Well, How Did I Get Here?

I’d like to tell you more about how being a Production Assistant sucks balls.

Just over a year ago, I was hired on as a PA for a milk commercial. Just milk. I don’t know what brand of milk. I arrived at an ice skating rink around 6 AM and began helping unload equipment and craft services. The coolest part of that was getting to see Kristi Yamaguchi from a few yards away and watch her skate through the glass. At one point in the morning, I was asked to sit in for the director of photography so he could get the lighting right or something. The ice skating rink was about 40 degrees and as it was August, I was wearing shorts and a tank top. My nose was running and I was freezing my ass off and I wasn’t even going to be a movie star! 

We shot there all day until about 3 PM, at which time most of the crew moved to an indoor parkour gym. I showed up just in time to have to drive to the third location, a nondescript office building. I sat around waiting for the shoot to be over, trying to look busy, organizing food and drinks in unnecessary ways. 

We finally wrapped up around 6 PM and began packing up supplies and equipment. I was asked by the producer to return some custom ice hockey sticks. Supposedly there were 4 of these sticks and we could only find 3. He sent me back to the ice skating rink to track down the missing stick. It wasn’t there. It’s August. It’s hot as fuck. There’s no AC in my car. The Producer was LIVID that I couldn’t find the missing stick and actually drove to the rink himself to prove that I was an idiot and that it was probably right in front of my face. He even made the other PA stop the van she was driving on the freeway, pull over on the shoulder, and search the van. No sign of the fucking stick. 

So, not entirely empty-handed, I drove to this dudes house to return the remaining hockey sticks, sitting in the stifling heat after a 13+ hour work day. When I arrived, the hockey player was incredibly gracious and kind, informing me that we only borrowed 3 hockey sticks. There was NO elusive 4th hockey stick to begin with! I was on the verge of tears. I have never been treated with such disregard in my life. Thankfully, I realized that the producer’s behavior was only indicative of his shortcomings and not a reflection of my own.

In January, I went through a series of interviews for an office coordinator for a prestigious advertising agency. I went through 3 interviews and the last in the series was with one of the creative directors. He was terrifying. He was stone-faced, exhibiting no emotion whatsoever. Cold-blooded killer. I choked. Many realizations followed that encounter. One being that men in positions of authority make me shrink. Another was that my self-esteem was in the fucking gutter. And maybe one could argue that the legacy of poverty and my pattern of subconscious self-sabotage followed me into that interview. Surprise! I didn’t get the job.

Months later, after applying and being rejected by countless companies, I reached out to the recruiter at that prestigious agency. Part of me couldn’t let it go. She was the one that got away. I craved the validation and cache that went along with working at a place with name recognition. She replied and said they were looking to hire a temp office coordinator last minute and asked me to come into the studio the next day. I was thrilled! I went in the next day having no idea what to expect.

The woman who got the office coordinator job I interviewed for had been promoted to the head of operations after the previous manager left the company to work at the agency’s #1 competitor. The bald headed creative director left without a trace to start a new agency for his friend. It was like a new office! Here was my chance to make up for the opportunity I missed!

And then again...maybe not. This bitch who interviewed me, the HEAD OF OPERATIONS at a prestigious advertising agency, is a twenty-something ex-waitress from LA who couldn’t make it as an actress and had no background in marketing or advertising. But she was beautiful, and that’s what matters. But I’m not bitter. No.

This person, who had obviously never interviewed anyone before in her life, showed up with a young man in toe, schlepping boxes of supplies for her, while her dog followed close behind. Of course. The communication was horrible. I had no idea I was even going in for an interview. The situation sounded so dire from the email I received, that I assumed it would be a jump in, ask questions later type of thing. I sat down with her for an hour talking about my experience, thinking, “what the fuck are we doing here? Do you need someone to work or not?”

By the end of the day, I was informed that the temp that had been working for them was in fact still working for them. There would be no need for my services after all. What a fucking draining emotional roller coaster! Although it felt like a huge blow all over again, like I was reliving the crushing rejection that I felt in the winter, I realized that I didn’t want to work for a company that would treat someone that way. They obviously do not have their shit together. The selfish, self-serving behavior and attitude told me that they cared nothing for me, but only for saving their own asses.

When opportunity knocks, do you answer? I’ve heard that those who suffer from perfectionism are more likely to “miss life opportunities” and I believe it. For years I was in the dark hold of alcoholism and my life was small and sad. I didn’t grow, go on adventures, take risks. Everything had to be exactly the way I wanted at all times, which as I’m sure you can imagine, worked out really well for me. I was miserable. I often had the thought after a hard night of drinking that this was just my life now. There would never be going to back to school, getting out of the service industry, following my dreams. What dreams? Any dream I had was lost long ago in a bottle of whiskey and the perpetual fog that followed.

How was I supposed to know that I would end up getting sober at 27? I was as shocked as anyone, if not more so. I hadn’t been able to quit drinking for more than a few days for the last 6 years. As the days kept adding up, I was being asked to do more and more. I finished my bachelor’s degree, got a job at a new bar, worked for two nonprofits, started a podcast. I felt better than I had in...ever. And yet, I still felt estranged from the creative part of myself that had been lost as a teen. I was busy, yes. My days were packed from dawn to dusk, but I hadn’t found the passion that had driven me to create all those years ago. Maybe I wouldn’t care if I never had it in the first place. There were times over the last 5 years of sobriety that I thought I probably just wasn’t a creative person. Maybe there was a way to be in an industry without having to be the creative force. I could be creative adjacent. Finding my way back to my creative self has been the hardest part of sobriety. It is seriously a muscle that has atrophied over the years. It feels like starting from scratch and my inner critic is alive and well and thriving. The critic tells me I am not good enough. That I am too old to start trying new things. It’ll never go anywhere, so why bother? That I am a fraudulent no-talent. 

And yet, I am persisting. Something inside me wants to get out and I am following the little voice inside that tells me to take risks, to write, to perform,to go see performances, to learn the craft. The part of me that felt beyond reach is waking up and letting me know that she is here and ready to do the work. Even if that means falling on my face, failing, and producing shitty work. I was listening to an interview with a ex-Buddhist monk yesterday and he said that western culture, especially in north America, finds independence and contentment by comparing ourselves to others. That is a terrible thing that makes people stop pursuing their dreams. It halts growth and progress, blocks us from contentment as we feel like we will never reach the heights others have reached. Comparison is the killer of joy. He was asked how he left his life as a monk and started acclimating to the secular life. How did he start dating? How did he find a job and learn a new way of life at the age of 36? His response was that when he is acting in truth, in alignment with the universe, things happen easily. That is what I am striving for. To live in my truth. 

I went to a job interview the other day. It was for a administrative assistant that would be 40 hours a week, come with benefits, PTO, all the things that I have been aching for over the last year of my job search. But during that interview, I realized that if they offered me the job, I would be miserable. It would kill my dreams. After all of the trials of this last year, I thought all I wanted was someone who would give me the chance to work a 9 to 5, tell me I was good enough, that they wanted me, that that would solve all of my problems. But I’m pretty sure I no longer need that validation. I’m sure now that I can wait for the right opportunity, that I don’t have to take a job only because it is offered. It brought me back to perfectionism and that this line of thought is only allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good. How will I know that I am following my truth and not passing up opportunity? 

Upward mobility is a myth. A joke. My boyfriend and I were having a discussion about our future last night. He and I are about as working class as you get. He grew up with few opportunities on the south side of Chicago and becoming a laborer in construction was one of his only options. He miraculously made his way to superintendent over years of hard work as construction was one of the only industries that would have him. Now, he’s 38 and just had his first back surgery after 20 years of grueling physical labor. He may be toast in his industry and he’s looking to change careers. After several meetings with friends in the tech industry, he was told that it may not be an option as he wouldn’t fit in with the culture. Which is code for “you’re an ape. A barbarian. How could you possibly fit in with a bunch of middle class men?” 

When he told me that, my heart sank. Of course I was heartbroken for him and took on the emotional burden of what it would feel like to be told that there was no place for me in an industry that seemed like a great match for my intellectual capacity. 

Taking a step back, I realized that I HAD been told that over and over again in my job search. As someone who grew up in poverty, I lack not only resources and skills that I didn’t have access to, but also a way of communicating with those who had more. I am blunt, honest, and I do not hide my feelings behind a carefully manicured image. I’ve had interviews with ad and tech agencies, only to be told that the job went to someone who better fit their culture or had more experience. 

I have been existing in a reality that if I only try harder or meet the right person, there will be a place in the white collar world. I am smart, capable, and driven and yet there is a part of me that I can’t hide. In my speech, the way I carry myself, and my years of subservience in the hospitality industry. I have been taught since childhood that I am not good enough. The media machine tells me that being saddled with student debt in order to receive a piece of paper is the key to my freedom. That a piece of paper will be my entry into a better a life.

But hey, maybe my eternal optimism and delusional belief in the American Dream is good! Maybe the brain washing perpetrated by the powers that be has succeeded and by believing that my fate is in my control will help me transcend the reality. If we believe that we’ll be rewarded by using our intelligence and skill, then the responsibility is on we the people, not the establishment that has failed us. 

As you know, I quit my bartending job just over 1 year ago. When I did that, I did not have a backup plan. My plan was to make a podcast and find a “real” job. A “real” job meant 40-hours-a-week, with benefits, PTO, weekends off. The whole shebang. I have never done that in my life. Weirdly enough, I didn’t find a job in my first week of unemployment! I know, right? In this time of an epic economic boom, the lowest unemployment rate we’ve seen in years, with a framed university diploma, I couldn’t find a job to save my life. 

I have a friend who works in the film industry in Portland. He started out as a Production Assistant in his 30′s, working and grinding for a couple years before he finagled his way into the art department as an assistant and then into the position of Art Director. I hung out with him one day and asked about getting into that industry myself. He gave me a list of email addresses and told me to reach out to them and see if they needed any help. I did that and got booked for an indie film pretty quick. The catch was that it was unpaid. Great. Starting from the bottom all over again. I had just finished a six month unpaid internship at a radio station. 

The work was fucking brutal. Twelve hour days. Moving equipment all day in the heat of July. Just sitting in a puddle of sweat. The work was scattered and unreliable. It’s not enough to live on that’s for sure, but you also can’t have another job, because if you want to PA, you better be available at the drop of a hat. I was the grunt. The one who did all the bullshit no one else wanted to do. I was ordered around and sent on errands, shopping for food for the crew, setting up craft services, buying white sheets, opening boxes and laying out cardboard so folks wouldn’t track mud onto the set. Shit like that. And the pay was garbage! The rate of pay for PA’s hasn’t changed in 20 years. $250 a day, regardless of the hours. I took jobs for $175/day, $200/day, anything I could get to establish myself as someone who was willing to work. I wanted to be a valuable asset to the crew and for people to remember my name. 

It’s really a blow to the ego to work for so little money, do the worst of the work, be nothing more than a body, and not be called again for another job. It kinda feels like getting kicked when your down. Over and over again. Which at that point, I was. I learned that people in that industry often start as PA’s and work their way up into other departments. But, that can take years to do. People work as PA’s for YEARS before they transfer to other departments. 

Well, not all of us are 18-year-old’s, FILM INDUSTRY! Some of us don’t want to beg and plead to be treated like shit, get paid nothing, and be grateful for the opportunity. Just another stepping stone on the path to self-discovery, I suppose. You never know what you’re getting into until you do it. 

Sometimes life is too depressing to write about. 

I turned 32 a couple weeks ago. I had a party at a local karaoke spot, one of those that has private rooms so you and your friends can make asses out of yourselves and no one’s the wiser. Seven people replied “Going” on the FB invite and do you know how many people showed up? 2. One was my sister. 

You know that fear you have that if you plan a birthday party, no one will show up and it will confirm your every insecurity? That no one likes you, that you’re a bad friend, that you’re the nerdy, unpopular kid, that the people who show up are only there because their parents made them come?

Welp, that’s what happened! No one showed up. The next day, I wrecked my bicycle and got rejected from a job that I really thought I had a chance at. The day after that I got a rejection from the job I really wanted. The job that I thought was going to change everything and make the birthday and bike accident feel like they never happened. 

So, what do you do when you get kicked when you’re down? Over and over and over again? Unfortunately, there’s no manual for this kind of thing. I am the kind of person who LOVES taking direction. TELL ME WHAT TO DO AND I’LL DO IT. That’s why I love Alcoholics Anonymous. There is a clear set of steps laid out and all you have to do is follow directions. 

But, this is not Alcoholics Anonymous. This is real life shit and there is no one here to hold my hand and tell me what to do. Yes, my ego has been destroyed and thrown into the gutter. Yes, nothing is working and I have no idea why. Yes, I am doing the best I can. 

Dear Person Who Does Not Give A Fuck About Me,

I’ve been looking for a job for over a year and I keep getting rejected over and over again. I know that must make me sound like a real catch. I can’t get a job to save my life. I’ve even been referred by people with connections to jobs, and I STILL can’t get one! Now doesn’t that sound like someone you’d like to hire?

Isn’t that the “can-do” attitude you’re looking for?

I have little to no experience in the professional world. I’ve pretty much only worked as a server and bartender for my entire adult life. Office experience? Nope. Admin experience? Hell no! Creative Experience? Only if it counts that I am able to dress myself in the morning. I pick out clothes good! 

A little bit about me: I drank alcoholically for over 10 years, which led me to hide in my apartment and forget about everything I loved or thought I could be good at. I lived in a perpetual fear that I would never make it in this world and wasn’t able to face anything or anyone. I was a miserable, lonely, pathetic drunk. (Think Faye Dunaway in Barfly.) I wouldn’t try anything new or work on any potential skill out of fear of failure, judgment, self-loathing, the list could go on... Whatever the reason, I just wouldn’t take a chance on myself. 

Then, at 27, I got sober. Somehow the pain of living with alcohol became greater than the fear of discovering what it would be like to live without it. I went to an AA meeting, then another, then another and before I knew it, I had 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, then 1 year sober. It was incredible! My God, I was a new woman! I couldn’t believe the liberation I felt. The world was my oyster. I was walking on sunshine. All the platitudes and bullshit people say about living the dream, that was me. I could finally have a new life and everything felt possible. 

But, not so fast! The fairy tale doesn’t end there, my friend. In sobriety, I started doing stuff. Like getting internships with nonprofits, volunteering with teenagers, producing my own podcast. I even worked for a US Senator. I was actually learning to do real big kid stuff and it felt like that work would be paving the way for me to land a full-time job with benefits. The Big Kahuna. The American Dream, Baby. I could see it! 

Enter reality check. Enter balloon popping. Enter rain on my parade. I graduated from college (yay me!) and my fancy 9-5? Where is it? I looked and I networked and I informally interviewed and I worked for free, and I started working as a production assistant and worked for free some more and real-life interviewed and gigged and applied applied applied. And what benefits have I reaped from all of that hard work? 

“You were great. We really enjoyed speaking with you, but we’re going to go with someone that has a little more experience.” I should have that printed on a fucking t-shirt. Or even less personal, “thank you for taking the time to apply for the blah-blah-fuck-yourself position, but we have decided to move forward with another candidate at this time.” Or, just to be a dick, “we looked over your submission and concluded that your experience doesn’t match the minimum qualifications.” 

So, let me ask YOU a question. How am I supposed to gain the appropriate experience when these are the responses I get? Does my appearance scream “I’m desperate! And I come from nothing. And I’m too old to have so little experience or too old to learn new things?” Is that what you see when I walk in the door? Tell me what to do and I’ll do it. What is the answer? 

It’s not something that can be summarized into a nice, tidy little cover letter is it? I’ve been cast aside and shit on this last year and I’m fucking sick of it. 

I believe I would be a great addition to your company. 

Thank you so much for your consideration.

Over the last year, I have been producing a radio show for free. 

When I was still in school, I decided I needed to pick a lane. I needed to find a path forward, a road that I could venture down that would perhaps lead me somewhere that would provide stability. I really liked podcasts, so I thought radio could be that path. 

I applied for an internship at the local NPR affiliate and to my surprise, I was asked for an interview! When I went in, I realized I was in over my head and hadn’t prepared enough. Although I decided radio was the path I had chosen, I didn’t know much about it. The show I interviewed for expected 20-30 hours/week while I was still in school and working. They were disappointed when they found out my name was Rosa but I didn’t speak Spanish. They were doubly disappointed when they found out my main source of entertainment and culture was Netflix. When the producer was walking me out, he asked what I wanted to do, and I told him I had no idea. Maybe PR, I said. What the fuck? Maybe PR? I don’t give 2 shits about PR. It was the first time I bombed an interview.

I was given the opportunity to have coffee with a woman who was the president of a local nonprofit radio station and she racked her brain trying to find a connection that could benefit me. She got me in front of the Executive Director of the station who also hosted their morning talk radio program. I interviewed with him and was soon brought onto the team. I had no fucking clue what I was doing, but they were a ragtag team of folks who didn’t know what they were doing but wanted to make the best show they could. I was trained as a producer and more people were brought onto the production team over the next few months. We all worked for free. It was awesome and terrible. I put in 15-20 hours a week on the show, scheduling interviews, writing news stories and interview questions, recording and editing audio, managing show structure and showing up at 7:00 am on the regular to produce the actual show. It was new and exciting and I learned a lot in a short period of time. The internship ended and I felt so burned out and relieved to take a break. I also made the silly assumption that 6 months working in live radio might mean something when applying to jobs at other radio stations that might pay me. How wrong I was!

I applied to almost every job in radio that I saw, including some in New York and Chicago. I wasn’t even asked for an interview. My conclusion was that I wasn’t qualified for the jobs I was applying to, so I started a podcast on my own and took ownership of creating the website, recording and editing, the audio, and social media management. It was hard. It was a grind. I spent hundreds of hours building something that never got off the ground. It was supposed to be fun and it really wasn’t. 

I continued doing work for the station that involved writing and designing their monthly newsletter and they asked me if I would be interested in producing one of their evening talk radio programs, an advice show. I listened to an episode and wrote out several pages of notes for the hosts and asked them if they’d like to meet. Apparently, telling people what they’re doing wrong is not a good tactic. They did not want to meet. There was another show on the back burner that the ED wanted to air but had no space for. I listened to their pilot and thought it could be a great opportunity to build a show from the ground up. When a slot opened up in the evening, I climbed on board to act as executive producer. 

It was a sex, love, and relationship advice show, hosted by a published author. It was designed to be a call/email/text-in show where she answered listener questions. That’s all fine and good, but it doesn’t really work if there aren’t any listeners. We had a segment devoted to listener emails and guess what? I made them up! Throughout the whole year that I’ve worked on this show, we’ve had maybe 2 genuine emails. Of course, I solicited all of my friends and gained about 5 more emails and a couple of voicemails as a result. 

I took on all of the production work, which meant writing the format, the fake emails, and doing research on whatever the topic was for the week. Initially, I wanted to have guests on every week that would increase our listener base, as we could enlist their social media following. After a couple of months, I realized the hosts didn’t want guests. She invited a friend of hers to be the co-host and that was it. Just the two of them talking about sex and love every week in relation to a specific topic. 

Working on this show has felt like I am spinning my wheels in the sand. There has been no learning, no progress. I do the work, they do the show. I feel no connection to it. I feel no passion for it. Just last week they said they don’t even want to have topics anymore, but just sex and love in general. They’ll take a couple bullet points and discuss them in the hopes listeners can relate and call or text them. 

I am not the kind of person who feels proud. I am the kind of person that says, “Okay, sure, I did some stuff, but it wasn’t nearly good enough and I am so far from where I’d like to be.” I am the kind of person who is always searching for perfection that does not exist. 

My 32nd birthday is in 6 days. I have been actively avoiding thinking about it because I don’t want to look at what a failure I am. I don’t want to think about how I’ve been searching for a job for almost exactly 1 year with no luck. I don’t want to think about how I was essentially forced to work at a restaurant again months after I thought I quit my last restaurant job ever. I don’t want to think about all of the interviews I’ve had that didn’t pan out.

This morning, I thought about my birthday and reflected on the last year of my life, as we are wont to do when milestones rear their ugly heads whether we want them to or not. I was surprised to realize that as shitty and depressing as this year has been, I’ve actually accomplished quite a bit. Of course it doesn’t look the way I want it to, but does it ever?

I have produced a new radio show from the ground up and it’s coming up on the one year anniversary. I recorded, edited, and built a website for my very own podcast. I got that podcast distributed on Google Play and Stitcher (Apple rejected my many attempts, for which I’m still incredibly resentful). I worked on the production team for several films and commercials, which I think is pretty bad ass. I completed an internship for a US senator during one of the most exciting times to be in politics in recent history. I took care of my dad after he had heart surgery. I took care of my boyfriend after he had back surgery. I stayed sober. 

So, yeah. My life doesn’t look like I thought it would by 32. But, when I was 27, I was drinking my face off, had no friends, worked at a pizza place, took several trips to the hospital as a result of my drinking, and wanted to die. When I was 27, I didn’t think my life would ever look any different. I had this naive hope that somehow I would wake up one morning and some miraculous change would have taken place in my sleep. I imagined I would wake up without the desire to drink. That I would get my shit together, finish my degree, and...then what? I couldn’t wake up without a hangover. I hadn’t written anything creative since high school. I lost my drive, my hobbies, my friends, jobs, houses. The reality of my life, which I refused to acknowledge, was pretty fucking bleak.

As one of the many who has committed the cardinal sin of quitting a job before I had a job lined up, I soon realized I was in quite a pickle. I didn’t realize the size of that pickle until about 4 months after quitting said job and no job had come. My savings account was dwindling fast and there was no dawn on the horizon. Just stormy gray rain clouds. 

I decided to try catering as a means of income as I heard that it was a great option for folks who participated in the gig economy, working freelance and picking up the slack by working part time. I accepted a position working (for free) as an intern for a US senator and taking PA work when it was offered but it was not consistent enough to pay the bills. 

It sounds ideal, right? You get to pick your schedule and work as often or as little as you like. As it turns out, that’s a load of bullshit.

The reality is that you get to pick what days you’d like to work, but that doesn’t mean you’ll get scheduled for it. Working as a Production Assistant means being available at all times. You never know when an opportunity will come along and if you want money and experience, you have to say yes. Working a set schedule at the senators office and trying to pick up catering shifts made that pretty difficult.

I have worked in the service industry since I was 15. My first job was working as a busser in a breakfast restaurant where we had to be there by 7:00 am or earlier. It is the worst of all the service jobs. Customers want at least 3 drinks each. Coffee/tea, water, orange juice, and a cocktail. And don’t forget to bring cream and sugar with the coffee. I never worked breakfast again.  

Catering is perhaps worse than breakfast. Let me see if I can rank the service jobs I’ve done from worst to best.

1. Catering

2. Breakfast

3. Cocktailing

4. Serving

5. Bartending

Catering is the number 1 worst job I’ve ever had. First of all, you don’t know what your schedule is until the week before. Second, the hours are long. I was working 9-10 hour shifts on my feet, then wake up at 7:00 am to be at the senators office by 8:30 am. Third, you are packing and loading up an entire restaurant onto several trucks, driving it to the event space, then unloading the entire restaurant. After the event, you pack up the entire restaurant back onto the truck and bring it back to the warehouse and unload everything again. 

I was so desperate for money, I actually signed up to do this 3 times a week! And I think I maybe got scheduled for my requested shifts once in the 3 months I worked there. I was begging to torture myself in order to pay rent. What a fucking nightmare. After the holidays, I couldn’t even get 1 shift a week. I couldn’t get scheduled to do a job I hated! That’s some depressing shit. 

Imagine you’re in really tough times. Your dad has to move in with you because he’s had unexpected heart surgery. Your stepmother has just been released from the psych ward. You’ve just moved into an apartment you can’t afford and you don’t have any money to furnish it. And your only income comes from a job that reinforces all of your deepest insecurities. Serving rich people. 

These motherfuckers have money. Money like I thought only existed in New York or LA. These people are spending $10,000 at a charity auction for a trip to Maui. They’re drinking, eating, and having a great time while barely acknowledging the presence of the person cleaning up their half eaten scallop potatoes and citrus glazed salmon. I have never felt so invisible. 

Now, I’ve worked physical jobs my whole life. I was bartending at a place for a couple years where I was the only front of the house staff on. That meant taking and entering food and drink orders, making and delivering the drinks, and cleaning up after customers. I didn’t mind it much because at the end of the day I made beaucoup bucks. And I was the boss. I was in charge and customers had to defer to me. I was able to have friendly exchanges and retain clientele. In catering, you see these people once. It is also an unspoken rule that it is much better to be seen and not heard. Don’t bother the guests with silly things like human interaction. God forbid.

And the worst part? I couldn’t even drink to make myself feel better cuz I’m a stupid alcoholic! Ugh! Life is so hard, ya know?

“And then the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk to bloom.” -Anais Nin

I have started working the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous around my self-esteem. In the lives of most alcoholics, there comes a time when it hurts more to live in the past than to try and change the future.

My job hunt is seemingly ceaseless. I have gone through a number of informational and traditional interviews in the last two years and I haven’t been offered the job once. Not once. I could say the market is too competitive, it’s saturated with people moving here and swooping in, taking entry level jobs that are for me! And there would be some truth to that. That is a real thing that’s happening. However, I have no control over that. I cannot control the market or the competition. What I can control is how I think and behave. 

Part of my step work involved writing down my inner monologue. What do I say to myself about who I am and what I’m capable of? The narrative wasn’t pretty. However, t was also compassionate and understanding. The point was to identify my coping mechanisms and see what was no longer serving me.

My life changed dramatically when I got sober, I was filled with self-loathing and disgust for my actions and behaviors when I was in my cups and getting sober helped me see that I could, in fact, be a good person. I started changing almost immediately. I started showing up for other people and engaging in self-discipline, such as going to yoga and doing my homework on time. I slowly built a new identity for myself. 

The problem was that my old identity still bubbled just below the surface. I was unable to fundamentally change the negative thoughts I had about myself. Thoughts like I am actually a garbage person, a terrible friend, and not good at anything. When I engaged in active self-doubt and self-loathing for half of my life, changing the narrative wasn’t going to happen overnight. 

This relates to my job search because I began fearing that this inner narrative and destructive thought pattern might be showing up subconsciously in these job interviews. Were the interviewers seeing something in me that told them I didn’t think I was worthy or qualified for the position? Probably, because I didn’t believe that I was worthy or qualified for the position. 

When you live your life in a particular way for ten to fifteen years, it’s going to take some time to correct. It is difficult to change the destructive thought pattern if you don’t think it is a problem, if you don’t acknowledge there is something to correct.