Second List // August 2024
Applying for Jobs in Modernity's Wasteland
Welcome to Issue #2 of Against Listlessness, a monthly newsletter in which I attempt to make sense of my life through the practice of listmaking. This month I chronicle some of the more absurd events that have comprised my job search over the past 10.5 months. It is not lost on me that the same time frame applies to a cumulative atrocity index in Gaza that has become practically stupefying. I am spiritually and psychologically shattered by what is happening and continues to happen in Palestine - each week I think it cannot get worse, Arendt’s Banality of Evil, and then it does, the nadir of human morality receding farther and farther in collectively traumatic and acutely horrific ways that I fear we, as a species, will never recover from.
If you too are shattered and have not subscribed to this newsletter, please do, so that I may redistribute some funds for you! I do not claim that my monthly musings are worth $10 in-and-of themselves; they merely serve as a device to move some money around using a practice (writing) that I probably ought to be doing more of anyways. Last month we raised many hundreds of dollars and this month we can do more, particularly if everyone who subscribed last month for Free upgrades to Paid! (Note: you’ll only be able to read this month’s newsletter in its entirety if you do. Another, more terrible note: in my last post I said that we were raising funds to help get people out of Gaza, but dear reader there are no ways out of Gaza, the Rafah crossing has been closed for many weeks, and so the funds have been redirected to the Refaat Alareer Camp to help people in Gaza simply improve their chances of survival on a daily basis.)
If you are not shattered, may I suggest therapy?? And/or getting your news from a more reputable international source?? I see shattering as the only reasonable response to these times. This month we potty trained here in our home meaning that my toddler spent entire days naked and housebound, which required his parents to generate a number of domestic enrichment and entertainment activities lest the day descend into torpor and/or a weird toddler-led surrealist long-form improv marathon. One of our activities was breaking open some geodes in the backyard from a Nat Geo kit we bought at Michaels – he put on little safety goggles, stuffed a rock in a gym sock, and tapped it with a hammer three magical times. Voilá – the rock emerged in shards, one of which was large enough to serve as the perfect little diorama amphitheatre to showcase a landscape of extraordinarily delicate, shimmering, sumptuous little crystals. May the shattering we undergo during these times crack us open to reveal some of the secret unknown shiny powerful wonders we contain within.
Speaking of magic: on Halloween night last year, Amrit and Lily and I held a ceremony in the living room of a tiny sublet apartment on the Lower East Side of New York City. We lit candles, ate honey that Lily had infused with magical herbs, pulled tarot cards, and generally witched out as the three of us are wont to do when we are together. My central inquiry for the tarot was whether or not I should return to my job in LA, teaching part-time at the University, or pursue other opportunities entirely. The tarot’s answer was very clear: I should do a secret third thing instead. But what?!
Start a business? Write a Substack? Write a memoir? Perhaps dance, sing, attempt to recover and reintegrate the parts of self that had become so fragmented (uh oh, there’s the idea of shattering again, is it emerging as an unintended theme?! I really don’t understand how good writing works on a technical level, like, at all) over the course of my first two years postpartum, as I traveled back and forth and back and forth and back across the country until I became nearly unrecognizable to myself. These all sounded like nice ideas, but not necessarily income-generating, which would be a paramount consideration seeing as Paramount+ with Showtime* had cancelled Ewen’s show just four short months prior. We were gonna need money. I awoke the next morning and, like a responsible adult person, began applying for jobs in LA.
(*if a protracted strike on behalf of multiple unions was not enough of an indicator of the dumpster-fire status of the film and television industry, then perhaps this Frankenstein of studio-network nomencluature will suffice. What a mess.)
What follows is a partial list of jobs that I ended up applying and interviewing for. The full list is about three times as long and reading it inspires a sense of bewildered awe at the elasticity of identity gymnastics I was able to execute over that span of time, shapeshifting my selfhood into a potentially good-on-paper fit for a range of jobs that boggles the mind in their randomness and scope. This experience was not, to say the least, good for my mental health, but I’m proud to have done it and only slightly nauseated to hear myself earnestly say that I “learned a lot”.
Disclaimer: I WILL NOT be writing a(nother) diatribe about the irreconcilability of mothering labor and paid labor! Not because it isn’t the essay I would rather be writing: it IS the essay I would rather be writing, it’s the fucking essay that every mother I know would rather be writing, the one we co-write every time we hop on a phone call / face time / marco polo / group text with one another, it’s the fundamental conversation of our godforsaken time but I will not I repeat WILL NOT be writing that essay today because this Substack is about lists, and that conversation does not take the shape of a list but rather a paradox, an ouroborous, a tragic farce, a circle that can’t be squared, a vortex in which logic cannibalizes itself. The math of mothering and working just never maths.
Instead I’m going to write a list of the jobs that I, an accomplished and capable and consummately professional 40 year old woman with a doctoral degree and decades of relatively impressive achievements in her field, have applied to over the past ten months. All anecdotes are 100% true. It’s hell out here.
1. Youth Programs Specialist at a nonprofit in LA that does arts & cultural organizing around land stewardship.
What I thought would happen:
This job will be a walk in the park, almost literally. The office is mere blocks away from our house in LA – I can ride my bike there! And the job description is my bread-and-butter: design and run a little youth arts and activism summer program, oversee a little school outreach, expand into the environmental justice space which I’ve wanted to do anyways, and still have time in the week left over to be the present parent that I want to be in the world. Plus, I know the Executive Director from when we used to teach together on faculty at UCLA! Here, I’ll send her a warm little message right now… oh look! She wrote back, with equivalent fondness! I’ll even bite the bullet and use some AI software to format my resume all cute. A walk in the park indeed.
What actually happened:
I did not even get a call. Not. Even. A. Call. Months later, when Ewen and I Googled the name of the person who actually ended up getting the job, the first search result that popped up was the name and photo of a 24 year old woman featured at the top of a list titled, I shit you not, The Most Coachella People at Coachella. She was the person who got the job. You cannot make this stuff up.
2. Arts Education Manager at a little educational theater with whom I have collaborated many times over the years.
What I thought would happen:
Getting this job will be a walk in the park. The Artistic Director and I used to always talk about working together back when we were both contractors for LA County, and now here it is! The perfect opportunity. I’ll coordinate some school programs, manage a staff of teaching artists, still have time in the week left over to be the present parent that I want to be in the world, and maybe in a few years when she retires I’ll take over as AD. Here, I’ll send her a warm little message right now… oh look! She wrote back, with equivalent fondness! I’ll even wear my second-hand Yves Saint Laurent blazer to the interview. A walk in the park indeed.
What actually happened:
My interview was not with the Artistic Director but rather the Executive Director, who I believe is the Artistic Director’s husband though maybe they are simply functional beards for one another? Regardless, this white man from Kansas, with whom I have interacted cordially for many years, escorts me into the least COVID-safe glass bubble of an office I’ve ever seen, pulls up my resumé as though for the first time, reads that I have just obtained a doctorate in Social Justice Leadership for Educational and Professional Practice, and immediately proceeds to… what is the verb… Lecture? Mansplain? Expound? regarding his grave misgivings about the quote Social Justice Movement unquote. According to this man, trans people (including several young people who have been through his educational theatre program) will regret their gender transition, Generation Z (who comprises the majority of his teaching artist workforce) are lazy and entitled and want to get paid without having to work, and woke culture has singlehandedly destroyed the Los Angeles theatre scene due to the DEI initiatives put forth in the aftermath of the racial justice reckoning of 2020. I rescind my application on the spot and instead propose through gritted teeth that he hire me at my consulting rate to help the organization manage what seems to be several HR crises occurring at the same time (but is really just one, namely him) and then rescind that offer as well and run for the hills. SHUDDER.
3. Assistant Professor of Theater for Social Change at a California university.
What I thought would happen:
OK, OK, I swore to myself (and my friends, and my husband, and my dissertation advisor) that I would never again want let alone go for a full-time job in academia, but everyone who reads this job description seems to think it is so me and so I guess I’m gonna go for it?! It’s a full-time professorship several cities away so I almost certainly will not have time to be the present parent that I want to be in the world, but maybe years from now Leo will see me for the incredible accomplished brilliant scholarly professional that I am and the regard and admiration of my child will be worth the lost time with him?! Also, maybe years from now I will qualify for public service loan forgiveness! I can get tenure! I can listen to podcasts on my commute! What theatre games will I lead for my teaching demo? What wardrobe pieces do I need to acquire to complete my professorial look? Do I even like theatre anymore!? Don’t ask these questions, just hustle like hell to get the CV, the Teaching Philosophy, the Student Success Statement, the syllabi examples, the letters of reference, and the cover letter in by the deadline and then spend the next two months paranoiacally checking the phone every five minutes to see if you’ve gotten a text from your toxic manipulative ex that you swore you broke up with for good oops I mean an interview offer from this prestigious university job.
What actually happened:
I did get an interview offer, agonized about what to wear, organized my notes within an inch of my life, had an exceptionally lovely conversation with a Zoom room full of potential colleagues - except for one member of the search committee, who was conspicuously absent - and even bought tickets to go out to the campus the following week to see one of the department’s stage productions. And then, get this: Out of the dozens of seats in this the Blackbox theatre, and the many nights of the run of this particular play, the one member of the search committee who had not been at my interview was seated right next to me. I shifted awkwardly throughout the show, wondering whether she had recognized me, and immediately after curtain call turned to her to introduce myself. She apologized for not having been able to make it to my interview, and then apologized again for wearing a mask(?!) “I’m really sick,” she said. “It’s my first year on faculty and they have me teaching three classes, directing two shows, plus I’m on your committee, I’m on another committee, and I think my body just can’t handle it. It’s too much. I’ve been sick for weeks. Anyways, lovely to meet you. Gotta go!”
After that extraordinary gift-from-the-heavens of a cautionary tale, I did not pursue them and they did not pursue me and about that I say THANK YOU GOD. Rejection is the Universe’s Protection. Epilogue: As far as a can surmise from their website, the job was a phantom: the position did not end up ever even existing and they hired no one. WTF.
4. Curator of Educational Programming for a museum on a community college campus.
Listen. I will tell you what happened. What happened is that last Friday I spent a luxurious morning, while my husband was at my kid’s dentist appointment, eating quiche by myself at a nice LA café and writing in excruciatingly specific detail about every one of the inexplicably byzantine twists and turns and administrative bureaucratic fuckeries that comprised my months-long multi-interview process with this place – literal pages and pages of writing. And then, a few days later, I discovered something wonky with my computer’s autosave and all of that writing was lost. Ewen spent quite some time attempting to sleuth its digital whereabouts but to no avail, and I tell you what: I ain’t even mad! I don’t need to put that negative vibe out into the world! So what if Irene (not her real name) from the personnel department uses a font so florid as to be essentially unintelligible and not even a working usage of the conventions of American English punctuation? So what if my first interview was not an interview but an “exam” proctored by two lovely and pitiable adjunct professors so clearly desperate for one more addition to their tenure portfolios that they volunteered to spend their morning mustering not even the vaguest modicum of enthusiasm to ask me a series of rote questions about a job they are not involved in at all whatsoever? So what if the fucking chair at my in-person interview was broken and lowered so far down as to place me a full head’s heighth below everyone else sitting and staring at me around the sterile and ominous conference table? I could go on, but only at my own peril, since the gods of my career have clearly deemed this ridiculous experience unworthy of the written word and thus smited (smote?) my account of it from the digital realm. What I will say is A. The white walls of museums have classically inspired in me a sort of narcolepsy reflex so what was I thinking applying for this job anyways? (Outfits, that’s what. Big print dresses and chunky jewelry and maybe even finally getting the glasses I’ve needed for years, also chunky with big bold frames. It’s the outfits I’m in it for, truly.) B. This application process began in January and did not resolve until June and was the biggest goddamn waste of my time in seventeen different ways and goddess bless anyone who has the patience to be employed by the Daedalus’ labyrinth known as the community college system. C. As far as I can surmise from their website, this job was also a phantom: the position did not end up ever even existing and they hired no one. WTF.
5. Professional Learning Manager for a dance education non profit in the Bay Area
What I thought would happen:
I will live in LA and work in the Bay. How hard can it be?
What actually happened:
A lovely interview of deep simpatico and mutual regard and fondness up until the moment when they asked if I had any questions and I said Tell me about the genesis of the position? And they said Well we’ve had someone in the role for awhile but they are fully remote and we just bought a new building so we really need someone onsite. And I said Ah, I’m not sure if this was evident in my resume, but… I live in LA?
6. Facilitator for nonprofit music-therapy-for-college-students organization
What I thought would happen:
This will be a chill little supplemental income stream side gig. They will send me to campuses around California and I will run their little workshops and they will PAY me to stay in a HOTEL where I, devoted mother, exceptional caretaker of my child and family, will FaceTime my kid at bedtime and then eat takeout in bed and watch weird movies and fall asleep early and stay asleep late and it will be glorious and maybe, just maybe, these occasional respites from lifting a 30 pound person all the livelong day will somehow restore my back health to the point where I no longer injure it like I did today from casually tossing a pair of underwear into a laundry basket.
What did happen:
A lovely interview, a lovely second interview, a lovely offer of employment, a lovely promise of a contract forthcoming, and then an email from the CEO requesting a Zoom meeting because of “some questions regarding AB 5 that I'd like to discuss with you before proceeding with anything.” Reader, I will not bore you with the specifics of California labor law but suffice to say I am a nerd about California labor law and specifically know a hell of a lot about AB-5, so much so that in my second interview I had mentioned that they would probably want to hire me through my small business, Laurel Butler Consulting LLC, rather than as an independent contractor, in order to be in compliance via the AB-5 business-to-business exemption. SO boring! But suddenly there I am, in a Zoom meeting, dispensing legal advice to this guy that I have no business dispensing but also realizing about halfway through that UM HOLD ON: I am acting in a very Laurel Butler Consulting capacity. In fact this uncannily resembles the very definition of consulting, except for the fact that I am somehow giving this advice away for free?! This was over two months ago. Last I heard they would still like to offer me a contract, but things are “still up in the air with AB-5.” Honestly: I should send them an invoice.
7. Director of Early Childhood Programs at a music school.
What I thought would happen:
I will become, essentially, the next Raffi.
What did happen:
A lovely interview that inspired so much creative thinking and fervent note-book brainstorming on my behalf that I quickly realized that instead of this job I would actually rather just produce and star in an early-night variety stage show for parents and their young children. Watch out for Dr. Butler and Boopy-the-Puppet’s Magic Power Family Hour coming in 2025! Raffi aspirations continue unabated.
8. Arts Education Specialist for the Entertainment Community Fund.
What I thought would happen:
This is the job I’m going to get. It’s perfectly aligned with my skills, it’s part-time so I’ll still be able to teach my University class and manage my consulting practice and take my kid to swim lessons in the afternoon, and it’s hybrid so once a week I can wear OUTFITS and commute to the fancy SAG-AFTRA building on Wilshire and the rest of the week I can wear my athleisure and use my own bathroom and eavesdrop on my kid while he plays with his dad in the yard.
What did happen:
This is the job I got. It’s perfectly aligned with my skills, it’s part-time so I’m still be able to teach my University class and manage my consulting practice and take my kid to swim lessons in the afternoon, and it’s hybrid so once a week I wear OUTFITS and commute to the fancy SAG-AFTRA building on Wilshire and the rest of the week I wear my athleisure and use my own bathroom and eavesdrop my kid while he plays with his dad in the yard. I have a job, by God, and it is fine.
Yes, I probably deserve better: the job does not pay nearly enough, come January we will lose our health insurance, and the day-to-day is full of all manner of nonprofit mishegoss that would have driven former versions of Laurel up the absolute wall. But I am in my 40’s now, and I have the zen to prove it. I also have the love of my life doing dishes downstairs, a jackpot of a kid asleep in his room, a hundred beautiful extraordinary friends orbiting around me at all times, a fridge full of food, and thus I am rich. I am so goddamn lucky it brings me to my knees. Last weekend we went camping with the preschool community that we are a part of, and it was indescribably fun. At the end of the first day we put Leo to sleep in the tent, and then opened the flap and walked outside and heard a couple of the other children wailing from their own tents, most likely average toddler bedtime drama, nothing consequential. But my head spun with a dizzy dissociation: I am here, in a camp, full of tents, children are crying. It lasted only a few minutes, but the feeling was chilling and unshakeable. A few days later, reading the syllabus aloud to my class on the first day back at the University, I mentioned that I live on the East Side and have a toddler and so, when class ends at 6:30, I will be hopping right in my car to make it back home by bedtime. “The only exception,” I said, “is if police brutality is happening on campus, in which case this classroom immediately becomes a safe zone for students to organize.” Sometimes I can’t believe the things that are said, and meant, in these times, but here I am saying them and meaning them. My capacity is preciously small these days, and nothing is ever enough. The best I can do is a little of everything. If securing this modest job can enable me to be less concerned with my own precarity and instead put more effort towards the important things, like camping with my kid, or breaking open gemstones with my kid, or watching Yo Yo Ma and Bobby McFerrin over breakfast with my kid, or my kid lifting the little order number at the café like a flag and proclaiming “Free Palestine,” or investing some of my time and energy towards the movement to end this hellacious genocide somehow - then maybe it is the right job for me.
