I Need a Job!

"I see all this potential, and I see squandering. . . . [D]amn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables--slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy stuff we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression.

Our Great War's a spiritual war . . . our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off." --"Tyler Durden," 1999* "Welcome to Fight Club. The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: you DO NOT talk about Fight Club!" I had to say that for the Fight Club fans (great movie). Anyway, I've been job hunting for about four months now (procrastinators don't get the jobs folks), and the above quote came to mind after I spent this past weekend brooding over the terrible job economy once again. I may not share the same views as Brad Pitt's character (or was it technically Edward Norton's character), but I'm definitely on edge about the bleak job market for attorneys. Ok. Perhaps I'm jumping the shark, being overly dramatic, or simply being pessimistic, but my job hunt doesn't seem to be producing a whole lot at the current time. It can quickly turn into a depressing subject when you see other law students around you already getting jobs. Tack on the great job expectation that Law Review puts on your shoulders (that's right, yours truly is the Managing Editor of the school law review), and the lack of a job becomes even more of a burden.

Sometimes you can't help but feel like you're failing when you've worked so hard and have nothing to show for it. Don't get me wrong, I haven't given up hope or thrown in the towel. I'm still looking, and I know that more opportunities will become available the closer it gets to graduation. Still, there will constantly be this nagging voice in my head telling me that I should have a job by now, that I should be doing more to find a job, and that I need to work harder. I'll continue the job search, and I won't give up.

But, it would be nice to see some sign of potential job security in the near future. Or I may need to find law office space and think about going solo. *Fight Club (1999), available at http://www.imdb.com/title/ tt0137523/ quotes (last visited November 10, 2010). Contributed by Jody Sellers, a current 3L law student, who between his limited free time, writes reflective blogs offering insight into the law school experience.