The Curse of My Hometown

At my bank job I am allowed an hour of silly internet time a day. I rarely use that hour because 1.Though we are a slow branch there is only so much of People.com one can handle and 2. I have access to internet news free and clear. I spend a bit of time on the culture pages, read some of the more tasteful news blogs, check out the Guardian online (the sheer enormity of the site can keep me going for days) but out of habit, and perhaps ease of spelling, I always start my day on CNN.com. Yesterday, I made the mistake of ending it there.

I have to clarify this upfront my outrage and hurt have nothing to do with CNN, they were just creating a top ten type list and it so happened to pique my interest, I don't hold CNN responsible for my heartbreak.

I'm clicking through links and more links and end up here. The article is a wonderful place to read and dream, and there are pictures to aid me in this endeavor. I really wanted to know where the jobs are, and where I need to be to find these jobs. I clicked next after the first slide and nearly cried. Number two:Loudoun County.

I live there. I live here! I have for the majority of my twenty-three years. Most of my jobs have been in Loudoun County. All of my jobs in Loudoun County have been menial (with the exception of my internship at Weider History Group, that was intellectually stimulating, it was fun, it was professional) mindless jobs. I've worked at the outlet mall in Leesburg for nearly seven years. I've worked in labs and banks and doctor's offices for little pay and usually no benefits.

Before you get too agitated about the above point you need to know that for the last, well, no less than five years, Loudoun County has been either the first or second richest county per capita. So, yes, I'm jaded about making $8.51 an hour helping women who claim an income of $250000 a year only to be declined for a credit card that starts with a $250 limit.

Back to the living in the second best place to find a job. Verizon, Aol, and some other large tech companies are headquartered here. Verizon is having union troubles right now. Makes me wary of even considering working there, though I'm not qualified for anything. Aol is only anything anymore because it acquired Huffington Post recently and with that they acquired higher standards when it comes to experience.

Loudoun County is still a bit wild around the edges, my neighbors have cows. I just got bumped from a farm sitting gig while the farmers, a nurse and a federal law enforcement agent, are on vacation, they're Virginia Tech-student of a son is leasing himself to other farmers to make a bit of cash before heading back to school. Twenty miles east is where creepy suburbia begins, and not all Starbucks and WholeFoods, just white people, houses and expensive cars to go with credit debt and teeny-bopper clothes on the forty-somethings. Suburbia is a new invention, my parents moved to Loudoun County so that my father could help draft the plans for that evil.

So I'm in the right place. I have been applying to jobs and beseeching people to help me. So what if I lived in Loudoun County when people ate the chickens from their backyards. So what if my childhood friends were very successful in 4-H. I have the education. I have some of the experience. And the places I've lived while not living in Loudoun County have been dreams come true. London, New York, Harrisonburg. Dreams lived, and I can't find a job in my hometown.