents per column as a reader.
Enjoyed this. The one last missing italicized thing, the piece of the puzzle that would make Sam grasp networking is that Nazis invading Manhattan is awesome for networking.
Also, thanks for hating on that song so good.
Networking events are like a buffet for bulimics. You have to go, pretend you really aren't that hungry you just came to socialize and chat, but then everyone has a few drinks and binges on business cards and verbal resumes.
Then everyone goes home and purges and feels terrible about themselves and wakes up the next morning saying they'll never do it again, that was the last time.
Also: I pretty much usually want to be where I am at all times.
Unless that is waiting in line at Whole Foods or Petco, or anywhere near NYU.
good news! mystikal has been out of prison for like 6 months already! call him up, i'm sure he's free for lunch or coffee or something…
Could the problem be….New York?
This is from someone who has never lived in New York, though has been hired a few times by people in New York (always with the some variation of "wow, even though you aren't from New York, you don't completely suck").
LA, Chicago, San Fran, Denver, Seattle, Detroit…all cities where I've gotten gigs without feeling like an outsider/lucky to be hired.
I work in TV, so maybe it's different, but New York seems strangely insular. My advice, cast your net wider…and then maybe New York will come to you.
Good luck…you're fun to read and I hope you find work you enjoy, soon.
I am not entirely sure what networking is, and I'm not sure anyone else is either
Don't say this to people, it's not goodness englishie
how one can turn a stranger into an employer
Quickest way is to have sex with an ugly rich person
He networks on the toilet
see above
I know that getting ahead requires the killer instinct
No, it doesn't. Buy Pepsi vs. "Make money and become a top salesman" are the same side of the Mad Ave coin. Still just a follower, not a leader.
Bolt Bus account
huh? WTF? That's success now in NYC?
are those even real things?
No. Best networking is w/o the poseurs where no one is trying to network, just enjoy each others company.
I will do anything for you
Desperation is never attractive
Way too much to pick apart and if I really did a thorough job you'd be crying huddled in a corner in your apartment. So let's jump to that, go do it and then forget everything anyone has ever told you in school or "experts" and remember your Dad's most important advice.
"Just kick them in the balls."
Jeff! Long time no see! I am truly sorry for being an A-hole to you last time around.
You are right about the 'desperation' part. NEVER show desperation.
People will cross the street to avoid you.
I was never good at networking so I delegated it to my boyfriend.
He's really good at it, so he networks like crazy. I listen to him, between drinks, and it begins to sound like all lies. Which it is, except if someone calls next week, then GREAT!
So, get hooked up, preferably long-term, and have them network for you.
(This way, I can stay in the background, do the work, and hate everyone)
What the hell are you talking about?
For the record I start from the assumption everyone who approaches me is an asshole (especially those who won't say it out of propriety or dumbass rules of some website).
Yeah, I attract the power climbers. Besides that I'm more likely to overthrow any power structure than try to join it.
The nitpicky thing that bothered me was the reference to the allies invading the Argonne in WWI. It was the German army, and maybe this was supposed to allude to the Triple Alliance or the Central Powers or something but nobody calls them that. I think the WWII reference above that makes it even more jarring/confusing.
I think it helps to call it friend farming instead of networking.
Were you to transcribe the conversations taking place, they would all be typed out in Comic Sans.
This is brilliant.
You stole my pull quote!
It's OK; we can share custody.
Fine. But I don't want to have to explain why we aren't, or never were, together and why I have a place with only a futon in it.
If you have time, you're not employed, do or make something that is worthwhile and valuable, that you think makes a solid contribution. That will make you feel better, all by itself. Then, show it around and see what happens.
You could write something, perhaps. Maybe post it on a website, where people could then comment on it. Just spitballing here.
Oh, haha. Or you could hire yourself out as a friend.
Oh wow. Ok maybe I'm cynical but I look at that and see rentasexcrimevictim.
It's not that crass. It's really just meeting people, and being polite and friendly to them.
And it's especially not crass if you do it at a networking event, although really I think the primary purpose of those is to meet people for having sex with.
We must be going to different networking events.
I'm all for networking, but of the opinion that if you call it 'networking,' it stops being networking.
Or 'effective networking.' #zwhatimeant
More of this! More of this!
If you're not too picky about what kind of job you want, restaurants have a pretty high rate of callbacks. And job websites are probably the least helpful in looking for entry-level work.
These people offering job advice need to shut up. We want more of these great writings from the unemployed, and for that, we need them to stay unemployed!
I was unemployed until a couple of weeks ago and it was the worst.
Just trying to help. :(
You are a real hard-ass.
(Can I be your unpaid intern?)
Following this series I'm a bit dismayed that a modern liberal arts education seems to have failed in one major place, the resetting of priorities and measures of success. A solid liberal arts education should teach that measures of success can be mental, can be a viewpoint. You seem to have a philosophy major field of study with a business major field of expectation.
Also, as long as you look down on "networking" as something beneath somebody of your intellectual stature, you're never going to "get ahead."
"I know that getting ahead requires the killer instinct, the Will to Handshake." No, only getting ahead fast. And it sounds like you;re ahead already. You're living in New York… and not on the street. You're eating avocado and have an internet connection and go out at night, in New York City. You seem to have the ultimate luxury right now. As somebody who has worked a ton of different terrible, soul-crushing jobs, take a moment out from the dreary observations to appreciate how great you have it right now to comfortably do nothing but make dreary observations about life. Once the work starts… it almost never stops. You're a very talented writer; you just need a subject other than "Why am I not yet a successful writer?" Remember, Hamlet is not the most interesting character in "Hamlet," he's just there to drive the plot.
Looking down on networking is fine only if you have the integrity to also look down on money.
I spit on money.
(of course, I wipe it clean, and put it back in my wallet)
Stupidest response ever. I suppose Bill Gates should have networked better.
bravo, abe. avocado ain't cheap. love this series but it's slightly myopic. then again, give the dude a break? he can't seem to catch one anywhere else, yet…
I will add mine to the voices that enjoy this piece.
I'll also put in my 2 cents as a once-was 20something unemployed humanities major in NY – just find someone who does something interesting and go talk to them. I prefer "informational interviewing" to "networking", especially when you are waaaaay down on the totem pole (i.e. no one you actually know or will meet will be able to help you). Work for free. Work for cheap. Intern. etc. That way you will actually be inside of a workplace, and able to network through your job (or "job") or at least add something to your resume. Though I do realize this is all probably a lot harder now than it was 10 years ago when I did it. So I'll be looking forward to the next piece.
The park observation is merely the inverse of looking across a bar at 3AM on a week night and asking a friend incredulously "Who are all these people? Don't they have jobs?"
Being naif-ish about networking: hittin' it right.
Being naif-ish about studied leisure time: hittin' it wrong.
Should have been 'faux-naifish' I know.
#filed under refusnik
when I moved to NY i was a graphic designer. (i had even worked for a firm in my hometown,so I wasn't lying). EVERY job opening, there were 50 people in front of me. I knew I was better than 48 of them, but not the other 2. I was
introverted, so it was hard to present myself well. I did anything else I could.
I could hammer a nail; a friend got me a job with Bruce&Bruce stage scenery,
pulling rug staples at midnight after the major fashion shows closed down.
I worked for a theatre company, without pay, for some production.
I just kept going.
It never, of course landed me a job in graphics. The stage work sent me on
to LA, where I went around begging work, and usually got it.
You never know what you will end up doing, so try to do more than one thing. (I still costume some plays, having lied my way in to a La Mama
production as someone who could stitch)
I feel fairly certain Mystikal's coaching would consist of telling to you to 1) Shake ya ass and 2) Watch yourself. Two things that probably won't help you network. Oh wait…
1. Man, you can really write.
2. I think this is a brutal genre to work in, resting as it does (and like Abe said) on a horizon deepwater rig of un(der)examined privilege (cf. Joan Didion having "so little money" she had to charge gourmet food to Bloomingdale's while also somehow living in a floor-through apartment on 75th near Madison). I mention this because probably my favorite moment in this series so far was a throwaway line about asking your parents for money. Where does the $20 for those $20 Chelsea vodka red bulls come from? Why does a writer of all people need to live in New York? I'm not sure, but if there's a reason it's to expose all of those self-contradictions that are also called being a person. If you're not doing that, you're writing my liberal arts graduate seems so smart but also I'm scared about my liberal arts graduate.
3. For what it's worth–I'm an '09 Classics major living in Manhattan, and I'd be happy to stand you a beer or a peanut butter sandwich (no avocados). So, you networked your way to three or four hundred calories…
don't give him the sandwich, he'll/she'll just throw it away when it gets kind of soggy.
This commercial was playing on my TV as I started to read this article: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOl4OzcyKK4
Well hey, this is really good. As a fellow humanities major (religious studies now, but it was philosophy to begin with), I don't think anyone expects us to ever 'have' a job; this is our life now. We're meant to graduate, use our expensive knowledge to make small talk at parties, then get some non-descript job in an office somewhere (where I come from, usually a government job).
Sam's choice of major is a very small part of the unemployment equation. It's not as if the knowledge gained during the course of an undergraduate education has ver qualified anyone for a particular "real-world" position (I-bankers and lawyers largely learn on the job by doing clerical-type work; doing real work in th sciences requires graduate-level degrees; etc.). College (at least the non-drinking portions of it) is about learning how to learn, and that's what graduates looking for work should stress as he most valuable part of their skillsets. Alternate paths can also get you to this point (e.g., Sr. Sicha), though more convincing may be required…
Fucking networking. How does it work?
There are those that race by, with their (employer's) Blackberry in hand– observing you and those chess-players in the park. And they lament not having 10 seconds of leisure time …
"Networking" is the word assholes use for scanning a crowded room and ignoring everyone except the two or three people they think can do something for them.
Don't "network" — think about what you can do for others, do it, and build a web of peers with whom you TRADE favors. Schedule informational interviews with people you admire, even if they aren't hiring. Everyone likes to talk about their work and how they got to where they are now. If you want to learn from them for half an hour, rather than push your resume at them and jaw about yourself, more people will remember and like you.
Stop talking to people who live like outtakes from LESS THAN ZERO, and keep writing.
This concludes today's Advice From An Old Woman.
there is a lot of FUD around job searches and consequently a lot of misinformation. networking is not a crapshoot; it's a rational and effective and fun (once you know what you're doing) strategy. briefly: you find ten places you want to work, research them exhaustively. in the process of researching you learn who some decision makers are and research them. then you reach out to them as follows "I really admired your article/speech/etc. for these specific reasons. I would love to work with your company. I know there are no openings now but would appreciate a few minutes of your time to discuss what you're looking for in candidates and how I can better be prepared when an opening does arise…"
OR, you join a professional organization and participate in a meaningful way. if you join the membership committee, you will meet everyone. ditto for helping to organize an event. or, if you write an article for the newsletter you can call pretty much anyone you want. (volunteering can accomplish the same goals.)
going to random events is NOT effective networking, particularly if those events are filled with unemployed – vs employed – people.
hope these tips help. I wrote an ebook with this and other strategic tips. Of course, I did it to help sell my coaching, but it's free and no obligation so download it if you want and share it if you want. I hate seeing people waste time and lose confidence through a bad job search strategy.
http://lifelongactivist.com/writing/the-hiapy-guide
Hillary Rettig
Brilliant!
I'm an unemployed 2010 graduate as well and was refreshed and overjoyed to read this, thank you
"Waiting, allowing and responding is sometimes a more satisfying way to work." This is a quote/instruction from one of my dance improvisation professors, Polly Motley. I offer it here as a radical alternative to "I-must-make-it-happen" networking.
Then again, my first graduate degree was in creative writing (nonfiction, writing essays about the body and dance) and I now find myself back in graduate school for philosophy — I think if for no other reason then to experiment on which degree is less lucrative — so you may take that with a sizable grain of salt.
Still, it's been an wonderful journey, listening to everything that has shown up and dancing one duet at a time along the way.
One more dance quote, from Steve Paxton, my professor's mentor, and the subject, in part, of my work: "In the midst of standing still, something else is happening and the name for that is the small dance."
Perhaps you are better at small dancing than L? There is the grand leap and the frenetic lunge, and then there is the ever-present small dance.
Sweet dancing to you!
I believe in the power of small dances, however invisible, however slow moving.
Hillary,
What is FUD?
Oddly enough, I looked for – and didn't find – contact information for this author on this website. Hello???
I have really enjoyed reading about your odyssey…and if I was 20 years younger I would want to date you!
Enjoyed this immensely. You have a similar style to David Foster Wallace. Funny, sharp, and kind of sad.
I really like this series. I think I like it too much. I'm in basically the same situation except in London, and except I don't have talent and I have no idea what I want to do and I am dreading going to graduation and telling everyone I am doing nothing with my new non-student life and having everyone's opinion of me as a loser confirmed. I'm basically having a nervous breakdown, but good writers like you are keeping my head up. Hurray for youth.