January is the Cruelest Month

My life in the last four weeks can be summed up in one word: suckage.
Although I don’t think that’s actually a word, but you get the idea.

January at The Business School has been a crazed frenzy of info sessions, recruiters, and job applications. We were given no warning as to how crazy it would get, and I was sucked into this frenzy with no preparation, and thus no hope of getting a job for the summer.
Summer recruitment at The Business School is always taken very seriously because 1) the companies that come are the best in their industry, and 2) after the summer, you are almost guaranteed a full-time offer, so you won’t even have to worry about going through the job search process again in September.
Anyway, what this really means is that everyone is crazy competitive, and it’s so much worse this year because of the economy. There are fewer job openings and even more people competing, especially for my career path of choice: consulting.
In consulting, there are basically four big names: McKinsey, Bain, BCG, and Deloitte. My dream job would be at Bain, but with the competition this year, I did not even get a first-round interview.
Twenty job applications and fifty cups of coffee later, I managed only to get one interview with Deloitte’s strategy & operations department. Pretty sweet deal, if I could actually get through to the final round and get an offer, but this story does not end that way. I did not get to the final round, I did not get an offer.

This is all fine and dandy, but here’s the kicker. With my marks, extra-curriculars, and charming demeanor (*bats eyelashes*), I would have gotten interviews everywhere had it been any other year. But not this year. And the worst part is that I don’t even know what I could have done better. So instead of torturing myself with the what-ifs, I blame January.

January has always been a terrible month for me. My first January away from home was spent combating pneumonia and an allergy reaction to the antibiotics that my doctor gave me. On the first day of class that term, my laptop died and I had a midterm in a week.
The second January of my university life, my purse was stolen in class, and I was left without money, a phone, or keys, and nowhere to go. I also ended up paying for a spring break trip I didn’t go because I was, essentially, scammed by the tour company. Later that week, my laptop died. Seeing a trend here?
This January, not only has summer recruitment gone nowhere, but someone used my credit card and spent $700 with it before I noticed and called the credit card company.
So you can imagine why I was unsurprised that I did not get a single job offer. The fact that my laptop hasn’t died yet is already making it a better month than previous years.

It’s not so bad, I tell myself. There are people far worse off than I. I shouldn’t give up. I have great credentials, I am incredibly bright and hardworking, and I will reach my goals. Somewhere, someone will be able to see that.
But despite how optimistic I sound, I have actually been utterly depressed for a good two weeks now. I can’t help it, I just am.

When I got the call from Deloitte telling me I wasn’t selected to move to the second round of interviews, I held it together for the whole day before I got home and cried. The worst part was that my “whole day” didn’t end until 10:30pm.
And what made me upset wasn’t the fact that I was a fully qualified candidate who would make a stellar consultant if they gave me a chance. No, instead, I was crying because I was so exhausted. I was so exhausted of being me.
I often hear people I know telling me that I am so amazing, that I can manage to cram so many things into my schedule, take on so many responsibilities, and still do a good job on everything. They are all, “Wow SG, you are like a superwoman.” They are in awe of the number of leadership roles I am in, the fact that I am still top 10 in my class even though I work part-time 20 hours a week, and the fact that 1 out of 3 people on campus know who I am. “You have so many friends!” They’ll say, or “You do everything!”
And at the end of the day, what does that amount to? None of them have the slightest clue what my life must be like. What it’s like to be busy from 7am to 10pm EVERY SINGLE DAY. It is not just for a week, or a month, or even 3 months. It is every single day of my life. I just never get a break!
And when I get home, I am so tired. I am tired tonight, tomorrow night, and every night after that. I have few friends who are actually close because I just don’t have enough time in my schedule to see them regularly. Most of the people I interact with just think I’m some sort of superhuman and have no idea the toll it takes. In fact, some of them are even jealous of me. But what is there to be jealous of? My day-to-day life is an absolute misery. How can they be jealous of that?
What makes it worse is that no one can sympathise with me. Even my parents think of me as this incredibly independent and capable young woman. These perceptions of me by my friends and parents are even more tiring to me than the actual work I do. I can’t even turn to them and tell them how I want to just spend a couple days hiding out in my apartment. They would say, “Nonsense SG, you can do it, I know you can! You’re brilliant!” But why do I have to be brilliant? What if I just want to live the normal life of a university student? Just go to class, come home at a reasonable time, make dinner, do some homework, and then go to bed?

On Wednesday night, when I finally got home after a 16-hour day, I let it all out and I cried. I just sat on my bed and cried until I was too tired to cry. I thought about everything that everyone thought I was, and I felt so lonely. So lonely that no one could see that I am only human, that I had limits, that as ambitious and capable as I am, I also have a weak side. But instead of being comforted by someone who could understand how I felt, I was alone in my room, bawling over some job interview.
Suddenly, the life I worked so hard to keep together felt worthless. I was busting my ass every single day, and for what? I couldn’t even convey my value to some interviewer for a summer job. I couldn’t even make him understand that for me to get the marks I do, given everything I am involved in, is an impossible feat, and yet I had somehow managed it. But all he did was compare me to the person with the next highest marks, who probably had one extra-curricular activity and definitely did not hold down a part-time job.
For someone who’s supposedly smart, I’m pretty stupid. Why do I bother doing all these things? I mean, it isn’t for my resume, but it isn’t exactly like I enjoy being stressed to tears. There are just too many opportunities I am not willing to pass up, so I don’t. But in the end, the person who gets the job is someone who expertly picks one or two things that are relevant to the job they want, and spends the rest of their time networking.

Last night, as I told all these things to the Sisterhood, they tried to convince me that it would pay off. That I wouldn’t regret these miserable days of my life. Maybe they’re right. But for now, the only thing I have to look forward to is the end of January.