Twice now I’ve worn and washed my black and white Roz & Ali dress from the, sadly, now defunct Dress Barn to a job interview. Both times I joined it with red flats of a faux-suede persuasion with bows on the toes and the human-sized repro of Felicity Merriman’s red necklace I was given as a 38th birthday gift from my best friend. We have a while thing with Felicity because she gave me her Felicity doll and a heap of her findings and outfits to give to my daughter. Arguably one of the nicest things anyone had ever done for me. Another actually links up to another American Girl doll, because out of the blue and wholly unexpectedly, for one of my younger birthdays, possibly 9 or 10, I was sent a Kirsten, unprovoked, from an aunt on my dad’s side who had never before remembered our birthdays. I was not accustomed to receiving such expensive gifts as a surprise. It was astonishing. It was one of the few times I got something my brother didn’t. It was possibly because my aunt, her name is Mary Lou, as I think she’s still alive but none of us have really looked too far into it, we never even told her when her brother, my dad, died. My mom was going to, and then didn’t. And I don’t feel it necessary to take it upon myself to do so. Maybe I should, given I still have and treasure that doll and plan on giving her to my own daughter, when she’s old enough.

But, more on these dresses. I used the black and white in June, to an interview I had a bad vibe about because when I arrived, I did as I was told over the phone by HR and went to customer service and asked for a specific person, they were paged, repeatedly. I was finally told I could go wait on a nearby bench and they would let me know when that person responded. Luckily, an employee who had just punched out took pity on me and said, “Oh you’re waiting for [x]? She’s out today.” Cool. So the person I had an interview scheduled with for days wasn’t there. I thanked the person and went back to customer service, mostly to just tell them that that person wasn’t even in that day, and I guess I would go home and contact HR. Although I was personally already kind of mad and thinking I wouldn’t want to try again anyway. Maybe not. I’ve put up with worse. But then, the general manager of the whole store was there and said she’d do my interview. I waited on the bench for another fifteen minutes as I guess she was reading my resume. Then I interviewed. It was a Friday. She told me I would hear by Sunday at the latest. Sunday came and went and there was no word. But then at least, I guess, they sent a rejection email on Monday. I had assumed, arrogantly, it seems, that the reason they didn’t hire me was because I told them I was looking for full-time employment that would involve health insurance for me and my family. That’s pretty much the point of my attempting to find a job. Maybe that was their reason. They of course don’t give a reason. I don’t think companies can.

So, that was the middle of June. I’ll be honest, I got kind of lax about searching for awhile. It’s easy to be busy all day every day even if you’re not working at all, I promise. Yes, I could go back to the bookstore, but that was a volunteer job, literally, despite how I dress it up in interviews. I mean it was still an obligation and I still tried as much as I could but the likelihood of seeing money out of it was as low as winning the lottery without buying a ticket. The store just doesn’t make money. It wouldn’t exist if certain relationships weren’t present. I’ll just leave it at that because I’m not trying to reveal anything secret. But, given the hours and the general lack of heavy customer traffic, it should be obvious.

But then, my husband got an automated email about another grocery store, this one with a much better reputation for benefits, was hiring. He told me to apply and although it took me nearly a whole business day to respond to two short questions, I did it. Then several days later, I got an automated email from the bot they use to sort resumes and applications telling me to call the store. I called the next day and they scheduled me for a phone screening the following day, which happened to be September 1st. Then on the 4th I heard back on that, they wanted to schedule an in-person interview. I was already a little sad when they kept calling it a first interview. It was on Labor Day. Then, the day after that they called again and wanted to schedule a second interview. I’ll admit I was feeling good about my chances at this point, especially when I got there and saw one of the interviewers was the big deal whole store manager. Kind of like last time. And, like last time, it didn’t go well. Not only did I not get the job, I had to wait four days and then call them to find out. They told me a couple of days. I gave them the weekend, but then it was Monday afternoon and I hadn’t heard anything, which I found strange. How hard is it to send a rejection email or make that thirty-second call? It’s a little extra humiliating to have to reach out, to be like okay maybe I should have gotten the point when you all let four days lapse when one of four interviewers told me you were looking to onboard as soon as possible, but also wow I showed up to three different interviews and you can’t even tell me it’s a no? Cool. Also I’ll be frank and tell you that it’s kind of dumb not to hire me. I’m a great employee. I truly don’t get what others had that I didn’t, but who knows. Is my emotional trauma causing a personality disorder as I age? Is that a thing? I’m not Googling it, I won’t do it. Also I was fine with the wages, even the low end, and I had completely open availability and mentioned how I was fine with the offered shift, which was 2-10pm for the foreseeable future. I have a decade in retail experience, if not specific to food/grocery. So. I. Don’t. Get. It. WHAT are these people looking for? And it’s not like they can tell you.

So. To be perfectly honest, and when am I not that, this has all been very discouraging and disappointing. I try to tell myself a lot of things. Things like you didn’t really like retail. You REALLY can’t stand pretentious whites and that seems to be the customer base. You might end up really missing your daughter if you only see her for a few hours in the morning before being gone all afternoon and evening. Your gym commitment might really struggle with this level of outside workload dumped on you. Your faith that your husband will start pulling a lot more of the housework load shaken to its core by seventeen years of lived-in experience. So, you try to make yourself feel better. Of course your husband is very nice about it. But some of the jobs he expresses interest in pursuing himself worry you.

So, it’s back to square one with the job search. Again. I guess my resume with its weird gaps and its all over the place vibe is a turn off. There’s the decade of retail, the five years at an office job, then the at-home work begins. There was a writing job which OBVIOUSLY got replaced by A.I. in 2023, then I was actually back in the office at a mortgage company for nine months and BOY did I hate it, then an online tutoring job I actually liked but ten months to the day into that the laws in China changed and those living in foreign countries could not teach Chinese students, even extracurriculars like these language courses. Then I went back to the writing job, which was small steady money for another two years. Then, when that fizzled out while I was starting the third trimester of my pregnancy, I got another tutoring job, this time for adults, and even a transcription job AND a Pearson standardized test evaluator. I literally read middle school kids’ answers to questions after reading an article. It was wild. I did three at-home jobs while I was pregnant. It wasn’t even worth it. The transcription one was especially stressful because they only give humans the files AI cannot yet handle, and there’s good reason for that. If my husband hadn’t had a DJ’s mixer that could truly fine-tune the levels, I never would have gotten through what I did, which wasn’t much. The standardized test job was over before I had my daughter and I quit tutoring and transcribing when I knew I was about to have her. Then, when she was about six months old, I joined the bookstore. That didn’t pay, but you better believe it’s at least taking up space on my resume. You should at least get that much.

So. I can say with all confidence that I didn’t think I’d grow up to be such a grade-A loser. It’s easy enough to pretend like I don’t feel that way as a stay-at-home mom with THAT as my background, and I do truly love my daughter much more than anything else. That’s just the way it is. But I never thought I’d end up where I am. Is it all my fault? Well clearly. Everyone’s life is their own fault, you just can’t say that to most people.

The second dress, the one from my second interview, was a purple body wrap fake-out with an asymmetrical neckline and a wannabe snakeskin pattern happening, this time with taupe gray flats and a butterfly necklace because I have very few gold necklaces. I keep saying that to my husband so I’m really harboring some high hopes for Christmas. This dress is perhaps a little flashy, but it is nearly knee-length and covers shoulders and chest, no cleavage, no back. And isn’t that what flats are for? So. I don’t think it was my clothing. I don’t know what it is. All I know is both of those dresses are now back in the attic, with all of the other business casual dresses I acquired during half a decade of office job life. It was all right, in that some good and a lot of bad sort of way. The hours were nice, of course, and it nearly baffled me to think I would get holidays off AND be paid for them, instead of having to work them. And, each time I go up there to pick one out, a small part of me is made a little sadder.

I worry my working out motivation will suffer a blow come winter, when it’s frigid and dark as night at 6am. I worked 6-4 or 7-4 at the office job. Leaving at 6:30am in January here means it’s still full blown nighttime when you’re driving in. It’s fucking depressing. Of course the gym is actually enjoyable. I mean I hate my life during hip thrusts like anyone but you gotta do ’em. I always wonder about my gym friends, you know the people you feel like you’re close with despite never having spoken to one another. You don’t know their real names so you name them. Racer back older lady, pixie cut leg tattoos, stringer ken doll, stringer ken doll but brown hair, guy who sometimes has a half pony and is really talkative but never approaches me, absurdly skinny redhead mature, absurdly in-shape instructor, combover, sweatband, you know, all my crew.

But, I worry about a lot of things.

-Cassandra