What the doctor should have meant: dishery.diaryland.com

Three years ago when I was getting offered [Title] jobs, I showed them 4 to 5 years of experience with x, y, and z � oh great, here�s Creepo Peepo on AIM again � and, say, 2 to 3 with a, b, and c. For this employers were willing to pay me a certain amount of money. Today, it�s the same title and they want 7 to 8 years and 5 to 6 respectively, fair enough, and they are also offering 30 or even 40% less. That is not the way inflation works, you know? That is not an agreeable career path to start going down. Last night I saw a fantastic documentary about power privatization in the former Georgian Republic but today I am a sad little monkey, I am feeling so hopeless. Here�s what I�m about to decide: unless I have a job I don�t hate and where the paycheck is not beneath my dignity by the time I�m living somewhere else where I have a place to sit and work, I will make a pledge to sit at that place and spend a no-diary no-nothing year (= 12 months) work work working (= at least 15 hours a week) doing nothing but learning to � kill me now � write code at such a level that I could think about applying to baby-level programmer-writer jobs. And take some classes in that direction too: blecch. If it looks like this is going to happen around, say, the beginning of June, then you should say goodbye to me pre-emptively, because the closer I get to the option that has always symbolically represented the possibility that everything I�m good at and everything I like to do is a pile of shit, I am going to get hysterical. (I can feel it in my bones / I�m gonna spend my whole life writing code�) And to anyone who asks me why I�m so depressed these days, just a warning, you are asking to get slapped.

The interview yesterday was really not so bad per se. Three out of the four interviews I�d grade myself at least a B+, and one was with a mouth-breathing dev lead who talked like Froggy from the Little Rascals and seemed reluctant to take my word that my background is not in electrical engineering. I felt human rapport with at least two of the non-reptiles, and I suggested a new feature for the next version of their flagship product that they�re high if they don�t at least think about. It�s just that while I was there and after, I was thinking about the salary issue, the rigors they felt entitled to put me through for so little money � four one-on-one interviews for what, come on, has to be the bottom of the totem pole, not to mention the promise of at least that many more if I pass muster and am asked back. I could make more as a secretary; if I worked as a permanent employee in the office where I�m temping, I could make more doing data entry in a ratty back-corner cubicle (GED preferred). So there was a part of me thinking, No. You do *not* get to ask me whether I�m an expert user of [software], that is not a fair requirement. This is not what an expert costs. I felt that my despair must be so transparent to them, simply because I hadn�t said no-thanks as soon as I heard the money part. I felt ugly and ashamed. I could not respect myself and I could not respect them. In between No. 3 and No. 4, I allowed myself a short daydream in which everyone who�d been phone-screened heard the money part and said no thanks, no thanks and I�m worth more than that so I wouldn�t be able to consider the job unless it paid me in accordance with what I�d bring to it. I know, cue "The Internationale." But, fuck. I can�t live like this. My dignity tells me I shouldn�t go back for the seconds even if they want me to � if I got the job, how could I comport myself as a professional and not feel like a fraud? A bitter fraud. I�d be paranoid that people knew how much I was making and were snickering and slapping each other five � aww yeah, we got ourselves a sucker! � behind my back.

Some people will say that the problem is me and that I should learn to suck it up and deal and accept my lot as a relative untouchable in the new world order. Maybe they�re right. But I have tried to suck it up, truly I have, and my throat closes and I can�t swallow, it feels like a reflex. Should I go get hypnotized or something? Yeah, that�s exactly what I need, some sub-therapist implanting subconscious suggestions that my self-esteem needs to be even lower. Now that�s a party waiting to happen.

It would be easier if I personally knew anyone, one mammal!, who was in a similar situation to mine. But everyone I know except the teachers � whose jobs are secure and pensions unstoppable � is a code wrangler or escaped the tech bust by serving in a managerial or biscuitty capacity or, let�s be honest, does something I�d hate at almost any price so maybe I shouldn�t be counting them. So I seem to myself like the most pathetic of all my friends, but it�s worse because I�m the *only* one who�s pathetic. I�m the stain on the rug or the tear in the sweater, whatever. They�re ready to offer this job to Candidate L pending a five-minute phone call to her boss that can take place on Monday (irony alert: they checked my references harder for a temp stint) and I bet when they find out I�m taking two days off to go to New York they�ll want me to hand over the wheel before that. A week and a half more, and then what am I going to do, what will become of me? I have no idea. I�m terrified. And this hostile employment climate is the city in which I am proposing to make my home indefinitely? How can I be so stubborn and stupid? What is it going to take for me to come to my senses?