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You Don’t Want a Dream Job, Not Now and Not Ever
What’s all this fuss about dream jobs? Looking for one right now?
Green, jobless, and no titles yet.
In 2014, I toured the streets of Bonifacio Global City for the first time. I was on the hunt for my first job back when job hunting involved submitting resumes to receptionists or security guards. The buildings, then, were newly constructed, bright, and shiny beneath the heat. Their impossible heights dwarfed my confidence.
Over the years, BGC would attract hip stores with foreign-sounding names like Muji, Uniqlo, and Zara and restaurants like Din Tai Fung, Shake Shack, and Wildflour. BGC’s popular street, Bonifacio High Street, was aptly named. It is a street high in price, a neighborhood that attracts young and fresh talent from old cities and far-flung provinces. BGC is the richer and snob cousin of Manila and Makati.
On that job-hunting day, I wore the basics. Pink long sleeves, a black skirt, and my college pumps. My look was supposed to be sharp and snappy. But if you live in a tropical country like the Philippines, you will be amazed at how heat can quickly destroy your composure. By noon, I was sweating, hungry, and ready to chuck my two-inch-heeled pumps into the passing Toyotas and Mitsubishis.
Over a late lunch, while I chomped Mcdonald’s chicken burger and fries, I tried to amuse myself by remembering one of those scenes from 3 Idiots where Rancho taps his chest lightly and chants ‘all is well, all is well’. But all is not well in this adulting world of expensive dreams, cheap labor, and overrated fast food meals.
About the time I got engaged with an unwanted partner
All my troubles began in the summer of 2009. Under a cathedral’s eave, with the excuse of a mother-daughter conversation, my mother introduced me to my unwanted partner for life. Asians can relate because it is a very Asian thing to do for parents to determine their kid’s career paths.
The hypothetical partner (because strict mothers strongly discourage a live one ‘not-until-you-finish-college-or-else-you’re-getting-out-of-my-house’) came with the label accounting. From my early encounters with this partner, I learned to mistrust anything that ends with…
