How I Started My Chronic Career: The Post-Grad Journey

How I Started My Chronic Career: The Post-Grad Journey

I didn’t graduate with honors, but my grades weren’t awful either. I applied to numerous jobs, but came up empty-handed come graduation day. My chronic career was off to a difficult start. This was in 2010, just two years after the worst financial collapse the US has seen since the Great Depression. I had no idea that my struggles had just begun.

Lessons I learned throughout this part of my journey:

1. There may not be a perfect opportunity, but sometimes you have to take what you can get
2. Never give up on your dreams. Even bad times eventually end.
3. Bad decisions are part of the learning experience
4. Even bad decisions can get you on the right track
5. Happiness is always worth fighting for

The Highway of Job Failure

Faced with the decision between returning to New York and finding another way to stay in Oregon, I decided to move in with my boyfriend. He agreed to cover a majority of the living expenses until I could find stable work. I was optimistic about my chances of finding it and worked diligently on the hunt, thinking that maybe I just hadn’t had enough time in the months leading up to graduation.

As the weeks passed with few leads, I began to feel more desperate for a regular income. Knowing my student loans would enter repayment a few months later, I turned to a temporary agency. It was an idea that revolted me initially.

My boyfriend was able to persuade me to consider it, but it took some convincing. I never wanted to be a temporary employee and believed that my college degree would be enough. Maybe I was a little naïve, but I did learn quickly.

The work the agency provided was neither great nor consistent, but it was an income. I worked jobs ranging from software testing to catering and administrative services. I appreciated the variety of work, but was eager for something stable in my field of study.

Five months after graduation, I was hired for my first full-time job post-graduation. It wasn’t in my field of study, but it was stable income.

The First Full-Time Job

It wasn’t a dream job by far, but it was a steady paycheck when I agreed to work as a technical advisor providing support for Apple computers. It was a sigh of relief.

To this day, I still consider that job one of the worst I’ve ever had. It even beat out some of the jobs I had in high school and college. But despite it all, I am incredibly grateful for the knowledge and experience it provided, and the stable income was more than worth it at the time.

I never stopped looking for work and was determined to find something in my field. Just five months later, I discovered such an opportunity doing QC (Quality Control) testing with Coca Cola. It was another temporary job, but it was full-time work in my field so I took a chance.

The Big Bad Decision

My struggle to find stable and satisfying work was frustrating and I soon found myself unable to make enough to pay the monthly payment on my student loans, an unfortunately common issue for many millennials. Having little other choice, I changed my standard repayment plan to a graduated one, knowing that it would cost more in the long-term. I wondered if I would always be stuck just barely making it.

My parents had asked me to return to New York, and even claimed that the job market was better. I was skeptical, but I was eager for something to change. I began to believe and hope that things would be better somewhere else.

Just one year after graduation, I decided to move back to New York with my boyfriend. We planned to stay with my parents until we could find work and our own place to live. My parents were gracious enough to allow my boyfriend to come along, likely knowing that I wouldn’t have otherwise left Oregon.

I was grateful for my parents’ willingness to help, but it wouldn’t be long before we realized our mistake.

Living with the Consequences

For reasons I won’t linger on for long, moving to New York ended up being a very bad decision. Although ironically, it put me on the path to where I am today, so maybe in the short-term it was a poor decision, but in the long-term, it ended up working out rather well. In short, the job market wasn’t nearly as good as I had hoped and moving in with my parents was difficult, to say the least.

Roughly a month after moving to New York, I found a temporary job with a lab doing chemical QC testing. My job wasn’t bad, but I had to commute over two hours each day on a tolled highway to get to and from work. The job my boyfriend found was temporary work with a manufacturing company. His job was less desirable, but he had only a one-hour commute. Neither were jobs we had imagined having in a job market that was supposedly better.

I decided that if the job market wouldn’t work, then maybe graduate school would and I identified a program that interested me. When I realized that I would need to take prerequisite classes, I re-enrolled in the community college that I hadn’t been to since I moved to Oregon. I was unable to continue working part-time in the lab, so I began looking for part-time work elsewhere and put in my notice.

Only a few months later, we began to realize the magnitude of our mistake. Living at my parents’ house allowed us to maintain minimal expenses, with the exception of my student loans, but we were miserable and knew it would be a long time before we were financially stable enough to get our own place. The stress had put strain on our relationship and we decided that we had had enough of living in New York.

My boyfriend returned to Oregon shortly afterward and I promised to follow a few months later once classes were finished. He moved in with his parents while I planned to move in with family in Oregon. Our rocky relationship became a rocky long-distance relationship and things got tougher for a time.

The Journey Continues

It would be some time, but things did eventually get better. I learned some tough lessons on my journey, but even today I wouldn’t change any of it. Today I’m married to the love of my life, have built a successful career, moved into a beautiful house and have managed to accomplish many of my dreams.

This post is part 2 of a 4 part series. My story continues in the next article, “The Fight for My Chronic Dreams.”

For part 1, visit “Operation Graduation: Surviving College and Crohn’s Disease.”

Part 4, “The Realization of My Chronic Dreams.”

Recommended related post: “5 Reasons Why A Chronic Illness Doesn’t Equal Career Death: A Chronic Career.”