I'd Rather Be Camping

Applying for jobs you don't even want

There’s freedom in unemployment. You get to decide which of the 80 hours a week you used to work, that you can now spend looking for different work.

I’ve applied at something called Protegrity. I am at a loss for what they do but I’m pretty sure it has to do with professionals and/or integrity. I applied for a job called Senior Lifecycle Digital Marketing Manager but I do not know what those words have to do with each other.

I applied for a Microsoft Solutions Consultancy. My background is in music, movies, pancake batter. I’m about as qualified as a yam.

It’s enough to make the sanest of us crazy. 

This is from a cover letter I sent a few days ago: I'm from Minnesota. I was born and raised in the country, and was either lake fishing if it was sunny out, or ice fishing if it wasn't.

This is for a job I Do Not Even Want. VP of Digital Marketing for an outdoors-sports-something startup. I’m so categorically not-into, and not-knowledgeable-about sports, my sister bought me a jersey with the word SPORTS on it to wear around the family.

I’m guessing this company has something to do with hunting, or camping, or fishing. The only fishing I’ve done in the past 25 years was on a Sega Dreamcast in a startup office in San Bruno.

They want me to list my experience in the outdoor industry. I gave away free cans of pancake batter at an RV show once. Well, I didn’t, but I made my parents do it, and they were the most popular attraction in Yuma, Arizona that winter.

And camping? My greatest fear on earth is being mauled by a bear while blueberry picking. And that’s a real fear.

(That video is a black bear walking through my parents’ backyard. You do the math.)

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This random applying for jobs is not distinct to me. Job hunting, especially when it’s forced upon you, by a lay off, or being fired, or just out of work or needing a change immediately, can induce a particularly dense kind of anxiety.

Your brain starts to convince you that the jobs on the page are the only jobs out there, for the foreseeable future. The urge takes over to stuff your square-shaped experience in every other shaped job-hole.

And the anxiety? It gets to work.

It can feel like you have absurd amounts of energy at first, applying for any job that seems marginally close to your talents. I’m gonna get out 20 resumes today. I got up at 5 am! I’m halfway through the second Game of Thrones book, man, if I can do that, I can do anything. I could write about bow hunting in my sleep.

Your focus narrows. To the exclusion of just about everything else, job-hunting becomes all-consuming. Forget about finishing a movie, or completing a complex task. Welcome to ADHD, if you’re not already there.

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Ok, listen, I don’t have zero experience with the outdoors. I did grow up in Minnesota, after all. Here’s me outdoors-sports-ing, 30-odd years ago, in college:

I went with my friends Dave and Chris up to Chris’s dad’s cabin near Mille Lacs, Minnesota. The neighbor, 4’ 2” on a good day, grey, disheveled hair, thick coke bottle glasses, his pants tucked into waterproof boots, came storming out at us when we pulled up and threatened, “What the hell do you think you’re doing here?”

Chris answered, stammering, “I’m Larry’s son, we’re…” and before the sentence was over the neighbor turned around, storming away. “I DON’T GIVE A SHIT” he said, and walked back inside his house.

That epithet, delivered with a thick, provincial world weariness, like he’d been worn down by too many Lutheran potlucks, had us barking “I DON’T GIVE A SHIT” at each other for the next 35 years.

We stocked the fridge and threw our stuff in our rooms and got in the boat. It was a decent catch - probably 25 sunnies and maybe a few crappies. Enough to fry up. At shore we all looked at each other and the cooler full of lunch before us. Nobody knew how to clean a fish.

We threw them all back and made hamburgers.

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Racing thoughts about fear, danger and catastrophe are the order of the day while job hunting. The void silence of the infinite vacuum after you’ve chucked 20-odd resumes into it, combined with just, y’know, being 54, can do a number on your self-esteem.

Without a job I’m just like a hobo. I should get a bindle and tie it on a stick. I’m going to live on a train. Boxcar Nick they’ll call me. I’m doomed. I can’t play a harmonica. How do I pay for the dog’s medicine?

I don’t know how many times I’ve looked at the same job listing and asked myself, Did I already apply for this?

Pressing submit on a job application too early. Sending a resume 4 times in a row accidentally to the same person, and then an apologetic follow up. Constantly questioning yourself, and how you responded to an email or a question. Did I say that right? Should I apologize?

And then, it’s back to bad, old habits. I’m pretty sure I can work anywhere. Glassdoor says this place has a 1 out of 5 rating for toxic culture. I can survive that. I’ve done it before! That didn’t stop me last time! I’ll never get hired again. I’m so washed up, I’m like a beached whale with a laptop.

I’ll never, ever hear back from this camping company.

And then avoidance takes over: I started this Substack, ordered art pens and a sketch pad from Amazon, and built a movie theater in the guest room. All in the last week.

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A recruiter just asked me “What’s the lowest salary you’d consider, so we don’t waste your time.”

I responded.

He laughed. “We don’t place candidates unless it’s at least twice that.”

Panic induces undervaluing yourself, making strange choices like telling a recruiter a number you’d work for, that you know doesn’t even cover your nut. Like applying for a job so clearly not in your wheelhouse, it’s in someone else’s wheelhouse, or possibly barn.

I’m 54. I’ve had a weird and wonderful at times and possibly impossible to peg career. Someone will, of course, hire me. But it’s a tumultuous trip to get there.

Two days after I wrote the first draft of this piece, I did get a callback for the outdoors industry job. It’s an early stage startup focused on camping and fishing, as I thought, and the pay is unfortunate. It does require extensive experience in the outdoors industry, like Cabela’s or Bass Pro Shops.

It’s not for me, but at least, I can tell myself, they responded.

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A couple notes for those new to this newsletter.

First, welcome, and I hope you enjoy it, or at least feel seen.

Second, I’m setting up a sort of forum / job board for this community to trade job leads, horror stories, help, advice, pity etc. I hope to be able to start giving folks access soon.

Third, if you’d like to get in touch, you can reach me at nicholas@areyouexperienced.co — yes, dot C-O, this isn’t the Hilton.

More to come.