I’m A Stanford Grad Who Couldn’t Get Hired At Walmart
It’s true, I graduated from Stanford University, yet, after I was laid off in 2009, I couldn’t get a job at Walmart. Believe me, I tried. As a matter of fact, from 2009 to 2010, I probably applied to at least 100 jobs in Texas, California and Washington, D.C. All told, I got 5 calls back, 3 phone interviews and 1 in-person interview. It was a year of living miserably, to be quite precise.
I think about it now, mercifully employed again, and it all seems like a bad dream. You never end up where you think you will, I suppose, but one thing that’s made me feel better about my misadventures in unemployment is knowing that it wasn’t me and I wasn’t alone. I saw the same befall far too many of my friends, former colleagues and acquaintances. Getting laid off isn’t your “fault,” but it sure feels like it when you find yourself staring at your phone waiting for a call back from Walmart, Target, OfficeMax or any of the other retail jobs you thought you’d be a shoo-in for (yet, they never call).
News last week that there was a gain in jobs created made me smile, “I wonder how many of those people were as relieved as I was to get a job?” The truth of the matter is that there are thousands of people out there who, just like me, were staring at the wall wondering how this happened. I never planned on going on unemployment. I always worked hard, just like my abuelito told me, so that I would do a good job and be indispensable. I didn’t deserve to lose my job and there were plenty of people who stayed who didn’t work nearly as hard as those of us who had to leave. The best laid plans, ey? There are many things I learned during my experience with unemployment (or under employment), but I want to share a few of the most important.
First, I’m much bigger than my work. Having been raised to believe that making the world a better place is the only type of work one can aspire to, losing my job as a journalist stunned me into questioning my own values. At the end of the day, though, I realized that corporate journalism did not define who I was as a person, it was just one thing I did in my life. And, hopefully, I have many years left to do many more things still.
Secondly, there’s nothing of more value in this world than people who truly love you. I’m not going to name names to protect the identities of the poor people who are good enough to be my friends and family, but they know who they are, and without them, there’s no way I would have made it through. The hours and hours of tragic phone calls, pathetic letters and emails, tears and motivational speeches my loved ones had to either endure or provide are worth more than gold to me. Had I been rich, perhaps losing my job wouldn’t have been as hard, but I certainly wouldn’t have learned this lesson so forcefully.
Third, as my abuelito always told me, “se sufre para merecer,” or, “you suffer to deserve.” My abuelito was old school Mexican, with the little mustache and the values of hard work and Catholicism. He believed that life was supposed to be hard, at least that’s what he told me, but that once you got through the rough spots, it would be worth it. During my exile in unemployment, I thought of my abuelito often; not only did I miss him terribly (since he’s no longer with us), but I realized how powerful his words are. Those words helped him through untold struggles as an immigrant, a migrant worker and generally a very hard working man who loved his family above all else. Why, I thought to myself, wouldn’t these words hold the same power for me?
The point of this story is that I’ve come to some sort of closure with that whole getting laid off thing. I would never say I was grateful it happened, but had it not, I may never have become a blogger or learned these important lessons. Things happen and I think the Tao of Abuelito points us to the fact that how we respond to events is more important than the events themselves. Besides, even though Walmart didn’t hire me, I did manage to get work as a secretary once I started graduate school. Perhaps in another two years I’ll manage to land a full-time professional gig again!
Follow Sara Inés Calderón on Twitter @SaraChicaD
