Last Friday afternoon I applied to be an administrative assistant for a non-profit in DC. Answering phones and making copies isn't exactly my dream job, but the non-profit world is very appealing to me because ultimately I'd really like to make some kind of positive contribution. There seems to be an endless amount of non-profit, humanitarian organizations in the DC area...and here I am, a young, passionate person who just wants to help others. And yet nobody wants to hire me. It just doesn't make sense to me that someone could say "I want to help others" and in response they get "Oh, well I see here that you've only had internship experience. We really want someone with 5 or more years under their belt."
I want to help people.
How can the response to this be no?
Hmm...
How will I ever get my foot in the door if everyone requires at least a few years of experience? Clearly my list of internship experience doesn't quite make the cut. People say it's all about who you know...but what if someone just moved 798 miles away from where they knew everybody? Are they supposed to just go back and live in their hometown? Or will they one day, randomly meet that special connection on the metro or in the produce section of Whole Foods?
How does this whole getting a "real job" thing work?
Today, at my "fake job", I was complimented on my food boxing skills. A business man literally said to me, "wow, you did a really good job boxing that up!" Now I wonder...was this because his expectations of a waitress are so low, that the fact that I could do anything with skill was a wonderful surprise to him? Or was it maybe because he's an incredibly messy person who always spills his food all over the table? Whatever his reason for speaking up, all I could do was go back into the kitchen and laugh at myself.
Is this a marketable skill?
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