The real crotovaneheads will know that my first blog post on this site was a very angsty and cringey depression-post about being unemployed & still living with my parents, which I have since pulled for being angsty and cringey. TLDR: my upbringing was marked with constant fear-mongering over careers outside of STEM, I went to college for Computer Science and hated it, was enrolled at the worst time because COVID ruined my chances at internship experience, and I finished my bachelor's at the worst time because pandemic restrictions were just lighting up so all entry level job openings were cut. So I'm left in 2024 unemployed and bitter that all that time in college was basically wasted. My parents are becoming more and more insane and I can't find work to move out, so shit's pretty dire for me!
That said I think I'd consider myself to have improved mentally since that blog, but tonight has been rough so I'm writing this as a distraction. What sparked tonight's episode specifically was seeing this photoshoot on Tumblr:
The caption says this was from a 2001 spread in Egg Magazine in Japan.
I recently watched Pulse (2001) (aka Kairo) which is a horror film about late 90s technology (and ghosts). The vibes and environments of this film (at least in the first half) were immaculate: dimly-lit Japanese bedrooms, computer labs filled with CRT computer monitors, Windows 95 interfaces. In one of the beginning scenes, a protagonist goes to a computer lab after finding a haunted webpage, and he has to be taught step by step how to bookmark the page and take a screenshot. He has to write down on a post-it to left click using the mouse. I was born in 2000 so I never lived in a world without computers. I think my family got rid of our CRT Windows 95 desktop before I turned six or seven years old, so I don't have many memories besides making mosaics on MS Paint and playing Solitaire, because I didn't know how to get the internet to work (I don't think I knew that the internet and the phone line were connected until, like, over a decade later...). That early era of technology has always been so fascinating to me because it's from a time where we could say that we were "logging on" or "logging off" of the computer. I got a personal laptop when I was ten. Where I am now, I have to be constantly online, because if I'm not the only people I'd be able to talk to are my insane parents. It's comforting to see photos and films from a time where the internet was still a hobby or a niche interest, and it's kind of sad to think that we can never go back to this. I never even really experienced it proper.
And also, just on principle, this is an analog photo of hazy, warmly-lit, messy apartment with a CRT TV playing whatever anime, with friends just vibing out with a midnight-swept city as their backdrop, of course it's making me nostalgic for experiences I've never had! Just the simple act of having friends over at my place isn't something I've been able to do for at least the last five years, with COVID truncating my college run (and my only on-campus year being wasted rooming with stupid ass male engineers) and with the whole living with my parents thing. I only have two people I'd consider close friends maximum in real life and we're a total of 6-7 hours away from each other, so just sharing a space with people that I cherish, being able to let my guard down, and just kicking on some god damn anime in the background is not something I'm able to do right now. Which is sad.
My solution to this loneliness and housing situation is to find a job, which is why I have gathered us all here today: so I can talk through my thoughts about different career paths so I can finally get my own place in the city and make some friends to watch anime with! This will solve literally all my problems (editor's note: it will not). I will be taking attendance at the end of today's class.
I have previously worked in customer service and IT, and both of those made me miserable. I hated customer service, but I still find myself coming back to the thought that "it wasn't that bad"—I will say: it is nice insofar that the work you do doesn't matter to anyone and it's mostly mindless busy work sans the awful customers. It was terrible for me because it was very physically demanding and it drained all of my energy, so I couldn't work on personal projects (even on my weekends, I was that god damn tired). That, and no customer service jobs pay a living wage unless you want to get into management, so there is no real use in me staying there if it's going to take over my whole life. If there was a customer service job that had consistent hours, minimal customer interaction, had no rush hours, and paid well, then sure, maybe I could stand it. But I don't hold hope that a job like that exists.
IT was insufferable because I was working at a call center who was milking every bit of efficiency out of their workers. It was work from home, but I couldn't even have the luxury of going to the bathroom without managers wondering where I've been, because all of our time was tracked through time entries and tallied at the end of each month. I hated having to be responsible for fixing other people's problems, I hated the obtuse administriva that made simple problems pointlessly complicated, I hated having to call people who obviously also hated their job and did not want to be bothered. One time I was so stressed that I was itching my scalp & hadn't realized I scratched through a layer of skin on the side of my head until I went to type and my fingers felt sticky. When I quit, the itching stopped. Also, I was paid less than when I was working customer service. This was a corporate job. Obviously this was one isolated bad experience, but I also just cannot bring myself to care about operating systems and how to troubleshoot them, so I don't see longevity in this field.
My goal now is to find a job by the end of the year that allows me to move into the city. My parents' house isn't terrible and I wouldn't describe them as abusive, but it's clear that I will never be treated as an adult as long as I'm under this roof and every passing day is a new opportunity for them to trigger the hell out of me by saying stupid shit. I've been able to manage it so far by locking myself in my room and dissociating, but obviously this is not healthy. And it's lonely having no one in real life to talk to. In theory I could always drop everything and go back to working retail at the drop of a hat and live paycheck to paycheck if I got really desperate, but I want make an effort to find a job where I'd be able to last more than just a few months before wanting to quit. I would be in shambles if I was thinking about quitting everything only a few months in, while having to pay for rent and groceries.
I hate the concept of work, I do not want to work, the entire industry of business is corrupt and I do not want to contribute to it. I also have severe anxiety and possibly autism which makes the whole working thing difficult! But having a job that pays would help me a lot with my current situation.
This blog is going to be a lot of text, so here's a Tomodachi Life screenshot before you submerge:
1. UX/UI Designer
My current job plan is to try to find work in UX/UI. I'm working on a portfolio website (not this one, a much more awful corporate-friendly one completely void of personality or fun) and the main appeal to this field is that I think I'd be able to create portfolio projects much more quickly than in other fields. I think I have a good intuition as to what designs look good (at least in a watered-down corporate setting), so the main bottleneck would just be making the actual projects: e.g. creating different mockups and wireframes for apps screens and making up user data I pretended to collect. Also, if I end up hating this path and want to change course, that transition shouldn't be too painful in theory since web development is closely linked to UX.
My problem is that the more I read up about UX/UI the less desirable it becomes: if this job was just creating diagrams and screens in Figma and conducting surveys, I'd be fine. But it seems like this role is constantly in meetings every single day talking to developers and managers and company heads, and it sounds like there's a good chance I'd have to become a spokesperson defending designs to other departments, which sounds dreadful. This job also seems closely linked with project management, which scares me because I would not want to be hosting presentations for product bullshit or whatever the hell they do. So, I don't know, going into this field might not be a good idea? That's why I'm brainstorming.
Of all the shitty "day in the life" videos I've seen, it does seem like there's a good amount of downtime when outside of meetings (some people could even go grocery shopping while on the clock or on break?), which I really like. Everyone seemed to be working from home as well, which would help a lot. Problem is, while this is a design job, it would still be in the tech industry so I would have to battle those breed of capitalists.
A big reason I'm considering UX is because my one IRL friend told me their sister became a UX designer after dropping their photography and writing gigs, so I at least have that resource to look to if I need help. Buuut just a few days ago I was told that she got laid off because her company axed their whole UX department. So, uh, maybe I should be taking that as an omen?
2. Web Developer
Web development is also on my radar. Adding on from last section, if I get a sudden pang of clarity that tells me I would hate UX, I could pivot my portfolio to be more front-end development based without having to scrap too much work. And I guess that having design knowledge as a developer is desirable? So maybe that would make me stand out? (God, having to market myself and figure out what makes me "desirable" to employers is so cringey and humiliating.)
Playing with HTML and CSS for this website has been really fun, and I'm having a lot of fun coding my UX portfolio with Bootstrap. If I could work as a developer who only touches HTML and CSS all day, that would be a good job for me. Which I guess is what front-end developers do? But they also touch JS, which scares me. I graduated in CS but I do not program in my free time. I don't really enjoy programming in proper scripting languages, and I often get frustrated when things don't work and my code feels bloated or wrong. A lot of these front-end jobs ask for experience with JS APIs like React, Vue, Angular, and other frameworks, all which my degree never mentioned let alone taught, so if I want to go this path I would need to take a substantial amount of time to learn JS and make projects with those APIs. Which I'm not excited about, because I don't really like to program back-end stuff! I refuse to work back-end. I need visuals.
It's so frustrating that I dislike coding because software development and related programming fields seem perfect as far as what I'm looking for in a job (salaried, work from home, people mostly leaving you alone), but, I don't know. The largest obstacle for me immediately post-graduation was the engulfing dread when thinking about coding interviews. I would much rather jump off a bridge than have to get on the LeetCode grind again, and I have no interest in re-learning CS principles. I really wish I could be like those trans girls who code in C and use Linux and hack game consoles and contribute to open source projects, but I'm not, technology just doesn't interest me that much intrinsically.
I'm also scared that becoming a web developer in 2024 would be a gateway drug to working on shitty Web3 grifts. When looking at Behance for UX project samples, there was sooo much AI and NFT garbage. How can you say you're representing the users and then greenlight a dumb NFT business??? I fucking hate it here bro.
A common thread I'm seeing with jobs and careers is that I have the skills necessary to work, but the businesses to work for are fundamentally scummy and rotten. Even on a larger scale from NFTs—I was an engineering student for exactly two weeks before pivoting to CS and it's genuinely so fucking sinister seeing how they make first-year first-semester freshman complete their "ethics" course, only for the job fairs next year to host tables for Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, the fucking Navy, etc. Genuinely, there are people I have met in college who were in mutual friend groups who are now working in defense and building satellites and missiles that are probably being used in Gaza right now. Especially considering my graduation experience—it's hard to think about how many people who graduated around my time must've signed up for defense listings beacuse no one else was hiring them. It's sooo fucking sinister.
3. Game Developer
Boy oh boy! I wish I could work in game dev! From my research a year or so ago, the only no-experience entry level jobs that exist would be for those content farm corporations developing those fake mobile game ads that crunch you to develop a new game every week. Which, even for a short time, sounds like hell on Earth. I wish I could join some small indie studio full of other creatives, but that requires a portfolio and connections, neither of which I have. I occasionally get in moods where I want to work on a game, but even the shorter game ideas that interest me are would take at least a few months of full-time development to make assets alone. Solo game devs always say to start small, but to that credit I don't know if smaller projects interest hiring agents or indie studios, and the stuff that I would like to make are more long-form and narrative-based. And speaking in the context of me looking to move out soon, I don't know if spending time developing a game would be worth it when I could be developing a portfolio UX projects that take less time to make.
Also, there's a looot of different pathways in game development. I don't know if I'd want to pigeonhole myself in just game programming or 3D modelling or design or illustration—I'd really like to be a part of the whole process. I guess I'm a jack of all trades master of none, or whatever, so I don't think I'd be hirable for specialized roles.
I don't know, I'm probably being too defeatist? Obviously people aren't going to hire me or want to collab if I don't have projects to showcase my skills, so if I'm really passionate about wanting to work in games I should just bite the bullet and dig head-deep into developing a game in a month and see where that takes me. But also, like, I'm trying to move out here! I'd feel like I'd be wasting my time. I don't know if this is internalized prejudice that games are less valuable work or a just very disillusioned negative outlook of how I think I'd perform. But also, game devs are notoriously underpaid and the industry is dying. Maybe it's stupid to want to get into this industry under a larger company who would rather lay me off so they can afford Pizza Fridays or whatever. I also don't know if aiming for indie studios is the solution to this.
Unrelated: I need to stop telling people in real life that I want to be a game developer because I get so heated when people say I should "just make a game and maybe it'll pop off" like Stardew Valley—fam, ConcernedApe could develop Stardew Valley because he was living with his girlfriend working full-time to support him. And I don't have the work ethic of the devs of Lethal Company or Fear and Hunger. Shut up!!!!!!!!!!
4. Graphic Designer
I used to dabble in graphic design and I don't know why it never stuck. This is another one of those careers that in theory sounds like I would enjoy but I really just don't know a lot about it. The extent of my knowledge begins and ends at freelancing, which I'm not sure is something I would succeed at—I don't have Facebook or a large circle of connections so I feel like I would be in a constant struggle to find work. To put in perspective, I've only ever had one customer for my commissions total after years of having them open, and I have never heard back from any job I applied to that was a creative role. And with how AI is being used, I don't see my win rate getting any better. Maybe if I could find a salaried job (like at Live Nation, or something), then this field would sound more appealing to me? But those positions are going to be competetive, and I'm starting at zero.
5. Illustrator
This will never happen. I don't draw enough, I often get artblock, I would get frustrated easily under deadlines. It sucks for me to say this, because I feel like part of the reason I've kept drawing as a hobby was under a false hope that I could make it profitable so I could avoid having to find a corporate job, but I've basically lost all my hope that I'd be able to "make it" as an artist. I find no joy in art when I'm forced to do it, and ever since the AI boom it's honestly been hard to draw even for personal work.
The first half of this blog was written Sunday (4/21) and initially ended here, but I think that ending this post with only 5 job options would be really pathetic. I wanted to write this as a genuine brainstorming exercise for myself but I got sidetracked complaining about my life, oops! So I'm back with more: the rest of these I would consider jobs that interest me, but I have no idea where to even begin finding work in these fields, or if these could even pay to live.
6. Author
I wish I could be an author but I don't think I can be. For some reason I had an aversion to reading when I was a kid so it takes me a long time to read these days if I even do end up picking up a book. I wouldn't consider myself good at writing either: writing these blog posts can be a struggle and I feel like I'm writing "I think" "maybe" and "I feel" way too much. My insecure desire to be taken seriously manifests in the form of overly long explanatory sentences. I like worldbuilding! I have a lot of fun coming up with plot ideas. The idea of becoming a game writer or a screenwriter/playwright is appealing to me. But when it comes to actually writing manuscripts, under a deadline no less, I would not be faring well.
7. Editor
I am cringing so hard that I'm about to type the phrase "I'd like to think I'm decent at copy editing," because I am sure that these blogs contain mounds of typos and are so obtusely written to some people (Editor's Note: I have corrected at least 3 more typos since publishing this, the cringing was justified), but, yeah, I feel like I can at least hold my own when editing other people's work. Similar problems with the "author" entry: I do not read a lot and I cannot read fast. To that end, I'd only really be helpful in terms of line editing since I don't think I'd be a helpful opinion on pacing or character arcs or otherwise.
That said, I think I'm actually more interested in editing/writing than I initially thought? I keep flashing back to Shinada in Yakuza 5 who's a smut writer living under mountains of debt, but the vision of just chilling on a laptop and editing some manuscript sounds really appealing to me... Uh, I'm not sure if this is another field that is under attack by AI, nor do I know how to get editing roles with no experience (a lot of websites I'm visiting say I'd need to go back to school), so maybe I should look into this.
8. Metal Worker
This career popped up when I took one of those awful "what jobs would be right for me" personality tests back in 2023. I really like trinkets and jewelry, I've never got into collecting them because it's an expensive hobby. I was thinking about making DND dice sets with resin as a hobby at one point. I don't know if I would have a good time making jewelry though. I wouldn't call myself a crafty person and I'm not that precise with my hands—I can tell I would be the person who would always get bubbles in my resin or burn myself on solder, or something.
9. Baker
I like baking. I would not like waking up at 4 AM to bake. After quitting my awful IT job I applied to some cookie bakery as a part time gig, and when I got to the interview they told me they were paying $10/hour. So, if I'm not even going to be paid well to ruin my sleep schedule and annex myself from my late-night friends, I don't think this is a good fit. This sounds like it would be a dream job if I was a lonely old man who owned his own bakery in a small town, but I'm a stupid Gen Z'er who wants to stay up late and watch movies with my punk friends.
10. Interior Designer
I think my initial thoughts as to what interior design is have gotten conflated with interior decorators, because while reading up on designers it seems like they have much more responsibility in terms of managing plumbing, construction, lighting fixtures, installations... Which, while all of that is a lot, I feel like would be kinda fun? I am coming from absolutely zero knowledge about home construction, and my fear specifically with interior design is the possibility of having to get involved with the real estate industry. Of all careers to go back to school for, I think this would be one where schooling is unavoidable, which I am very noooot excited about.
Intermission
I need an intermission. Here's more Tomodachi Life:
That last interior design entry made me remember something so huge I can't believe I forgot to bring this up: I watch a lot of those Day in the Life of a Japanese Worker videos by Paolo fromTOKYO on Youtube. They're kind of awful and I hate them. Obviously, day in the life videos across the board are going to be sensationalized (if not just outright lying to you), and the later entries must be so extra-sterilized now that the creator is getting sponsored by companies to make videos on their employees. Plus, this channel is specifically marketing Japan to a Western audience, so I have no doubt that all of these career videos must be super over-simplified. I've watched basically all of them and they always make me mad because I love Japan so much and I'm growing more and more envious that I don't live there, lmao. I used to watch a lot of those "walking through Tokyo streets at night" videos in 2022 to calm myself down, and having to roleplay as someone who lived in a beautiful walkable city—that doesn't have lanes of cars parallel parked at every possible road in the district and has competent public transport—as an escapist fantasy is so god damn cursed lol. The dreams of these sensationalized jobs being sold to me by these videos is the exact same thing: an escapist fantasy of having a job I'm passionate about, with the bonus of them being in Japan. Fuck my life I really need to learn Japanese. I also need a job. If any higher power exists, I'm expecting a beautiful Japanese man with a six-figure salary asking for my hand and marriage at my doorstep by tomorrow afternoon. If you cannot provide that I will take other forms of dual citizenship.
11. Drag Performer
I say this as the most dripless, rizzless, bitchless individual on this planet: I would genuinely really enjoy being a drag queen lmfao. I hate RuPaul and I hate that the only form of drag entertainment I can consume has to be through his monopoly but I always come back to his show because I love the art of drag. Unforunately there's not much I can do about this until I move to the city, because there is nooooo way in hell I am allowing my parents to catch me wearing makeup or cunty outfits.
12. Musician
Again, another thing that I wish I picked up when I was younger. I'd love to play the guitar (the sound of an electric guitar played through the crunchiest thrift-store amp is possibly the best sound in the world) but instruments are expensive and I'm a fragile gayboy that doesn't want to build up the finger calluses. I've never been to a concert before and honestly they kind of scare me lmao, so there's that.
13. Producer / Director
Movies!!! I love movies!! How the hell does one make movies? How does one get paid to make movies? I took a lot of film electives in college but I always had to half-ass them halfway through the semester because I was taking stupidly difficult programming courses all the time. I really regret not getting more invested. Before 2020 I could count the number of movies I've watched in my life on maybe three hands, and now I'm an annoying Letterboxd user trying to desperately make up for lost time. I love discussing movies and how they were created. I wish I had the knowledge base to instantly recognize names of directors and actors and what films they were a part of. Unforunately this seems like one of those careers that can only happen as a "side hustle" (barf) or if you have a lot of nepotism money, because productions are long and expensive and I could only imagine the first few films you attempt to make would be a huge money deficit after submitting them to festivals. Also, I'm an anarchist loser who's not interested in mainstream Hollywood so I would only enjoy making movies as an independent item.
14. Video Editor
I used to edit videos a ton when I was 10-12 with a cracked version of Sony Vegas, and I think I've fallen off of that because I've never had videos to edit. I know there must be a need for video editors with the VTuber cambrian explosion, but this once again is a case of lack of portfolio, experience, connections. Editing streamer highlights would be fun, but I could also see it being annoying to work with hours of raw footage. And my Sony Vegas experience likely would not translate too well to more professional software like Premiere. And also, VTubers are coming and going so I feel like it would be a constant fight to work.
15. Photographer
I used to edit photos a ton when I was 10-12 with a cracked version of Photoshop, but I've never had a proper photography camera. I love photography, especially nighttime photography, portraiture, fashion photography. I would love to have a bunch of photos and edit them in Lightroom and Photoshop and make them look professional and pretty. The main choke point with photography for me is the actual act of taking photos: I am a severely anxious gremlin who hates taking up space, so if I'd want to take photos of a busy city sidewalk, or go in the middle of a freeway to get a better angle, that would be really stressful for me! And if any stranger tries to yell at me or say that photos are prohibited at a venue, ugh, forget it.
16. Streamer
Lol I wish. I don't think I have the stamina nor the charisma to be a streamer, but it would be fun to have a small community where I make stupid bits. Having to self-advertise yourself as a streamer must be very uncomfortable.
17. Youtuber
As a career? No. As a hobby, possibly? I have a very specific taste in Youtube videos I like, and that content tends to not be mainstream, marketable, or highly produced.. Which is a problem, when thinking about this as a career specifically. I can't imagine Youtube ads pay great if you average less than a thousand views per video. Plus I don't know what types of videos I'd want to make.
I think that's all I feel like listing right now.
In conclusion: I feel sad that I gave up a lot of creative interests when I went to college. A lot of the jobs I listed in the "I have no idea where to even begin finding work" section start with "I really like this field!" while the jobs I'm building a portfolio for (UX/front-end) do not. I definitely have an internal aversion towards chasing my interests as a career because I automatically feel like there's no way this career would be profitable or they just seem so outside my wheelhouse. And the problem is, I don't know how much of that fear is justified or delusional. I really wish my schools and parents didn't fail me in that regard because I feel so lost.
Maybe I'm looking at this wrong? Maybe I shouldn't be thinking in terms of long-term careers right now. I hate the idea of a "career" to begin with. There are a good handful of part-time gigs that I could tolerate: museum work, library work, bookstore work (maybe even photography, graphic design, drag)—but even then I feel like I would struggle landing those roles with my zero experience and zero charisma and zero bitches. And for a lot of part-time work, I can tell that my idea of working at these places is romanticized—I would enjoy being a video game barista where I just make drinks and never have rush hours, but in real life I'd have to deal with weird customers and awful store acoustics and I'd have to show up and be public-facing no matter how awful I feel. And the problem here is getting money to move out, and I'm not even sure if having two or more part time jobs could pay for rent! (And if I'm taking two part-time jobs, that would mean I'm likely working more than 40 hours a week, which would kill me.)
Again, if my living situation gets dire I can always go back to retail and job-hop to different retail places to at least make end's meet. The rent in my college's main city isn't as terrible as bigger cities in America so I have faith that I'd be able to avoid being homeless. It would suck but at least it's a plan. I'm just really frustrated because I don't need a lot—I would be fine eating rice and weevil hardtack every day if it meant I could live alone—but even affording bare minimum seems so so so far out of reach.
Before now I had a plan that I would make a UX portfolio by the end of June and I would apply for jobs all throughout Artfight and hopefully get a job before the end of the year. But writing all this down is making me reconsider. I've been chasing other people's dreams for my life for so long, so it feels wrong if the solution to my problems right now is to chase another dream I can't say I want either. At the same time, chasing more creative dreams would likely delay my process of moving out. I started the blog saying this and I can't say that I've come up with a solution now that this was all written down. I just wish I had a support system. (Which I cannot develop until I move to the city.... which I cannot do until I get a job......... do you see my dilemma)
I'm in the middle of rewatching American Psycho (2000) and while the main horror is certainly that Patrick Batemans exist everywhere in real life, there is a very sinister sub-horror in just seeing the machinations of "business" and how much of Wall Street & Silicon Valley is just higher-ups bossing around assistants like personal maids while doing absolutely nothing under the guise of "managing accounts" or "project managing." I wish I could get paid six figures to pretend to be in meetings.
It's my birthday next weekend (originally wrote this last Sunday, it is now this weekend) and for once I made plans to go out with a few people so I'll likely make a blog when that comes. I'm trying to air out all my depressing thoughts before then lmao. Ciao for now, thanks if you actually read all this.