Dear Jen,

Most people would take this opportunity to tell the “7 1/2 years ago” version of themself about the major events that transpire between your time and mine. Trust me, there are a couple of doozies. But I don’t see a benefit to spoiling the surprises, fun or otherwise. It might seem like I’m trying to avoid the Butterfly Effect, but it’s the opposite: I’m not telling you the big stuff in advance because it won’t change anything.

I want to tell you one thing: you’re about to get laid off.

This isn’t the first time, of course. Plus, we’ve known the axe was going to fall for about a year now. What you don’t know is that we’ll never get another real job. And we never quite figure out why.

A couple of weeks after the lay-off, we suffer a series of physical breakdowns for which doctors cannot find reason. No bother — we continue to believe that we’re A-OK, if not a bit baffled by suffering the equivalent of seven plagues over the next few months.

First, we end up in the hospital with a pain comparable to childbirth, or so they say. That’s the kidney stone that we’ve been secretly forming since our trip to China. Clever of us not to declare that at customs. When we return home from the hospital, we discover that the johnny has given us a full-body rash. (Somerville Hospital. Obviously.)

The third curse is the worst: a trapezius spasm. Neck, shoulder, and back pain so excruciating, we’re barely able to move for a month. Chipotle the Cat makes for an excellent bedside nurse, perhaps to atone for acting like an imbecile during our writhing in kidney stone pain. No idea why she kept trying to jump into the toilet.

We lie in bed for a month, in pain and devoid of an appetite, which leads to the final scourge: starvation. Not intentional, or even something we notice. Erica tells us that a mutual friend asked whether we were sick because we had lost so much weight. This is the first time we notice that we’re down 20 lbs.

All this blather is me stalling. It’s hard to convey how hard we tried to get a new job, or maybe it’s just boring. Do you want the number of resumes we sent out? Number of interviews we got? Number of positions that seemed to be tailormade for us? I agree with you, with myself — it doesn’t make sense that we never took home first prize. All I can tell you is this: in seven years, we played every damned card we had.

There are only two failed interviews worth talking about. One was in November of 2021, for director of an organization helping unhoused people. It came down to just us; we were the sole finalist. We presented a slideshow about the theory of abundance — i.e. a belief in endless potential and resources, and the beauty of collaboration over competition. Apparently, the board decided that they would rather hire no one than a psychopath who espouses such reprehensible views.

We had already decided that if we couldn’t get that job, we would have to move out of the apartment with our boyfriend. We had gone as long as we could without a steady income. Four months later, we broke up with him and moved in with Mom. The economy that had been dead for two years was starting to pick up and we expected to have a new job — new place, new life — within a few months.

The other interview was for the top position at a voting organization. In seven years, we applied for this job three times. In November of 2024, we had one last interview before they gave the job to the other finalist. We admitted to Mom that our living arrangement was not temporary. This was our life for the foreseeable future.

You know what makes us feel better about being permanently underemployed? Seeing what part of it was our own doing. It’s ironic but knowing that we had some agency in what happened to us feels a lot better than thinking that we are a modern-day Job. We chose a career with low pay. We chose to avoid corporate life. We chose not to get married (…sort of) and gambled that we would always be able to support ourselves. We rolled the dice and lost.

Seven and a half years on, we are more resilient. We are better at asking for help. We take much bigger risks with our activism because we’re not afraid of anything. We’re starting to believe that career success is morally neutral.

But I still don’t know why we can’t land a steady job. Maybe you can tell me.

Best,
Jen
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