At what point in the job search process does the art of selling yourself becomes the tantalizing tango of selling your soul?
What you say/What you think
Yes, I can do that/Why would I want to
Yes, I can work weekends./But I won't
Yes, I can fax, copy, collate, staple and Fed-Ex that/Do you want Fries with that?
No, I don't mind multi-tasking/Idiot
Yes, I can get you more coffee/F***ing Idiot
Please, I don't have enough to do./Someone shoot me, please. Just shoot me.
You'd think by this stage in my life with as many bouts with unemployment as I've endured I would have the whole interviewing for a job that I want, can do, and am willing to do down pat. Maybe I'm jaded, I think I shouldn't *have* to go through all this because I'm just that good. No, really I am. But how do you sell yourself without selling your soul.
It comes down to I have to work, I need to keep a roof over my head until I get published well enough to support myself as a writer. But if you tell people without a sense of humor (and believe me we that have are acutely aware of how the majority of the world doesn't have) they seem to think that your loyalty to your passion will somehow diminish your effort to their proletarian goals for the company. They think they have a life outside of their job, but when they boast about the hours they've put in instead of the sunset they missed the night before, or how many presentations they were able to crank out instead of the blossoms in their garden then they really have no concept of the whole passion thing and they will never understand or accept anything less from their overworked and underpaid minions. I don't want to sellmy soul for an hourly wage, yet I have to keep pace with the world in order to support my passions. My biggest fear is that I will eventually slip on this razors edge and eventually be consumed again by the hemoglobin dependant task masters in the corporate hells we sell ourselves to.
(Sorry, no visual to express myself today. I googled "Faustian contract" and "selling my soul to the devil" and all I got were images of Eva Mendez, Nicole Richie and Mickey Mouse. I have NO idea what that means other than it looks like Mickey has won market share in hell.)
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