Maybe it’s the inevitable result of realizing I’ve been unemployed for five months now. Or maybe it’s that comment from last week about job postings as smoke screens for referral-hiring that I just can’t get out of my head. But I’ve hit the point at which this job search process not only feels like a colossal waste of time, but is beginning to chip here and there at the edges of self-worth.

Last week I spent 10 hours applying to positions online. Eight hours troubleshooting the code to import twitter to a website. Five attending a networking event. Three on a web build proposal.

Late on Friday afternoon, just because it was bugging me, I spent fifteen minutes figuring out how to change our Xbox 360 network from “moderate” to “open’.

Guess which one those efforts gave me a single, tangible result? Yeah. Let’s just say the satisfaction I got that night out of the fact that I could stick a light grenade on my friend’s Halo avatar face for the first time in eight months was way, way, WAY out of proportion. But by God, I fixed it. I. FIXED. IT.

By Sunday night I was visiting the Land of Self Doubt for the forty-eighth time this year; re-evaluating my life choices with my mother over the phone. “I’m 37 years old. What have I done with myself? What have I accomplished?”

“Everyone’s got this problem. It’s a national problem, hon.” she said. “Your cousin can’t find a job, either. A wife and two kids, he says he’s so sick of hearing those two little words: Over. Qualified.”

“I hear it from my readers, too, Mom,” I said, “and it’s horrible. There are so many folks worse off than me. I know it. But that’s not what I mean.”

In my mind, this is what I see: My husband, the manager. The reason voice mail works for hundreds of thousands of people every day. My uncle, the family lawyer. He does it to protect kids. Kids like his. My mom, the nurse. Her bad days mean someone died. My aunt, the teacher. She’s given knowledge to thousands. My grandfather, the pilot, the engineer. My grandmother, the genealogist. Both of whom gave us freedom, structure and history.

Then there’s me. I was a CSR. I was a project manager. I was an event planner. I am a writer, a photographer, a web and print designer. The things I’ve made are as lasting and tangible and sometimes, as meaningful, as clouds.

Which is what it feels like I’m chasing right now.

Sitting at my laptop today, looking at the blaring screen, I just can’t bring myself to spend another minute registering another account to apply for a job where the applicants were never seriously meant to be considered. The thought of employers posting positions just to look legitimate when they fill it with someone they had in mind all along – well, it makes me want to write a cover letter that goes a little like this:

Dear Prospective Employer,

I would like to apply for this position because I actually have the exact skills you’re looking for. You should be aware that I obliterate every goal and every target anyone has ever given me, and I carry extra bottle rockets in my pockets for days when you’ve gotten used to my awesomeness or when the break room runs out of coffee.

However, I’m not going to apply. I’m going to skip your ridiculously over-worded ad, your 15 page online registration and take my One Woman Army of Ridiculous Results somewhere else. Because I believe that if I’m going to make the effort to jump through your all hoops and fill in all your blanks, YOU should make the effort to actually read and consider my resume.

The market today may totally be in your favor, but I’m nobody’s monkey. And frankly, neither are the thousands of other people out here just like me. So quit wasting our time (which is just as valuable) and only post positions IF YOU ACTUALLY WANT RESUMES FOR THEM.

In the meantime, we’ll be out here building a better wheel – fighting a different attack for the job that deserves us.

Toodles.

Do you think THAT one might get read?