this beats writing another cover letter

I haven't met a single person who enjoys writing résumés in my entire life, except for my English teacher from my senior year of high school, who thought it was the coolest and most exciting thing in the world. Or maybe she was just really good at trying to make something unspeakably awful into something fun and empowering. Except, it didn't work. I hated résumés then, and I hate them now. I hate them because I have to do them. And I hate doing things I have to do.

Now that we've got your daily dose of hate out of the way, let's talk more about why I hate writing résumés. Can you téll I just léarned how to do the accent aigu? Høly shît, î† wørk∫ wîth øthê® léttërs. At the top of a huge festering pile of reasons why résumés suck sits the reason that, contrary to popular belief, I do not like to sell myself. And I don't like lying.

You may be asking yourself the question: Why does he lie on his resumes? First of all, I'm sorry you haven't learned your keyboard shortcuts yet, but I don't really lie. I just have this weird thing where when I list the things that I've done in the past in really ornate or technical language, it feels like a lie. "Making sure a bunch of little gay people don't kill each other" becomes "Supervise and facilitate safe and empowering programming for LGBTQ youth." "Cleaned Starbucks toilets every hour because it was some asshole's lot in life to continually shit in our store's bathroom" becomes "I was a manager at Starbucks," which really is a lie but I owe myself that one for cleaning those toilets, damnit!

It might be quite telling that I am usually an ace at interviews. The interview process is the easiest part for me, because I am extremely attractive and equipped with buckets upon buckets of personality. I am also a demonstrated performer, which is another word for liar (see previous sentence), so talking about the idea of myself (never my self self) comes as naturally to me as shitting does to that dickhead from the Starbucks. It's when the words are put on paper that I start to have a hard time. Then, I start to agonize. Then, I start to scrutinize. Then, I remember jobs that I completely forgot I had. Then, I take a break. Two days later, I start to agonize again.

I drive myself crazy thinking of the best way to write about how I entered numbers into a database. The idea of trying to fit a person's abilities, accomplishments, and experiences onto a single sheet of paper is insane to me. Which may well be why I have 0.05" margins on my résumés and cover letters. How impossible is that? And why even try? It's something that is completely pointless that masquerades as important or useful, like the Kardashian family. I suppose our society is full of things like that, isn't it... a system of customs, most of which we continue because that's just how it's always been done.

For the sake of being solution focused, I offer a better alternative. I think the application and interview process should really just be auditions. Lengthy, grueling, ethically-questionable auditions. That truly sounds more appealing to me than the current way. I'd love to send a picture with my statistics, then pull a few all nighters preparing (snorting Adderall and researching online) as I waited to get the call telling me I look good enough to audition. Then, I try out for the job while an entire room full of people wait, counting to the milliseconds to see if I last longer than they do before the employer said "Thank you, that's all." And then begins the arduous call-back process, where I am brought in repeatedly, mostly just to waste my time but also to see how far I'm willing to go for the job. It all ends where all auditions end... that moment when I'm offered the position, but only if I blow the employer. Needless to say, I would ace it every time.

More than all the bullshit, writing résumés is so bothersome to me because it is a constant confrontation of my decision to become unemployed. It's not enough that I must watch my bank account slowly dwindle without the twice-monthly injections of dinero that it once thrived on (HA!) or that I now have the worst of all answers to the worst of all questions (What do you do?). Now I get to actually, you know, live with my decision and deal with the consequences which is always the worst part. It is so liberating to feel brave and stick to your values as I did when I said "peace out" to my job. I lived on a little high for about a month with my freedom as a reward for keeping it real. Then, keeping it real goes wrong and reality sinks in and you have to find ways to reawaken that courage and strength. And remember your dreams and blah blah blah something about finding yourself blah blah. But really, help me, before I die from the laptop heat on my junk, how do I find the strength to continue?

I can say with certainty that giving yourself carpal tunnel by writing, erasing, and re-writing the words "Ideal" or "Uniquely qualified" for hours on end is not the way. What has helped a little is after submitting six applications in one week (which, I've discovered, is my threshold), getting four interviews! Now, to try to kill the ethical notions in my brain and brace for Getting aHead...