Job Hopper: The Checkered Career of a Down-Market Dilettante by Ayun Halliday
My rating: 3/5 cats
oh, i do so love ayun halliday!!
this is my third book of hers (unless you count always lots of heinies at the zoo, which is just a children’s book, but is about a subject near to my heart: animal buttocks).
i kind of want her to be my best friend. because she is funny the way a best friend should be, not intimidatingly funny the way, say, wanda sykes is. she is human-level funny; she is the kind of funny one can wrap one’s head around. which is to say, some of the essays fall short, but you still want to try out new restaurants with her. no one can be “on” all the time, not even an imaginary best friend.
this book covers her string of shitty jobs. the career trajectory of an acting major who still has to pay the rent somehow: department store sesame street character actor, waitress, nude model, hippie-store clerk, telemarketer…the poor girl. none of these jobs were very fulfilling, nor was she very good at any of them. she frequently walked away from a job without looking back to the burning heap of rubble left in her wake with varying degrees of shame.
this may be my favorite, and most relatable passage, from a temp job:
“You know how to do tables in database, right?” the boss lady asked, as she handed me a manila folder full of sales reports that I’d been brought in to squish together or spin into gold or something or other before sunrise.”Yes,” I lied, after a moment’s hesitation. Like the previous postings’ chips, she and I were close enough in age to be considered peers. I didn’t want her to think me incapable, though in retrospect, it seemed a battle lost before it could begin. Left to my own devices, I could barely figure out which key would open up the new document I was supposedly creating. As soon as the boss lady returned to her office, I placed the first of many panicked sotto voce phone calls to Rumpelstiltskin, otherwise known as my friend from acting class. It took me all day, but by skipping lunch and eschewing the table commands my friend had done her best to tutor me in in favor of the tab key, I managed to scrape the assignment together. By the time I finally hit “print,” I was little more than a quivering bundle of exposed nerves, convinced that computers had been invented to make me feel bad about myself. Why was I so goddamned warped? Why couldn’t I whip out spreadsheets and flow charts and enjoy Garfield’s excesses like the rest of the workforce? How come I hated T.G.I. Friday’s and situation comedies? My interest in theater and thrift stores rendered me unfit to function in this society. I was like some sort of hemophiliac royal whiling my days away in an ivory tower, translating poetry into archaic languages, soon to be slaughtered in the peasant uprising. Also, I’d bagged out on the Introduction to Computers course I’d enrolled in in college when a spot unexpectedly opened in Performative Interpretation of African Literature.
hoo, boy, ms halliday– i am right there with you. my office job history was abysmal. co-worker small talk made me shudder, photocopying was a nightmare because of my aversion to hot paper, i sure didn’t know how to handle spreadsheets or anything more complicated than an email, i hated talking to people on the phone—i was terrible. i fell asleep in meetings and was gently scolded for my tendency to wear underwear as outerwear. every thursday i would go out dancing after work, stay out late enough to go home, shower, and then head back into work. i was drunk when i was fired (what—it was good friday—no one else in the country had to work—every work related call i made that day went unanswered, and all the office kids went out for a long greek lunch—don’t judge me!!)
this is why i think ayun halliday and i should hang out. but i would prefer to hang out with the ayun halliday who wrote dirty sugar cookies because that one is my favorite and it is all about food. she could come on one of mine and greg’s sunday adventures!
she is a goodreads.com author! and she lives here in new york!
TIME FOR BEST FRIENDS, PLEASE!
and as her new best friend, i would definitely tell her this cover is really awful.
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