This One Hurts

Rare are the jobs I got for myself.  All my life my main lines of work I got through the temp agency.  I had no idea what I wanted to do out of college while I was "pursuing" my play-by-play career, so in the meantime I needed work that the world didn't depend on and I could lose in a pinch without consequence.  I kind of am still in that holding pattern, but I think my work ethic has allowed me to find a place in someone's contractor position whenever needed.  It's nowhere what I need, but it's a fallback plan, and in this cruel world, that isn't the worst thing to have.

But this job I interviewed for yesterday, that was all me.  No temp agency, no middle man.  I just heard about this sports company, and I was like, "Yeah, they do sports, that would be right up my alley and something that uses my degree!"  And so, after months of back-and-forth, unemployment finally allowed me to come in and interview and take their tests.  I was afraid I would fuck this up, and I am so rusty (well, bad) when it comes to meeting new people that I didn't really prepare.  Hey, if it happens, it happens, that's what I always believe!

I was there for an hour and I think it went well.  I thought I was fast with typing, and even though I didn't get all the trivia questions correct I think I did enough.  And I was looking at the interviewer and answering her questions.  May have went a little too long with some answers, but I had to explain that there may be the occasional conflict over weekends this fall because I have alumni club stuff to do on Saturdays and maybe work on Sundays.  She told me she'd run it by her bosses.

Well, I got an e-mail from her that I read last night.  I got rejected.  My commitments to my alumni club preclude working there.  They think Saturday's college football games will be so important that they need people there, and working around my schedule, I guess, isn't good enough.  You know, right now I hate that I'm a part of the alumni club.

This one hurts.  Yes, it's only part-time and they pay shit (they don't have to worry about paying a decent hourly wage because you have loser sports geeks like me who'll work for minimum wage if it involves watching sports), but I gravitated to this job because I was actually interested in the job itself, something that I can't say for a lot of jobs I've had.  So to not have my interest requited -- possibly because of schedule conflicts, but really, who knows? -- is, well, devastating.

The interviewer said in the e-mail that I could come back for basketball season in the winter.  But if their problem with me goes beyond scheduling, should I go back?  In the meantime I have lost one very appealing option.  All of this is pushing me back into school.  Meanwhile I might have to grovel back to the temp agency to find work.  Now?  Well ... now I go back on the dole and masturbate because I am sad.  Frankly, now I don't know what to do.