Time To Grow Up And Be That Man

Went to an internet seminar today, mostly about marketing in the internet and using your website to sell-products, one of those work-at-home promotions where you function as a middle man between wholesalers and consumers. Run by StoresOnline.com, the session was pretty informative, talking about keywords to get to the top of Google and other search engines, as well as what methods are the best ways to make money and what pitfalls to avoid. The software was pretty cool too, with a lot of their resources being dedicated to the creation of your website using a variety of exceedingly user-friendly templates and click-button options. Yet, something like that is not what I or my mom were looking for, so we went mostly for the free food and perhaps some tips to improve this blog (yeah not really). But, what one of the speakers talked a lot about was the difference between broke-minded thinkers and rich-minded thinkers. He made a good point that the majority of Americans view recession as a bad thing, whereas a select few of the population actually view it as a good thing, as a part of the financial cycle and something they can take advantage of. Given the current state of the US economy, I think it was pretty interesting that he would find such a unique perspective regarding what most of us believe to be the worst case scenario: economic depression.

Now those of you who know me know that I've been searching for a summer internship for the past two months, and those whom I've confided in know that I haven't had much success. I sent out over 30+ resumes to many different companies, from JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, to Legg Mason and Wachovia, to Capital One and Bank of America. I've had a handful of interviews, a couple second rounds, but so far, nada. It's a truly humbling experience: to be told several times a week that you're not good enough for a particular company or particular team. It's especially hard when I thought I had done well during the interviews, when I thought the companies really wanted me, and then I receive an email saying something like "we're sorry, but we could not find a position that would properly allocate your skills at this time, but feel free to apply next year!" Or something along those lines.

I'm not the cockiest guy in the world, but I also am fairly self-confident, and I believe myself to be more than worthy of all the positions that I applied for. Yet, it's extremely tough to maintain a positive attitude when you're repeatedly told that the best you have to offer is not good enough. Given that I have been completely honest with all these corporations, and given my best effort in each endeavor, it's particularly hard to swallow being told that my true self, the person who I really am underneath it all, without facade nor affront, is simply not good enough. It's tough to take that one time. It's even tougher to take it 20+ times.

How does this relate to StoresOnline's presentation? Well a lot of my peers and relatives told me something along these lines: "Times are tough; the market is so far down that companies are naturally cautious when hiring interns, so it's normal that some qualified candidates will get turned down." Sometimes I have a tough time believing this is the case. Maybe it's just my friends and relatives attempting to comfort me, to allow me to save a little face in front of them, and not attribute my lack of success to failure on my part. But is this truly what companies are thinking? If such is the case, I wonder, how can they be so short-sighted? Do they truly believe that the returns on an internship shall be measured within the next 6 months? Within the next year? The next 2 years? I contend that a company won't see the full returns on their internship until long after the intern is gone and perhaps left the company. If we think about internships this way, that their returns are long term as opposed to immediate, how can a company judge the amount of interns to higher based on the state of the economy? Shouldn't it be based on the quality of the candidate pool? Yes, they have bottom lines, they want to minimize their overhead, and they want to maximize their profit over the short term to please investors. But do those outweigh their necessity to educate the next generation?

If we think of this in purely selfish terms, the companies really have little incentive to hire interns. Most of them take at least a month to learn their job, then work a month, then leave, a lot of times to other companies. In this way, the companies in turn lose all the money and time they invested in the intern to another company, in addition to the fact that they paid an under-qualified worker full-salary for a two month period. But don't the companies have an obligation to us, the next generation, to train us such that we may carry on and do good work in their stead after all those currently in power are gone? Shouldn't this be more significant to them than any short-term cost savings or surplus profit? Yet, it seemingly isn't. These questions have weighed on me throughout this semester, and it seems as if they're starting to take their toll. With each job I've applied for, another failure has come. Another reminder that I am not good enough. Another indication that my best, my true self, is not desirable. That I myself, simply am not up to their standards.

This semester has been so stressful, without a doubt the most stressful of my entire life (which is saying something, since I've had some pretty stressful semesters. Mostly, it's been because I've been trying to get a job so desperately and repeatedly failing. I fail, and I fail, and I fail, and I fail, and I fail, and I fail again. I've picked myself up each and every time, but it's tough. Sometimes I think about why I try. Sometimes I think about why I fight. And yet I continually come back for more. I don't really know why. Maybe it's because I can't handle the thought of letting down my parents. Maybe it's because I'm trying to rid myself of my self-image that I've always had things laid out for me, and the moment I've been let out on my own, I've met only failure. Maybe it's because I'm so scared to be branded a quitter, a coward. Maybe it's all of them. All I know is that I have to keep trying. I have to. There's nothing else I can do. There are no other options. I used to think that I could handle anything in life, as long as I had a few things to hang my hat on: love, success, knowledge, and skill. And over the course of the past year, I've lost each and every last one of them. I've come to realize that I'm not the most successful, that I'm not the most skilled, that I'm not the most knowledgeable, and that I'm not even memorable as a lover.

I leave you with this: "Mother Superior," by Coheed and Cambria. I can't think of a better song that expresses all the emotions that I've felt over the past few months, both the utmost sadness and the droll march of perseverance.