The Month of Admission Counselor Hell

Before September, I had very little experience traveling for work.  During my internship last year I got a taste of what it’s like to travel on the company’s dime, but three university visits and a two-day trip to Germany with colleagues did not prepare me in the slightest for what constitutes an admission counselor’s fall travel season.  Having survived the 10th month of the year, I officially declare October the Month of Admission Counselor Hell.

Why Hell, you ask?  Well, let me tell you.  October is prime time for colleges to really push themselves to prospective students.  So every traveling admission counselor has a full month of high school visits and college fairs.  But on top of that, there are open houses to staff, applications to read, interviews to conduct, emails to answer, and phone calls to make.  Not to mention reschedules for any of the things that go wrong during regular travel.  October is Hell because we have all of those things on our plate.  And we’re only physically in the office for one day a week to handle it all.  It took me less than a week to begin feeling like a character in Dante’s Inferno…

In some ways it feels like I’ve never done anything other than promote my college.  In others, it feels like I’m still the greenest counselor out there.  Here are some of my travel experiences that I think are worth mentioning:

• People in Central PA are much less friendly than you’d expect.  And people in Long Island are much more friendly than you would believe.
  • Confederate flags.  Confederate flags everywhere
• Plans outside of work?  What are those?  Are there actually people who don’t live in a strange state of travel-induced limbo and have the time to do things they enjoy?  That must be really nice.  But since I often dream about visiting high schools, I can’t imagine it.
• Driving by myself all the time has caused me to forget how to act like a normal human being while in a car.  I apologize for the second-hand embarrassment I will undoubtedly cause anyone who shares a ride with me in the future.
  • What do you mean I’m not supposed to sing this song at the top of my lungs while also doing a strange stunted driver seat interpretive dance?
• My rental car looks like I LIVE in it.  Empty water bottles, a box of tissues, CDs, extra power cords, pens, promotion publications, a carrier bag filled with all the random hand-held food you could imagine, gloves, jackets, extra shoes, panty hose, a mini cooler…all things that can be found in my back seat.  Even though I don’t actually live in that car, I probably could if it came down to it…
• Being in the office one day a week is sort of like a warped version of the cornucopia at the beginning of the Hunger Games.  Quick, you need to get those copies made!  But don’t forget about your expense report!  And there are swarms of angry applications buzzing all around the office.  But look!  You haven’t seen that coworker in 6 days and they always tell the best road stories!  And suddenly there’s only an hour left until your next meeting- How are you ever going to be done it all by 5:00?!
• It will take a shockingly short amount of time to memorize where all the free wifi spots in your travel territory are.  Anyone up for a Starbucks?  How about some Panera?  No?  Well, too bad, because I’ve got work to do and those places have reliable internet.
  • I didn’t even like Starbucks before this travel season started.  Now I catch myself daydreaming about pumpkin scones and lemon loaf.
• Having an 18-wheeler blow a tire in front of you on the Turnpike is a very startling experience indeed.
• On a related note, car accidents are terrifying.  Even if it’s a minor incident and no one else is involved.
• And on an even more closely related note, having anxiety and traveling a lot for work don’t always mix well.
  • Imagine crying in high school parking lots.  And yelling at your GPS.  And over-analyzing just exactly WHY that counselor/student/parent/random stranger was so awful to you.  And wanting to turn around, go home, and crawl into bed forever.  It’s kind of like that.
• Students and parents will ask you the weirdest questions.  But the ones that don’t ask you something strange will ask you the same things.  Over and over and over again.
  • Anyone want to know about study abroad?  How about our pre-med program?  Fashion?  Business?  Student to faculty ratio?  Dorm rooms?  No?  Well, that’s too bad because I probably talk about this stuff in my sleep.
• Hotel room upgrades are a beautiful thing.  As are free hot breakfasts.
• There will be rough days.  You’ll be late to one visit, no one will show up to the next, a counselor will be mean at the third, and a student will be rude at the fourth.  Then you’ll end the day with a fair where you only talk to three families.  You’ll go to bed thinking that there’s no way you’ll be able to make your living doing this.
  • But the next day?  The next day you’ll meet an absolutely awe-inspiring student and you’ll have a conversation with a counselor who’s been working at the same school for 20 years, but somehow hasn’t become jaded.  You’ll feel good about yourself at the end of that day.  And the next week, you’ll be back in the office, and an application for that amazing student will come across your desk.  And making that accept phone call will be the best part of your day.

So what do you think of my first travel season?  I’ve had more near and actual nervous breakdowns than I’d like to recount.  I’ve had passive aggressive arguments with coworkers and I’ve complained to those close to me more often than I’d like to admit.  It was a rough two months.

But you know what?  It’s almost over.  Right now, as I type, I only have three visits standing between me and the end of fall travel.  And that is an exciting prospect.

I know that the end of travel season doesn’t mean the end of my troubles, but it does mean one accomplishment ticked off my list.  I still have a lot to learn, but at least I know that next fall I’ll be tackling travel with some experience under my belt.

Several people have described my job as cyclical.  You do one thing until you feel like you can never do that thing again.  And then you switch.  You start doing another thing and you continue at it until it makes you nauseous.  That’s where I am right now.  I feel like I’ve been visiting high schools for my entire life.  But you know what?  In less than a month that will all be over.  It’ll be on to applications and interviews and scholarship planning.

And is that terrifying?  Does the feeling that I’m going to feel green for an entire year make me extremely nervous?  Sure it does.  I know that there will be a lot more near and actual nervous breakdowns in my future.  And some of those arguments will stray into the actual-aggressive territory.  And I’m going to apologize right now to the ones close to me- that complaining isn’t going to end any time soon.

But even though all of that is true, and there are a lot of scary things waiting in my future, I can continue to remind myself that I survived the Month of Admission Counselor Hell.  And if I could survive the first cycle, there’s nothing holding me back from surviving the next.

Anxious and Unemployed

Do you ever just sit outside at night, look up at the stars, and know basically nothing about the world you live in?

— Night Vale podcast (@NightValeRadio) February 10, 2015

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Prolonged unemployment is more overwhelming than anyone who hasn’t experienced it could ever imagine.  It’s not just the lack of a job.  It’s constantly thinking about cover letters and resumes, dealing with all the people around you who don’t understand why you don’t just ‘send out some resumes,’ and feeling more and more inadequate every time you watch a closing date pass without a word.  For me, it didn’t take long to start feeling like a complete, good for nothing, waste of space.

I’ve been working hard to keep myself together, but about two weeks ago I was laying in bed when I realized that I’m falling back into old habits.  Insomnia, not eating or really taking care of myself, more and more destructive thoughts…The things that I’ve been working to keep away, basically.

Last Tuesday, I was given a tiny reprieve.  An employer offered me a phone interview and it was a job I really wanted.  Long story short, for two days, I was completely consumed with that interview.  The interview happened.  It didn’t go well.  But I was less upset than I could have been, because I felt like someone had noticed me.  All those resumes and electronic forms and someone finally noticed me.  It was a tiny boost that I sorely needed.  And I’m glad for that, because after what happened this weekend, I probably would have had a complete mental breakdown if I was still as entrenched in that ‘waste of space’ mindset.

My plan for this past weekend was a pretty simple one.  Job applications.  There were three position opening notifications sitting in my inbox that I wanted to tackle before Monday rolled around.  I had an appointment for a haircut on Saturday, but I was planning on spending most of the weekend lost in resume-land, floating on the currents left behind after my disastrous phone interview.

On Saturday, a friend left her wife.  This is the same friend who was living in my room while I was in England.  It seems as if her impulse wedding wasn’t actually a good idea, and she finally had enough of being treated badly.  Cue my mom and I awake until 4am, texting and calling with said friend.  She announced in a Xanex-fueled breakdown that she would be over on Sunday with a suitcase.

And guess what?  She was.  I’m outside shoveling snow in the record low temperatures, and up rolls a familiar Fiat.  She drops her stuff in the living room with a promise to be back soon with some clothes and essentials.

It’s 10am.  I don’t think my mom and I had gotten 8 hours between us the previous night.  We spend the afternoon clearing out the downstairs room so our friend can put up an air mattress.  And it was a lot of work finding new homes for all the things that used to live in that room.  My bedroom looks like a storage unit now.

I feel I need to make a disclosure.  I’m really glad that our friend has somewhere to stay.  I’m glad she doesn’t have to stay in an abusive relationship.  I am.  Really.  But I’m so overwhelmed right now, and if I admit it, I’m a bit afraid.

It’s hard to explain what exactly I’m feeling…so here’s a bit of back story I will use to try to hash out my feelings.

When I was in England, our friend (I’m going to call her Susan, just to make things easier) separated from her partner of 7 years.  Her partner was physically and emotionally abusive, and my mom told Susan that if she wanted to get out, she could stay with her.  So in the spring, Susan moved into my room.  The separation was brutal.  Susan lost almost everything- her house, her pets, her belongings, her friends.  There were very few things she was able to salvage.  To this day, the whole thing still isn’t sorted out.  Attorneys and arbitration really are time-consuming.

In late July, Susan met someone on an online dating site.  They spent almost every minute for two weeks together, the other woman went on vacation for two weeks, and then Susan moved in with her.  They were engaged in the fall and married on Christmas Eve.  There were red flags from the beginning of this relationship, but Susan’s an adult, and as proven, will do whatever she wants.

Apparently those red flags didn’t go away, but escalated, because Susan is sleeping a floor below me right now.  Today she changed all of her addresses and yesterday she was talking about movers.

I think it would be fair to say that Susan is a bit un-tethered at the moment.  But the problem with un-tethered Susan (and where my feelings come into play) is that un-tethered Susan is a bit of a loose cannon.  Un-tethered Susan has been known to make extremely hurtful remarks, both off-hand and on a few memorable occasions, directly at me.

You see, I made the mistake of telling her, way back when I first got home, how unhappy I was and how nervous I am about my future.  I’d like to think it was an honest mistake- we were pretty good friends before I left for England, and she asked me, genuinely, how I was doing.  Less than a week later, I hear about how much she can’t stand when ‘people unload all of their problems’ on her.

Whether or not she said that with me in mind, that was the end of me telling her anything about my well-being.  One thing people should, but really don’t, know about me is that I have some massive trust issues.  I always have.  I don’t let others in easily, and when I do, it’s because that person is important to me.  And it doesn’t take a lot to break that trust.  I know how messed up it is, but I would much rather fall back on being alone than constantly open myself up to being hurt.

I let Susan have her little breakdown.  My mom works with Susan (that’s how we all met), and I continued to hear the mean things she said about other people.  I brought it up to my mom and her response was ‘Sometimes when a person is depressed, they have a hard time holding it all in.’  I mean, I’ve been doing a pretty damn good job of not flaying the entire world with my words, and I’ve been depressed for over a year, but this isn’t the time or the place for that argument.

So fast forward to two weeks ago.  I’m feeling really shitty about myself.  I haven’t left the house in almost a week.  I’m basically the poster child for poor self-care.  But it’s not like I talk about it.  I force myself to shower and dress when I know that people are going to be around.  I go along and mind my own business.  Susan is at our house.  The three of us are sitting in the living room, and for close to two hours, Susan complains/vents/talks about/however you want to word it about how awful her wife is.  And it is non-stop.  My mom doesn’t talk about where they work, I don’t talk about myself, it’s just Susan talking about her wife.  And I’m fine with that.  She can do all the talking she wants and I can sit and nod and make the appropriate noises at the appropriate times.  But of course it can’t be that simple.  The last thing Susan says to me before she leaves is, ‘And you think you have it bad.  Just think about me the next time you are feeling awful about your life.’

Why was that necessary?  I do everything I can to keep myself away from others.  I make myself emotionally as small as possible so no one will notice me.  And she says something like that after I dutifully sat and sympathized with her for an evening.  That night was the first time I really considered a razor blade for the first time in almost 6 months.

So now Susan lives with us and not only do I feel an acute sense of uselessness, but I’m paranoid about it to boot.  What if she doesn’t approve of the way I’m living my life right now?  What if she starts to call me lazy or question me about everything I do?  I’m quickly finding out that her questioning is like the annoying aunt I spoke about in my Christmas post last month…  But I can’t get away from Susan like I can my aunt because Susan lives in my old room.

And that’s where I am right now.  I covertly filled out two more job applications today- I really don’t want Susan to find out how many ‘rejections’ I’ve actually had.  In some twisted way, I think I’d rather she believe I’m lazy than find out how many jobs I’ve been passed over for.

I feel the need to reiterate a point: I need to get a job so I can get out of here.  I just keep telling myself that none of this is permanent…