Progress... ish

Things seem to be moving in the right direction now. With January half gone, the official application count for this month hovers somewhere around thirty. I have no idea how I managed to maintain sanity while pumping out that many bullshit cover letters. Regardless, I just had an interview, and have two more next week. However. I cannot say I'm especially excited about these opportunities. though my cover letters state differently.

Yesterday's interview was for a position teaching teens digital video and photography in Red Hook. Even though this is far from ideal in terms of hours and location, I figured I would give it a shot. I was surprised at how challenging the interview was. I was drilled by two people, and although I think I held up fairly well, I anticipate (and secretly hope) that I'm not really what they are looking for. But they told me they would probably be interested in having me come in as a "consultant" because of some of my lesson ideas and creative background.

Interview number two has a rather bizarre story behind it. I sent out an application to some random business looking for Marketing Assistants on Craiglist at about 6:02pm. I think I just copy-and-pasted a cover letter from some similar posting. At 6:08pm, my phone rings, and it's from the place I had just e-mailed. Apparently some keyword from my cover letter caught the attention of the recruiter for a different position. She suggested I was overqualified for a Marketing Assistant position, and that I would be better suited as a Producer. [How I could be overqualified for anything at this point is beyond me.] So I am thinking this is some kind of gimmick because nobody calls back five minutes later. [Do you call the girl who gave you her number right when you get home? Hell no, you wait the requisite three days, and then call. Standard operating procedure.] So I was slightly standoffish at first with the recruiter, but she knew Williams, and gave me her contact info and the job description, and told me to get back to her the next day. [Ok, so she calls me five minutes after getting my application. Now she's playing hard to get? Jeez.] I decide to call her in the afternoon, because two can play at being coy. But at noon I get an e-mail form her saying she is assuming I'm not interested because I haven't called her yet. [What do you want from me?] So I call right away and set up an interview. I am interested to see what unfolds at the interview, so stay tuned for that story on Tuesday.

Lastly, I got a call from one of the many galleries I applied to, asking me to come in for an interview. I had to pretend I knew what was going on when speaking with this gallery, because I had applied to so many, I had no clue which gallery this was (apart from the name,) and for which job I had applied. After looking this information up, the job posting is for a Gallery Assistant/Intern. From my experience, these two areas are usually kept separate. Assistants are paid; interns are not. Assistants do relatively mindless tasks; interns' tasks approach menial labor. The salary is listed as "Commensurate with Experience" but they obviously aren't going to hire someone with experience to do mindless tasks, and be forced to pay them above entry level. This means I probably couldn't afford to live on the salary for this position. So this will be another situation where I will have to wait until the interview to have my questions answered.

Don't touch that dial, the exciting conclusion to "Hire Me, Dammit!" is coming up next.

UPDATE: Another interview in the lineup. I just got a call from a Photo Studio I applied to for an Assistant position. This one goes down tomorrow morning. I have to bring in some of my work. Oh snap!