I know the Heimlich Maneuver

I graduated from college on December 17th 2010 with a degree in Mass Communications and minor in Women's Studies. When I first picked those classes it was because I was going to be a writer who wrote about women's issues.

Now that I have the degree, I realize it makes me look like I am a gossipy lesbian. Had I been wise I would have gone to school for something like nursing or maybe business management--but NO! I was following my dream.

And that has led me where I am today, unemployed and counting the minutes til nap time or beer thirty, whichever comes first.

I should probably have a better attitude, I have only been unemployed for two months and in this current economy that isn't a terribly long time. However, I expected my dream job to arrive the same day I got my degree and so all this 'applying for jobs' crap is getting me down.

I spend the first part of my day reading want ads and applying for jobs. I made a professional resume and a cover letter using all of my college expertise so that all of my accomplishments were spit shined and highlighted in a Times New Roman Font. I have sent out more than 50 of these resume and cover letters and have received three computer generated replies thanking me for my interest.

That means 47 of the people I have applied for haven't even bothered to program their computer to send out automatically generated letters!

In the last two days I have applied for a vast array of jobs; it is amazing how a month of unemployment can make you reasses your job needs. I have applied for administrative assistant jobs, telephone answering jobs, receptionist jobs, health nutritionist/yoga instructor jobs, marketing, advertising and nuclear energy jobs.

With my new list of possible jobs comes a new series of cover letters. I figured that since no one was responidng to my anyway, I might as well vary from the professional/serious cover letter and mix things up a bit, thus pulling away from the pack.

On all of the administrative assistant jobs I have said, "I know the Heimlich maneuver and CPR, if someone in the office should choke on a bagel I can save their life. Now I ask you, what could be a better than an administrative assistant with life saving capabilities?"

For the yoga instructor/nurtionist job I said, "I have taken many yoga classes and I can lock my ankles behind my head. As a forty year old woman, I know about the struggle life can be when you have a fat jiggly buttocks. I would be a valuable addition to your team as I can feel the pain of others with pudgy mid sections."

I'm thinking on my next administrative assistant cover letter I will add the words, "As a professional member of your team, my first order of business will be to draft a cover letter that you can send to potential candidates that let's them know they are not the right person for the job because of that one thing they did that one time and perhaps they should get right with the lord before applying again."

I doubt if any of my new cover letters will land me a job, but at least I got to brag about my gossipy lesbian degree.