I Got Number 45

Tomorrow morning, in approximately nine hours and 50 minutes, I will be starting my new job. Yes, that's right, you read correctly, a job. After months of bitching, stressing, complaining and sulking, I received my first full time job as an undergraduate. And, it is actually under the umbrella of what I received my degree in: well sort of.

I will start the position as a caption editor at a company that does closed captioning of a wide variety of programs for the hearing disabled. It is a company called the Video Captioning Corporation and is located in a small town bordering northern Connecticut.

Is this my dream job? No. I never even thought about the work that goes into those sometimes annoying white blocked letters that scroll across my television set from time to time. Nonetheless, it is actually pretty fascinating. I get to help the deaf enjoy television programs, and I get to watch T.V. I mean, what can be better? It might not be so much editing as it is typing and listening, but it's useful work. It beats my second option of going back into retail as a part-time cashier. (No disrespect to those cashiers out there, but you all know you are underpaid and overworked.)

I was really aiming to work for a health or medical publication, maybe even a pharmaceutical company. You have to start somewhere, and getting job number 45 on my growing application list is not half bad at all.

So tomorrow when I look out the window from my desk, instead of seeing New York City skyscrapers and crowds of people rushing to get somewhere, I will see grass, a lot of trees, and a deer and squirrel or two. Instead of hearing car horns, subways and the clamored speech of hundreds of people at once, I will hear crickets, silence, a car or two passing on the main road. This is not a bad scene at all. Some might even call it beautiful. It is an environment I am familiar with. I grew up in it my whole life. I'm a small town New York girl, always have been, and maybe always will be.

And while those I grew up around start their lives in California, Florida, the big city and even up north, I will remain in the Valley. Not everyone makes it to the city at first, not even at all. Even though I will have to live with my parents in my childhood house in a place I like to call the Hopeless Jungle, I think it is exactly where I need to be, at least for now. I mean how many recent grads can say they have a job, or say they found one basically in their backyard? I can. And it is a pretty damn good one. It is in such an unexpected location, but here it is. Shit, and even though most of my close friends will be gone by the time September rolls around, I will be here, and I will make the best of it. Maybe I will join the community orchestra, join the gym down the road and make the best of life.

This is not to say my blog will end. The list will grow. There will be a time when I will want to extend my career and explore new things. I am planning to go to Graduate school in a year for Bio-medical writing and get a job in that field. But as they always say, some experience is better than no experience.

Peace, and good luck to all those still searching for work. My advice, keep looking and look in the places you may not have thought to or wanted to. If that means you have to stick around your run-of-the-mill home town and work, do it. You will save money that way and gain career experience. After all, you deserve that much. You have a degree! That is supposed to prevent us from going backwards. Move forward, and do so with confidence. You will find a good fit for you, might not be perfect, but good.