Angry Birds

I feel peer pressure to get a job. Actually it’s self-inflicted pressure. I’m embarrassed that for the first time since I entered the job market in 1996 I am unemployed. My luxurious (perhaps deluded) fantasies of taking time off to chill after some intense time in Uganda did not factor in my ego. I thought, hey, I’ve saved some money, why not take my time and find the right thing? When one imagines the unemployed, from one’s armchair, one considers the financial constraints. But no one told me how lame it would feel to hang out with my friends or worse, new people I’m meeting in DC, and not have a job to brag or complain about.

It was a good run, I guess. Northern Ireland, check. Northern Uganda, check. Iran, check…just kidding. But was it all for naught? How can 14 years of employment add up to skills that do not fit a single job description I’ve seen in the past 2 months?

The best thing I can do now is apply my newly acquired Angry Birds philosophy. For those that don’t know it, the short version is it's a video game on the iphone where you fling birds who possess different skill sets at mean old pigs and try to blow them up. The philosophy derives from my winning strategy with the video game: if you have trouble blowing up those mean old pigs, you’ve got to mix up your bird flinging strategy. Aim low instead of high with the yellow bird. Don’t drop the egg until the very last moment before impact, etc. etc. Yikes. I know. Not even a month of unemployment and I’ve fallen prey to video games. Damn you iphone!!

So I’ve started pounding the pavement (in between extended dog walks with Jeter). And I’m meeting with all types of people and organizations in the hope that mixing it up may produce a victory. Friends of friends and colleagues of colleagues are being quite generous with their time. But patience is not my virtue. Part of me wants to bust through my glazed gracious/nonchalant veneer and shout: “GIVE ME A JOB, DAMN IT. I’VE GOT A MASTER’S AND WILL WORK LIKE MAD FOR YOU.” But that’s not cool, I guess.