Make Me (Editing)

two (edited)

"I give up!" I groaned, annoyed by my fruitless search for meaningful employment, or any employment for that matter. By this point, I didn't even care.

After two full weeks of searching, I'd managed to secure myself a job at a quaint little café, which had its charms but was definitely not what I was hoping for longer term.

One (dare I say) 'benefit' of the situation was that we'd been able to set ourselves up quite nicely in our apartment in our ample free time. The space wasn't quite finished yet, but the major furniture pieces; a couch that doubled as a king bed, a coffee table, a small dining table and a couple of chairs; had been added, and a TV mounted on the wall. Becca had also insisted on us getting a number of plants. Yep, real plants. I was much more keen on the plastic stuff that I couldn't be responsible for killing, but she assured me that she would keep them going strong and I could simply enjoy them as a sort of decoration. Perhaps my favourite part of the place was the little polaroid wall we'd created, with pictures we had taken of friends and family before we'd left. It was a simple reminder of home, which I definitely appreciated.

We'd also eventually managed to eradicate the musty smell which had originally overwhelmed our senses. The apartment now smelt like coffee, due to the sheer number of them I'd consumed to help me get through the never-ending job hunt.

I'd tried everything. Although I was highly qualified in business marketing and design, I'd now widened my searches to a point where I was getting suggestions that weren't even business-related. I still dreamed of working as a marketing director, or something along those lines, but with my extremely limited industry experience, it was looking as though my only option would be to get a random position in a random company, then work my way up.

As I scrolled through potential companies, the names all started to blur. Gavin Incorporated. Grey's Industries. Giovanni and Co., and the roles themselves ranged from personal assistant to IT support. Nothing really jumped out at me, and I was literally going insane.

There was, however, another way. Or at least someone I could call to give me some guidance. My boyfriend Marcus was a businessman himself. It was actually the reason we'd met; he was a guest lecturer at my university for a semester, a real life example of how people could quickly make a name for themselves in the business world, as he'd graduated just a year before that. He had a lot of contacts. And although I would never use him to get myself work, I could at least give him a list of options and hear what he had to say.

"How's it going, Al?" his smooth voice spoke through my phone. God I missed him, and had to remind myself that in just four weeks I would be seeing him again.

I explained the situation, listing the names of some companies, and the roles that they were offering. So far, none of the options were really appealing to him either.

"Ummm," I scrolled further down on my laptop. "There are a couple of positions that look alright at Gray's Cons-"

"Nope." He cut me off firmly, before I could even finish telling him the name of the company. "Definitely not worth it."

"What's wrong with them?" I asked curiously. I loved hearing about the beef between businesses. We'd even learnt about business rivalry at university, like it was a legit unit with a written exam.

"Well for starters, the company's a major rival of ours; like they copied a lot of our strategies and stole a bunch of clients and stuff," he explained. "And the boss is an idiot."