If Wishes were MacBooks

This is not the first time that I've thought to myself, dang, I wish I had a MacBook so I could _________. Fill in that blank with whatever you want. There are so many useful functions that a Mac provides that my poor little Toshiba just can't muster. Sure, she does a good job. But there are those times I find myself moving the mouse to the top left side of the screen to close a window and sadly realize that I have a PC and therefore must move the mouse to the top right side of the window in order to close. Poor, unfortunate me.

My longing for a new MacBook has been induced by my attempt at a job hunt today. The entire process of seeking employment is an exhausting task.

Find company.

Research.

Write cover letter with enough panache to schmooze bigwigs at said company.

Proof read resume for eleventy-billionth time.

Send resume and cover letter.

Shampoo.

Rinse.

Repeat.

I have scoured newspapers, job search websites, Craigslist, etc. I’ve even considered freelance but then I think to myself, a freelance what? My writing background is in advertising. Advertising professors teach you grammar and writing techniques and then tell you to throw them out the window. They are no longer of any use. From what I understand, those rules come in handy when submitting a manuscript to a publisher or an article to an editor. Now, I’m not saying that I have no grasp on proper writing techniques. I do. What I’m saying is that I have no formal journalistic training. My training extends no further than what they taught in Advanced Comp during my senior year of high school. In the introductory paragraph, you tell your reader what you’re going to talk about. In the body paragraphs, you proceed to tell them. And in the conclusion, you remind your readers what you just told them. If I turned something like that into, say, the editor of the New York Times, I would be laughed all the way back to Illinois.

So what kind of job can I get with a degree in advertising?

No, I’m really asking. Any advice?

I’ve worked on accounts. I’ve done the ad rep thing. I’ve done PR. Everything short of becoming a sales person for an insurance company. No offense to those insurance sales people out there in internet land, it’s just not my cup of Lipton’s.

This is where everything comes full circle. There are no advertising jobs where I live. I’ve been saying this for months and months and months. And if I had a MacBook I could prove it. I went to the classified section of local newspaper’s website, clicked on the link to Advertising/Press Release jobs and what should I see…

“Sorry, we did not find results for that search.”

I wish I had a MacBook so I could use the screen capture function. I would put that screen captured picture up along with this post to give you a better, more visual idea of what I’ve been rambling on about.