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Dec. 19th, 2014 07:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chocolatepotWork last night was awful. First of all, having to wash my hands every time I blew my nose took up a BUNCH of time so I didn't get to do everything I meant to get to. Then I had a massive (like almost to the point of nausea) headache from my sinuses combined with my sleep debt - I'd had three nights on cold medicine where for some reason I woke up every few hours, I don't understand it because normally nighttime cold medicine knocks me right out. And I found out about not getting the Drexel job when I was on my dinner break.
It really threw me for a loop. This isn't even about the self-pitying wallowing I usually do, this really is a turning point for me. Because if I can't get this job when I've got the degree (from the same program as the curator, no less), I've got paid cataloguing experience, I've got volunteer experience to prove that I really care, and I've got a book being published (I think; I still haven't heard from my editor) to give me added credibility ... then I really need to wake up and make a change. I've asked for some feedback, but I can't imagine there's anything else I can do to make myself more attractive. Even getting a more generic museum studies MA is not going to help for the less-specialized jobs isn't going to work, if all of this can't get me a job in the fashion field. I can't quite let go of the hope that once my book is published and people can see what's actually in it they'll be more interested in me, but it seems unlikely.
I do plan to keep applying for these jobs, but if I'm ever going to be any kind of financially independent I have to stop planning my life around this. I can't keep having part-time jobs to give me time for volunteering regularly during the week if the volunteering isn't giving me any benefit, even if the oldbies on Museum-L think it will. I read articles on how Millennials are doing so bad financially because we make like $30k on average ... but I'm pretty sure I've made about $7k this year. I need to get a full-time job, outside of the field by necessity, and that's going to involve seeing non-museum jobs as permanent career paths and going into interviews with that mindset.
I can't really get into doing this as a hobby (as Dad has been suggesting for ages) because the stuff you do to do this as a hobby I'm terrible at - namely, making things and wearing them to events - and pretty much all the stuff I do do is to educate and advertise myself professionally. I want/like to help people, but I would probably not do half as much as I do if I didn't hope that it was making me look good to potential employers.
Probably more to come later. I didn't sleep well last night either and I just feel drained, although I did just get a very encouraging email from Batsford. This is an awful decision that I always worried about having to make but always thought something would work out before it happened ... but this year it's been repeatedly brought home to me that my perseverance and talents and experience are just not enough, even when I have personal connections. I'm not going to find a job I'm more suited for than this one, and if it's paid experience that's the issue that's literally never going to improve because I can't get more experience without a job. The sunk-cost fallacy is a fallacy, and it's time to admit that I've sunk way too much into this.
It really threw me for a loop. This isn't even about the self-pitying wallowing I usually do, this really is a turning point for me. Because if I can't get this job when I've got the degree (from the same program as the curator, no less), I've got paid cataloguing experience, I've got volunteer experience to prove that I really care, and I've got a book being published (I think; I still haven't heard from my editor) to give me added credibility ... then I really need to wake up and make a change. I've asked for some feedback, but I can't imagine there's anything else I can do to make myself more attractive. Even getting a more generic museum studies MA is not going to help for the less-specialized jobs isn't going to work, if all of this can't get me a job in the fashion field. I can't quite let go of the hope that once my book is published and people can see what's actually in it they'll be more interested in me, but it seems unlikely.
I do plan to keep applying for these jobs, but if I'm ever going to be any kind of financially independent I have to stop planning my life around this. I can't keep having part-time jobs to give me time for volunteering regularly during the week if the volunteering isn't giving me any benefit, even if the oldbies on Museum-L think it will. I read articles on how Millennials are doing so bad financially because we make like $30k on average ... but I'm pretty sure I've made about $7k this year. I need to get a full-time job, outside of the field by necessity, and that's going to involve seeing non-museum jobs as permanent career paths and going into interviews with that mindset.
I can't really get into doing this as a hobby (as Dad has been suggesting for ages) because the stuff you do to do this as a hobby I'm terrible at - namely, making things and wearing them to events - and pretty much all the stuff I do do is to educate and advertise myself professionally. I want/like to help people, but I would probably not do half as much as I do if I didn't hope that it was making me look good to potential employers.
Probably more to come later. I didn't sleep well last night either and I just feel drained, although I did just get a very encouraging email from Batsford. This is an awful decision that I always worried about having to make but always thought something would work out before it happened ... but this year it's been repeatedly brought home to me that my perseverance and talents and experience are just not enough, even when I have personal connections. I'm not going to find a job I'm more suited for than this one, and if it's paid experience that's the issue that's literally never going to improve because I can't get more experience without a job. The sunk-cost fallacy is a fallacy, and it's time to admit that I've sunk way too much into this.
