On the Job I Wish For, Executively.

I am presently seeking full time employment. Why? I haven’t been employed by another for most of my adult life and I’d like to try. I’d like to know what it’s like to give my time and energy and efforts to a corporate entity for harvest in exchange for wages, social security contributions and retirement. I’m tired of the monthly hustle of making all the little jobs add up enough to pay my bills.

I’ve been attending the Pennsylvania CareerLink center taking classes in resume building, cover letters and interviewing. I haven’t worked full time for an employer since the year 2000. That’s 26 years of self-employment and a whole new world to learn.

So what does one do with a lifetime of entrepreneurship skills but no motivation to entrepreneur anymore?

You tie them in a bow neatly presented on your resume, stored on my desktop in a folder called “Harvest Me”. I call my core strengths my “Area of Expertise” and Experience is changed to “Executive Experience” This only makes me think of Eddie Izzard’s sketch on being an “Executive Transvestite” Oh if I could just be Eddie Izzard. She makes my heart sing.

But no, rather than prompting laughter on stage and thoughts that linger for years, into the machine I go. I try to anyway.

Every aspect of what I’ve done has new corporate speak to learn. I take my experience as a wedding and portrait photographer and call myself “Lead Creative Strategist and Account Director” I “directed the creative production for a 200k annual portfolio encompassing 30-50 “luxury” weddings and corporate events.” Translation: I meet, sell, book, photograph, edit and present back imagery. I served as the “primary creative visionary and camera talent for high net-worth clients.” Translation: I’m a photographer. I “developed bespoke narratives and visual concepts for each client.” Translation: I asked them what they wanted and delivered it.

In 2020 I founded a paid membership community with four life coaches. That makes me “Co-Founder and Creative Strategist.” Why? Because I generated the “creative roadmap for all member touch points: including daily discussion concepts, weekly live events and monthly expert collaborators.” Translation: It was Covid, people were desperate to make connections, they had free money from the government and time on their hands to hop online and join in.

I left the community in 2023 to get divorced and took a “survivability” job . That’s what they call this sort of work at the Career Center. I became a line cook, server and gardener simply to give my big brain a break for a little while. Grief needs ease. Plus I love working in restaurants. If I could be paid a living wage and work the lunch shift while creating my art in my own time, I’d be a very happy woman. But alas, cooking doesn’t pay all my bills and I know I have the big brain skills companies are seeking.

As per the career center’s recommendations I take the “survivability” job off my resume and call myself an “independent creative strategist” from 2023 to now, because in addition to my survival jobs I have created many land art installations and led my community in meditative walks through them. I call this work on my resume “self-generated community building and experiential events from concept through public exhibition; oversaw material sourcing, artist collaboration, and installation logistics across regional venues.” I have helped many artist friends write grants and manage projects translating into “executed end-to-end creative project launches including timeline development, vendor coordination and budget oversight”.

I don’t want to tell you how long I’ve been trying to find work because it will demoralize you. I will say that I notice that I ask questions that give people pause. Utilizing my active listening skills often, maybe interviewers aren’t ready to hear back what they’ve said. I’ve been told I’m “overqualified” a number of times. And that I ought to “seek higher level problem solving positions”. What even are those?

I’m not quite sure when I’ll get to use my big brain skills. I just hope it’s not before I starve or kill myself trying. Thanks Capitalism.