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Roller Coaster

For every "good" day with hope and excitement and possibility, there's an adjacent bad day where everything seems go to wrong. People have seemed to move on from the bad luck theory of my joblessness to just thinking I'm downright stupid. A neighbor offered to get me a job as a legal assistant, and then was surprised that I'm still being so choosey about positions. Another person told me I should take off my ring when I interview because, according to her, they'll just think I'll leave them to become a baby-making factory.

One planned interview was cancelled today. They already found someone else for the position. Uh huh. I can't get my affidavits from my former employers so that I can be sworn in with the first batch of attorneys at the end of the month. (One employer, on December 17, "I have it all complete. I just need to have it notarized and sent out." On January 9, I'm still waiting and my calls and emails are being ignored.)

The USPS is still forwarding my mail back to Philadelphia for some unknown reason despite my attempting to correct their mistake a grand total of four times. As a result, I'm missing my bill payments and being charged late fees that I can't afford. There goes all my textbook money. I've run out of contact lenses and I can't believe I even contemplated for a minute going back to glasses because I could save the eye exam and new contact lens money.

This is not how I imagined it would be at all. I wish I had a revelation earlier, like many others are having now. Now I have so, so many regrets, in no particular order:

I should have made more connections. I should have tried harder.

I should have scratched and fought for a Summer Associate position. All that time in government service and public interest has done nothing for me whatsoever, my Career Services Office be damned. I didn't know that none of that would matter.

I should have gone to a Boston-area law school if I wanted to work here. I didn't know how regional legal networks are.

I should have gone to business school. Shorter term, plus they line up the interviews for summer and graduate positions for their students. I didn't know how unhelpful Career Services would be.

I should have dropped out after those two C+s during my first semester of 1L. They were only harbingers of the doom to come. I didn't know how brutal the curve was.

I should have gotten a Paralegal Certificate instead. With my Ivy degree and the paralegal certification, I could have made $60-75K per year, paid off my undergrad debt, and put a down payment on a house by now. Now I'm precluded from paralegal positions because of my JD. They just figure that I'll leave when (ha) I find an associate position. I'd be happy with the income and something to do. I didn't know I'd ever be in the situation that with a law degree a paralegal position would be good news.

I should have stuck with journalism. It was something. I might have advanced in my career by now. I didn't know how horrible the job market would be for lawyers without top grades.

Hindsight is easy; it's depressing; it's maddening. I know, I know. I hate resorting to this wallowing. I hate crying into my pillow about lost opportunities. I can also say that if I didn't go to law school, I wouldn't have met my roommate J, and J wouldn't have gotten me playing that online puzzle game, and I wouldn't have met my fiancé. So if any of those "should haves" occurred I might still be single, or dating someone else, or God knows what else.

I need some luck in my professional life. And yes, I need patience as well: the patience I pledged as part of my New Year's resolutions. But as a family member said, "It's almost been a year." Well, no, I replied. I took the bar. I wasn't really looking then.

"You better get something soon."

Full post as published by Wicked Words on January 09, 2008 (boomark / email).