Networking.

With no foreseeable end to my unemployment, I try to give my life the illusion of meaning by taking small steps in a progressive direction. Examples include daily exercise, cleaning off counter tops, making my bed, and, in the surest sign of the end times, making dinner. So it was in the name of progress that I did something unprecedented in my jobless stint: I woke up at 6:30 AM, left the house at 7, and a attended a Job Seekers meeting at a local church.

I'd heard good things about this great "networking opportunity," so I figured, meh, why not? Upon arrival, I refused to let the fact that I was by far the youngest person there daunt me as I turned in my resumé and filled out a name tag. After a few minutes of small talk and coffee, things got off to a rousing start: a devotional thought by an impassioned, dynamic speaker who, against all odds, followed God's will when He told him to buy a piece of real estate. Not kidding. I don't doubt his sincerity (delusion?), and I know I should have gleaned something more profound from his rapid-fire emotional shifts and homegrown axioms. But what it all amounted to in my estimation is that a) God led him to buy a beach-front property, and then b) courageously emboldened him to sell it for over three times its market value. Who knew God was such a bloodthirsty capitalist?

And on the 8th day, God created Wall Street.

After that altogether cringeworthy start and some roundtable networking introductions ("Hi, I'm Jessica Merrill. I'm a teacher. My background is teaching at an international school in Rwanda. My biggest accomplishment this past week was making a mixed-bean salad"), it was time to get down to the morning's lesson.

Previous weeks' topics have included headers such as "Preparing for an Interview" and "How to Make Your Resume Stand Out"--in short, things I actually want to know more about. Unfortunately for me, I happened to visit on "Evaluating and Negotiating the Job Offer" day. Which might have interested me, if we lived in a world where I got job offers, and tossed around acronyms like "POS" and "CRT" (Position Objective Statement and Comp, Relo, and Travel, if you're interested). Oh yes, phrases like "stock options" and "personal net worth" were bandied about with ease, and I felt, on the whole, very uncomfortable.

In the vein of "Deal or No Deal," we were given a group exercise in which several job offer scenarios were presented, and we were to decide collectively if we would take the job, based on consistent variables. For example:

"Your target annual salary is 72,000, and you want to work on the southside of Atlanta. A company in Buckhead (northside, for out-of-towners) is willing to offer you a job for 66,000. You negotiate the salary to 69,000. For the past two interviews you've been on, you have been one of the top three candidates for the job. Deal or no deal?"

I'm sure this is a real head-splitter for some, but as my table debated this quandary it was all I could do not to shout, "I was an ENGLISH MAJOR." (Okay, English education, but still). As soon as I read "target salary 72k" I officially entered the realm of fantasy. For me, the scenario might as well have read like this:

You are walking in a magical woodland when and old peddler approaches you with a satchet full of magic beans. The beans are very pretty and could be turned for a huge profit (if you're not so into beanstalks). However, your target prize is a pot of gold, given only to sharpwitted passerby cunning enough to solve the cryptic riddles of the mercurial leprechaun who guards the pot. You're pretty good at riddles. Also, gold is cooler than beans. You can't have both. You can take your chances with the leprechaun or grab the beans. Deal or no deal?

What would YOU do?

I hate feeling like my particular brand of skills is utterly worthless in the world of the business bottom line. This job hunt, ultimately, feels like a lot of middle-aged men in suits laughing at me. Or looking...bemused. While smoking giant cigars and drinking scotch. Or, let's be honest, just ignoring my resume altogether.

So the moral of the story is....take the beans? Or...keep truckin', tiger? Something like that, I guess. I, however--always the delusional optimistic--have decided to hold out for a genie.