Unemployment Diaries
What the novel: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow has taught me about looking for a job
Being unemployed has made me feel physically removed from the routine of living at times; I do not feel “in the world” per se. Think of a board game and the little pointy pawns that represent your game moves or life choices. As I transitioned from graduate student to someone simply out of the workforce, my pointy, colored pawn was plucked from my own swirly but destination-oriented game board.
I wake up in the morning and look out of my window, a classic New York street ripe with bodegas and dry cleaners and watch the robot-like pedestrians moving towards a destination in this quotidian life of theirs’ that I’ve now gamified. This, of course, is imaginary. These mysterious people, though unlikely, could be unemployed too. At the very least, they could feel plucked from their own game board or unhappy with the direction their pawn is moving.
Though board and video games differ in their metaphoric leanings, I’ve found further relatability to this idea of my career and life as a part of the game in the popular novel, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. A novel about video game designers, success, love, and loss, the supporting character Marx describes the purpose of video games during a moment of elucidation. He states: "It's tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. It's the possibility of infinite rebirth, infinite redemption. The idea that if you keep playing, you could win.” I love this book and its ability to pair pessimistic outcomes with optimistic ideals.
Yet, non-fictional life and my career is not a game in which I can hit pause with a controller. The past six months of tomorrows for me have looked more like Shakespeare's soliloquy from Macbeth in relation to my job search. To him, the concept of endless tomorrows is less of an idyllic possibility and more of a futile condemnation - something that is hard to escape but necessary to continue.
I’ve recently graduated from a top MBA program. Prior to grad school, I worked at a top tech company - bowling alleys and baristas sat in the background while I spent years making slide decks and social media copy. Before that, I went to a top undergraduate program, studying English Literature but knowing I’d most make my living in a corporate setting. I have been lucky, privileged even.
I have also worked very hard, studied, and judiciously networked to sit in the seats that I have thus far. I live a life somewhat normal from the outside looking in. Meaning I look fine on Instagram. Yet, in my bubbled world, populated with Ivy League-style overachievers, not achieving, not moving toward the game’s finish line has left me feeling shiftless.
True to my newly minted MBA background, I sought out the validation of the Wall Street Journal and it told me what I wanted to hear: It’s Harder Than Ever to Land a White Collar Job. So, in a nutshell, the economic market is the reason why I’m experiencing this unpleasant shift. Strong jobs reports mask “that many white-collar industries, including finance and professional and business services, have cut back hiring and for many professionals, switching sectors isn’t always easy—especially now.” I have not been without opportunity. Having burned myself out with over 50 interviews, countless case presentations, and too many cold LinkedIn messages, I’ve put the work in, but this tactic clearly is not the right strategy to win the game.
In Tomorrow, the main characters Sadie and Sam, the game designers, hit it big. As a result, they eventually grow apart and transition from childhood and college besties to adult colleagues with differing definitions of what success means. Sadie wants to maintain the creative sanctity of designing games for gamers, while Sam wants to move in a more commercial path.
The novel transitions to discussing the childlike and uninhibited possibilities of game design and this related friendship, the Marx-like tomorrows, with the realities of adulthood as it pertains to success and even capitalism - the Macbeth tomorrows. Views on their friendship, games, and entrepreneurial success divides them on top of experiencing increased fame, profit, and other personal hardships.
I won’t be shy in saying I’ve been relatively successful and want to be very successful in my life professionally and personally. My career path leans in the commercial direction of Sam’s choices. Despite my love for creative pursuits, particularly writing, I’ve chosen more commercial-forward opportunities for the sake of monetary success. Why else would I work so hard? So, this time, though brief, has felt like an outsized failure and more obviously, a rejection. I’m a person who prepares for good outcomes. I practice playing games so I can do my best to win them. Yet, this time without a steady income or direction within my own game has not been a part of the plan.
All metaphors aside, this has been the first period in my life when I have danced with real mental health struggles. I know this is circumstantial. Yet, I also know that a job offer will not magically reset my own game of life and self-esteem. I have been quick to blame myself, quicker to express both soft and sharp emotions, and quick too, to shut down. I’ve lost friendships in this period.
Being benched from this game of life has made my innately sharp tongue a little sharper, my naturally short fuse, even more stunted. I’ve also been disheartened when friends of mine cannot recognize that I’m hurting even if I’m usually the pillar-like member of the friendship - supportive, reliable, and unmoving in good ways and bad.
Zevin goes on to write in Tomorrow: “How much of your life had been happenstance? How much of your life had been a roll of the big polyhedral die in the sky? But then, weren’t all lives that way? Who could say, in the end, that they had chosen any of it?” This image has resonated with me and my analogous job search.
Dramatics aside, this period of challenge is not nearly the end of my life, nor the hardest thing I’ll come to deal with. However, it has pushed me to put perspective between my routine, expectations of myself, and actions - my game. A lot of this world we live in is based on chance. Yet, this chance is defined by societal structures like the economy, education, our ability to design our own lives with the resources we are naturally given. What I’m working to redefine moving forward is equating self-worth with rapid progress. Soon I will need to put my own pawn back on my game board and stop watching people advance from my window and re-roll my own polyhedral die. However, life, like many games, has lulls, and sometimes we need to choose to restart, and find a better tomorrow when we have the chance to.