***

So, Amy. What did you major in during your collegiate years and what did you expect to do when you got out of college?

When I started college I was a marine biology major and I had no clue what I wanted to do. As I took classes, I added in an ecology major. I figured I could work for the Environmental Protection Agency or find work on a boat, which would be really awesome.

When I went to Australia as a part of my ecology major, we briefly touched on stromatolites, which are a model for how life began on earth. Australia is one of the three places in the world that they exist and I ended up doing a report on stromatolites in Shark Bay.

I had also gone to astronomy conferences with my dad that hosted speakers who were talking about searching for life on other planets. One man was trying to find out how to best grow plants on the International Space Station. I began to learn more about Astrobiology in my Marine Biology course because a lot of the marine systems are used as a model for how life began which is one of the questions that Astrobiology tries to answer. I spoke with my professors about guest speakers that we had in that field and began writing to them to learn about their research. I contacted people working up at Kennedy Space Center figuring that I could go to school for Astrobiology and work for them. It was completely unexpected because I had originally wanted to get my Master’s Degree at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography.

So, I ended up beginning my PhD at the University of Florida, but then I downgraded to a Master’s.

Right now I have no clue what I want to do. It all depends on where I can find work, honestly. I’d take anything.

When did you complete your graduate program?

In August of ‘08

How long were you jobless after graduation?

I still consider myself jobless, so I’ve been jobless for just over a year.

But you are employed, yes? You’re just filling in the gaps, monetarily speaking?

I don’t consider what I’m doing right now a real career because it’s not in my area of interest.

What are you doing right now?

Thankfully, I found part time work at a horse farm here in Florida, ten minutes from home. So what I’m doing right now is shoveling horse shit.

Ha! How did you find that job? Craigslist?

I read a blog called “Fugly Horse of the Day” and the person who writes the blog is aware of the “economic times” and made a post looking for people who needed someone to work on their farm or people looking for farm work. She wanted to help forge connections through her site. Someone responded to her post with a website to find horse jobs called yardandgroom.com. I thought, well shit. It can’t hurt to look.

Little did you know “shit” would be playing a large part in your future.

Haha! Right! So I popped on the site and created and account and a profile and started searching for jobs. Lo and behold, there were a couple in the area. The one I really liked I couldn’t take because it was a live-in job. It wasn’t paid, but you were given room and board, plus board and feed for your horse, and you were able to take lessons from a former Olympic rider. In return you had to clean stalls and groom horses. But of course, my husband wasn’t to keen on me living away from home for a non-paying job. The job I ended up taking was with a family who owns two farms in Coco and Ocala (which is like the Horse Capital of Florida). I pretty much just take care of their horses for them.

I was jobless, myself, for about four months and it took quite an emotional toll. I found myself questioning all sorts of things. What did you feel was letting you down? Your education is certainly extensive but things weren’t clicking. In your most hopeless moments, what were your worries and frustrations?

Probably the biggest thing was, “Am I saying something wrong in my job applications?” and “Am I not employing the right strategies in my job search?” I was looking for jobs within the government and going through their employment sites because the best job security and benefits are with the government right now. Once you get a job with them, it’s really hard not to get a job afterward. They have the most openings for my field.

It’s hard to say…. It isn’t a confidence booster when you don’t hear back from jobs or you get that automated email saying you didn’t rate high enough for consideration.

The thing that I find amazing is how many highly qualified people are sitting behind reception desks or taking “jobs a monkey could do.” When I first got back to New York, I took a job doing work as a doorman/concierge at a luxury apartment building. It’s not exactly an ideal job for a graduate of NYU, but I needed to pay my rent and it was the best job I could find at the time. Recently I was brainstorming a character for a project with a friend and he described the character we were working on as someone who went from “God to Doorman, the lowest of the low.” It struck me, suddenly, that I’d had that job, and because of that, I had such a different perception of it than my friend did. I certainly didn’t think of myself of “the lowest of the low.”

You made an important point earlier when you said that you don’t think of what you’re doing as a job because its not in the career field that you want. It’s not a job. It’s just what you’re doing right now. That means your mind is open to continuing to strive when so many people are just settling for what they can get.

As some people have said, “You have an effing Master’s degree and you’re shoveling dung for money!?” I look at it more as keeping myself on a schedule. Without a job, I have an awful tendency to stay up later and later and sleep in later and later. That’s not good at all. It keeps me active because it’s pretty hard physical labor, plus… I’m being paid to get in shape. But really, it’s also important because when I do get that elusive interview, I can say, “Well, I’ve picked up part time work.”

Which is important to show you’re active and you have a hunger to do something with your life.

I’m also starting to volunteer at a local zoo.

Such a good point. People need to find something to pay their bills, but it’s important that you pursue your goals and sometimes that means putting in extra hours as well as seeking out volunteer opportunities and internships that can help build your resumé. At the gym where I’m working my “day job,” we needed more yoga teachers but we knew we couldn’t afford to pay them. We put up an ad on craigslist just to see if we could find anyone at all and we ended up with over 20 people, each ready to commit to a job that wouldn’t pay them any money at all. Yet, they all had interest because it would help them build their resumés.

I believe it. I’ve heard of a lot of people doing similar things. There’s a community on livejournal.com called “Team Unemployed.” It’s just a forum for support and commiseration. People offer tips and they often include: get involved, volunteer, do something! That way you can say what you’ve been doing with your time when you get the chance.

The same thing goes on a creative level. It’s actually part of the reason I began this blog. You have to tend that flame inside of yourself and keep it burning both for the sake of your career and your interviews, but also for yourself. You have to feed that hunger. I know a lot of people, myself included, have felt or are feeling like they have lost their way.

I would say that, for sure. I worry, because it’s been such a long time since I’ve done anything pertaining to my field, that I’ll get into a situation where a prospective employer asks me a technical question, I’ll flub it just because I’m not current with the knowledge. That’s a huge worry for me.

You just have to find ways to keep yourself going, keep yourself involved, and keep yourself on a schedule. I think people who are just getting out of school now have to take heart in the fact that, yes, things are harder than they have been in the past. For many people, there aren’t jobs waiting for them the way they used to.

I would say that really depends on the field and moreover, who you know.

That’s true. I have a friend who went to The United States Naval Academy and from my understanding, she hasn’t felt the pressures of our economy at all simply because her program feeds into a four year commitment/job.

It’s certainly tough.

At the same time, I know you have a passion for horses, and while you may not have a passion for cleaning up after them, working with them has to keep you positive.

It helps knowing that I’m accessing a knowledge base every day that I’m well versed in, yes.

So what’s on the horizon for you, Amy?

I went up to visit my family in Connecticut. My mom is an organizer for The Fresh Air Fund, which is a volunteer organization that takes inner city kids out of their environment in New York City and sends them out to stay with families within a days drive of the city for two weeks to get a taste of a different lifestyle. I went to an event with my mom and everyone was asking me what I was doing, which of course, I hated. Then they asked me what my degrees are and what I wanted to do.

As we talked, I found out that one woman’s husband works as a Senior Geologist for an environmental consulting firm and he is very dissatisfied with his current employees. Apparently he wants someone he can trust to do their job. She told me a horror story about how he had sent someone out to inspect for asbestos. The guy had checked the first floor and because he couldn’t see an easy way to the second floor, he simply reported to her husband that there was no asbestos in the building. Her husband went back to check and found out that there absolutely was asbestos on the second floor of the building. Apparently, he also had two employees who refused to go out an collect dirt samples because it “looked like it might rain,” to which I responded, “I’ve gone out riding horses during a hurricane! I could do that job.” It sounded like a job that was right up my alley and would use my degrees. Maybe grunt work is a little bit beneath a Master’s Degree, but you have to start somewhere. The woman offered to take my resumé to her husband and a few days later my mother got a call from the Geologist saying he was amazed that I didn’t have a job yet and that I met every requirement he was looking for. He said if he had a job opening he would hire me on the spot.

The company is owned by an international umbrella based in the Finland, but they do environmental consulting for the U.S. government and private corporations. They also do buyer communications and my skill set is perfect for that. Currently I have the promise that this Geologist is pushing my resumé through the system and that if they get this contract that they have a bid on, he’ll push to hire me.

That would be amazing!

It’s a waiting game now, but if I get this job, it will really prove my theory that it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.

Networking is absolutely crucial. Sometimes you have to do that audacious thing and just contact the people you admire in whatever field you’re pursuing and ask for advice or assistance.

Exactly. That’s how I met the professor that gave me a job as a lab assistant during my time at the University of Florida.

All it took was one question.

***

Special thanks to my fantastic interviewee, Amy McKenna. During this interview, the following job listing or unemployment support sites were mentioned:

http://community.livejournal.com/team_unemployed

usajobs.gov

yardandgroom.com

Amy also mentioned that sites like Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com were pretty much useless.

Mrs. McKenna can be contacted for further information at amye (dot) mckenna (at) gmail (dot) com

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog was created and directed by Joss Whedon. The web-short trilogy was born out of the recent TV strike as a testament to the potential success of powerful creative desire and good writing without the glitz, glam, and big money that goes hand in hand with Hollywood TV and film production. Whedon’s previous credits include Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly. Obviously, Whedon was able to use his vast Rolodex to get this done in good quality for as little money as possible. He managed a low budget that would still be considered very high by the standards of most web series producers, but I think Dr. Horrible’s nomination for a mainstream industry award marks an important step forward for all new media productions.

The web series stars Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion (star of ABC’s Castle and Whedon’s cult hit Firefly), and Felicia Day. Harris leads the cast with ease of a Broadway veteran (2004 Revival of Assassins) and the vulnerable comedy of a really good improviser. He understands video blog culture and brings a very believable “every man” quality to a larger-than-life character. Despite Fillion’s mediocre singing voice, his ability to fill the screen with his roguish presence makes him one of my favorite actors to watch. Day is adorable as Penny and plays into the comedy and absurdity of this piece well. All three installments of the series have a depth and attention to detail that make for seriously entertaining repeated viewings. Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog can be viewed for free at: http://drhorrible.com and purchased digitally on iTunes and on DVD at Amazon.com.

I first stumbled across Felicia Day while watching her hit web series The Guild. As a fan of online MMO’s and World of Warcraft, I was struck by Day’s spot-on observation of online gaming culture and the comedic timing and believability of her opening monologues for each episode. The story of funding the guild seems miraculous to me. The first few episodes of the series were self-funded, but the rest of Season One was shot completely on paypal viewer donations, which is saying a lot because The Guild is available for free online. Fan support built the series as much as the creative team and Day publicly thanks them for that regularly. Season one also earned Day Best Original Digital Series at the South by Southwest and On Network Greenlight Series Awards. She is one of my personal creative heros because she is truly a jack of all trades. Her website can be viewed here: http://feliciaday.com/and The Guild website and viewing portal can be found here: http://www.watchtheguild.com/.

I could go on, but instead I’m going to turn you all over to the capable hands of Miss Day, herself. In the following video interview for PBS, she describes the business of marketing and creating a web-series. She also discusses the advantages of retaining your creative power.

I made an appointment with the Apple Store, but there’s not an available time until Saturday, two days from now, at 5:50 PM. Even though that’s an inconvenience and it may ruin my plans for the 4th of July weekend, I HAVE to go on that day because my phone has to work. I can’t live without it.

I had forgotten what this is like. I actually feel naked. I’ve grown so accustomed to all of the tools on my phone, not to mention its run of the mill ability to, you know, make phone calls. I have plans to hang out with two people this weekend and without my phone, that may not happen. If it doesn’t, I’ll be a sad panda.

Ugh, who am I kidding? I’m already a sad panda.

I’m also pretty disgusted with how reliant I am on my iPhone. A few posts ago I wrote about how I was addicted to my iPhone and its different bells and whistles. Now I’ve progressed to going through actual withdrawal. I’m not kidding folks. I’m restless and I keep pacing around the apartment and trying to sleep this awful feeling in the pit of my stomach off. I keep wondering how people will contact me.

Would it kill me to be incomunicato for a few days?

Maybe I should just… move to the jungle and live off of fish I catch with my bare hands and water tempered with iodine tablets. I could even fashion a spear out of a branch and hunt boar. Maybe I’ll meet John Locke from ABC’s Lost. Ah, let’s face it. I’d never make it.

I used to be way more outdoorsy. I have taken several “adventure” trips in the course my blessed life. I went horseback riding with my parents in Arizona for two weeks. I’ve camped and rafted in Alaska for three weeks and gone on glacier hikes near Valdez. I went into the Montana mountains for three weeks and stayed out in the woods on solo for one of those weeks. I visited the Galapagos Islands and took naturalist tours. I worked with the National Park Service tagging sea-turtles and living on a boat in the Caribbean. I went white water rafting in the Colorado River and hiked out of the Grand Canyon.

So now I live in New York City. Rewind. What? How did that happen?

When did I become so tirelessly urban? Where has my inner cowgirl gone?

I think she’s still somewhere inside of me. I feel her stir in me whenever I can see a large expanse of sky, even if its only over Washington Square Park. I actually felt her today, of all days, while I was sitting in Grand Central Station.

I was trying to get a few moments of escape and serenity from my boss, who was making me do all sorts of annoying little tasks like canceling her Visa card and changing her legal address, both of which are real headaches for the actual person, let alone an assistant who is trying to remember all of her boss’ personal information.

As I sat on a bench, I noticed that there was a bird twittering and tweeting away. I knew immediately that it wasn’t a pigeon because pigeon’s coo.

Actually, if you ever get a chance to hear pigeon sex, its coo-rific. It makes me die laughing. I’m not a pervert, for the record, but they used to roost right outside of my window as a child. I often convulsed in giggles when I heard them going at it in a rousing “coorus.” Get it? Coorus, Chorus? Come on people! I digress.

As I looked for the source of the sound I noticed something tiny and dark running across the floor. I almost shrieked because I thought it was a nasty New York rat. Upon further observation I realized it was a red breasted robin. Phew.

My father is obsessed with birds and he taught me long ago how to identify one. Actually, we used have a huge one that lived in our backyard in Chicago. This type of bird is also significant to me because I loved The Secret Garden as a child and Mary Lennox, the heroin of the story, was guided by a “Robin Red Breast” to the gate of her Aunt Lily’s garden and he flew around the ivy covered, overgrown  walls and kept the girl company while she planted seeds. That story was so gorgeous, both in text and on stage as a musical.

So there I was, overworked, underpaid, and sitting on a bench looking at my very own Robin Red Breast. This one was singing beautifully but upon closer inspection, I realized his wing was broken. He must have flown into the building and banged into a window or other reflective surface while trying to get out. It was so tragic because you never see anything but pigeons (AKA the rats of the air) in the city. Atleast I don’t. Then again I’m not specifically looking to identify birds.

It is a fact: This poor creature that reminded me of my childhood and a beautiful story will die. I didn’t know how long he’d been there. Perhaps he was singing for his supper. Perhaps it was his “Swan Song.” He must have been in so much pain. Maybe it’s stupid, but it made me tear up a little bit as I watched him waddle about. He even hopped over to me and just looked at me for a while, completely unafraid and uninhibited. It reminded me of how the animals had acted during my visit to the Galapagos Islands. The sea lions and marine iguanas would just sit and sun themselves on the beach. They hadn’t been introduced to fear of humans because they’ve never been hunted there. That whole trip made me feel like I was living in the Garden of Eden. The guide warned us not to touch the sea lion pups even if they approached us because the mothers would stop recognizing the scent of their young and disown them. They were so adorable. You just wanted to pick one up and squeeze it so badly. I don’t mean like Lenny in Of Mice and Men. I mean a comfortable cuddle rather than a life threatening clamp of doom.

As I watched my doomed bird-friend, I felt a similar conflict. I wanted to pick him up and mend him, but as we all know, birds are ridden with disease, germs, and God knows what else. Also, who am I to think I could “mend” a broken bird wing. I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in theater. I’m not a veterinarian.

That thought reminded me of how when I was on my Outward Bound “solo” in Montana, I had decided to make a woven basket and failed miserably. I don’t know what made me think I would just naturally have the ability to do something like that. Did I expect it to be written into my homo sapien DNA? However, it was undeniably fun and it gave me something to do during the lonely days. I sort of remembered singing through the entire score of every musical i could remember and even the ones I was less clear on as I worked.

Somewhere along the way I traded simple pleasures and child-like curiosity for iPhone apps and rent checks. Some of that is just a part of growing up, but sometimes I think it wouldn’t be such a travesty if we all tried to retrace our developmental steps a bit and follow our silly impulses. Mind you, I’m not telling you to expose yourself to disease ridden urban creatures on the verge of demise, but a walk in the park to lie on the bedrock outcroppings and read clouds wouldn’t do you any harm.

Now when I say devil, I’m not talking of a red guy with a pointy tail, or an animated Satan in love with Saddam Hussein. No, my comrades, I am speaking of our modern opportunities for addiction. Honestly. Every time I turn around I hear someone saying, “You know what I’m obsessed with now?” Even I must admit that I have a moderately addictive personality. Ok… I may have an EXTREMELY addictive personality.

These days, addiction can sneak up on you. It’s that Starbucks coffee you think you need before class or that last high score you need in Tetris before you get back to writing your final English Paper. It’s facebook and myspace. It’s Ben and Jerry’s Fossil Fuel Ice Cream (Can you really blame me?).

Granted, some addictions are more serious than others. There are the old classics; sex, drugs, and booze. They’re still around.

I happen to be obsessed with Star Wars. I always have been. I think it probably creaped out the rest of my freshman class in high school. Han Solo is a hottie. You know it. I know it. Actually, I think my additional obsession with musical theater didn’t help too much in the popularity department either.

For the last 2 and a half years I’ve played World of Warcraft. Now, if that isn’t an addiction, I don’t know what is. I have levelled away HOURS of my life on that game. I have three level 80’s and I raid with my guild three nights a week. Its like having a part time job that I don’t get paid for. Does this make me sexy? No. The only person WoW makes sexy is Felicia Day. No. World of Warcraft makes me quite decidedly UNSEXY, nay, quirky at best.

I’m amazed at how easy it is to get addicted to games on my phone. The Sims 3 is one of my most recent iPhone love affairs. I loved fishing and selling my wares at the market so I could build my magnificent Sim House and get my Sim married off to whichever loser Sim lived in the house next door. I loved making them have sweet sweaty Woohoo on my hard earned Bohemian bed. After I got bored of repairing refrigerators and filling the empty parts of my Sim Mansion with potted plants, we broke up. I rebounded with Archers, a free iPhone app where you use your finger to aim an arrow at an opponent at a distance which is operated by your phone or in my case, my father. The first one to kill the other player wins. Suffice to say, it got dull fast.

Today, I welcomed the Devil into my home again, and by “home” I mean iPhone (which in itself, is another addiction). I signed up for Twitter. I have 5 followers, all of which are probably selling something. Lets not fool ourselves. They are all selling stuff. I thought Twitter would be some horrible thing that lonely people use to stay connected. Then I realized: I’m just a lonely person who wants to stay connected, plus following Dane Cook provides me with brief comedic respites and frankly, what’s not to love about that?

It is actually kind of fun to read about what your favorite actor’s, writers, and singer’s are up to in an average day. It got me thinking. With all of these little addictions that take us away from being face to face with one another in any sort of recognizable form of social interaction, Twitter is this odd cry for help. People need to feel connected in an increasingly digital world. That’s what their little video on the website says. I mean, sure, there is such a thing as threat level STALKER, but its kind of fun to take stock of what I’m doing during the day or post that my boss is making me prune her cactus with my bare hands (NOT AN ODD SEXUAL REFERENCE, I SWEAR) or reassure renowned award winning novelist Neil Gaimon that its OK for him to want to buy a particularly nice table.

But when it comes down to it, why don’t I just go knock on my neighbor’s door and ask to borrow a cup of sugar and then invite him over for some tea? Is it time we rest our eyes from the glow of the computer monitor or iPhone? Everything that seems fun these days is a trap. Holy shit. We’re living in a booby trapped virtual playground.

That said, if you want to know what goes on inside my crazy head during the day, you can follow me on Twitter. @annrichmond

Or, if you are boycotting Tweets in general, stay tuned to this blog.