"Hi, dad."
"Hi, Jen. I ran 10 miles this morning. It's raining here."
"Yeah, it's raining here, too."
"Your credit card bill came in the mail."
"Yeah, I checked it online."
"It's due the 23rd. Do you have the money to pay it?"
"Yeah, I'm fine."
This is a typical phone conversation between my dad and me. We chat about the weather, what he did all day and my financial
status (or lack thereof).
And every time it comes up, I consistently lie and say "I'm fine," even though I'm scraping the bottom of my bank account. Why do I lie? Because I want to fend for myself and prove that I can "survive" away from home.
But Athens is a tough town to survive in.
One would think getting a job in a college town such as Athens would be a fairly easy task. I never gave it much thought until the start of this quarter when I sat myself down and said, "Self, you're poor, and pennies are not going to get you through these last 10 weeks. You really need a job."
I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
A couple weeks before Winter Quarter ended, I made some phone calls to local establishments, inquiring about hiring for Spring Quarter. Some laughed at me, some told me, "Oh, I'm sorry, we just hired new people," and some simply just said "no."
Now, perhaps this task would have been a bit easier if I were actually in town trying to find a job. But since I spent Winter Quarter in Washington, D.C., I was trying to line up a job from about 350 miles away and I was having no luck whatsoever.
According to the Ohio University Web site, 16,854 undergraduate students attend the university. That number does not include the graduate students, faculty, local residents, etc. That's a lot of people for the relatively small city of Athens to employ, which might be why I'm still without a job in the third week of the quarter.
Another reason for my continued unemployment is many jobs around Athens do not miraculously become available for Spring Quarter. Unless it's a restaurant job or retail, many jobs are filled in the fall for the entire course of the school year.
Perhaps a practically non-existent bank account balance is the price I pay for spending a quarter in the nation's capital. But to those who will be on campus year-round, I strongly suggest snagging a job early on. Check out OU's Program to Aid Career Exploration (PACE) to find a position related to your major. Look into jobs with Dining Services, the largest employer on campus. See if you are eligible for federal work study. Or, if you can, seek out a job off-campus. I have had plenty of jobs since my freshman year, including working for The Post, the Dining Services marketing team and as a tour guide. But when I left in November, I lost the jobs I had because I did not return in January. So now, here I am, thrown back into the job pool and struggling to keep afloat.
But one thing I noticed about all the jobs I have had is they are all campus jobs. Either I really love giving the university even more of my money, or I'm an extremely lazy person who cringes at the thought of leaving the campus bubble.
Actually, it's neither of those reasons. In my earlier years, I had no means of transportation to get me to and from an off-campus locale, which pretty much limited my options. But damn was it convenient, and that convenience stuck. Until now.
Now I'm a senior and about to graduate in June. My car is parked behind my house. I can no longer constrain my job search to what is within walking distance. I thought this would have made finding a short-term job easy as cake, but apparently I'm no Betty Crocker.
Here's to hoping "can walk backwards and talk at the same time" will be an attractive qualification in my job hunt.