The Day I Stopped Lying on My Resume
In the pantheon of Most Depressing Places to Find Out That You Lost Your Job, the food court of a slowly-dying mall is high on the list.
Not DMV-level depressing. I mean, at least I was eating a burrito.
About a week ago, aforementioned burrito in hand, I opened an email informing me that my stable, low-pressure desk job had been nuked by our client, and there would be no further need for my services. While being eligible for unemployment for the first time gave me a hedonistic kind of thrill, it also came with the unique brand of despondency one experiences as a 32-year-old renter with an advanced degree in theater, once again facing the reality that your career path is not so much a “path” as a “crazed series of circumstantial zig-zags.”
A dizzying parade of failures marched across my mental landscape. No property, no marriage, no kids, anemic savings, no hope of paying off my student debt any time in the forseeable future, the looming awareness that I brought all of this upon myself. And now, no income. What the hell was I doing with my life? Why had I spent ten years bartending and fucking around in costumes instead of learning what SEO could do for me?
I took a bite of my burrito. Well, shit, I said to myself, and in the spirit of positive thinking and proactivity, spent the next half hour scrolling through unattainable homes for sale in my area.
Two days later, riding a wave of Monday morning “this is the day it all turns around” optimism, I cracked open my resume and prepared to spin my most recent position into something that resembled an intentional, upwardly-mobile career choice. I punched out a job description that sounded like it belonged to a grown-up with a 401k. “Editing and transcription,” I wrote. “Ensured contextual accuracy for regional UX.”
I sat back and blew on my coffee, pleased with myself. I’m no stranger to dressing up a resume to make myself seem experienced and important, but the inclusion of “UX” made me shake my head. That was a stretch, even for me. I lifted my finger to delete the line, when I paused.
What I had written was accurate. I wasn’t lying about being paid to edit software output- that had actually been my job. Improving UX was an explicit mission of the company that hired me, and I had worked on a team that contributed to that mission. I had so internalized my feelings of shame about my professional life that I assumed something that sounded valid and mature had to be an exaggeration.
Baffled, I realized that I had begun the search for a new job in a mindset of scarcity and fear. I was subconsciously pulling out the smoke and mirrors routine, hoping to trick someone into believing that my talents are valuable, that I am capable, that I am worthy. I was letting my impostor syndrome run amok with both my past and my future, and it wasn’t going to stop unless I changed my thinking.
I’m not going to start making vision boards, or check out The Secret from the library, or start sticking Post-It note affirmations to my bathroom mirror. (Bless you if you do these things. I wish you luck and offer no judgement.) (That’s a lie, I am judging you.)
There is, however, something to this whole scarcity vs. abundance thing. If I focus on what I can do, and what I have done, instead of frantically trying to disguise the ways in which I am lacking, perhaps the next email I open at the food court of a slowly-dying mall will contain some good news.
