How Bios Are Terrorizing Me

Unfortunately the following is probably true: I am most likely headlong into a quarter-life career/how I spend the daytime hours/what am I really good at/too much focus on myself crisis. I’m going to borrow my least favorite science-perverting tactic of the religious right and argue that the former is true because I can’t totally disprove it. I’m hoping this will feel empowering to use their tools for my own ends. So far just re-reading the last few sentences makes me more angry. But this general malaise is part of why I started what I have dreaded for months, maybe even a year—years would be pushing it. I have resumed the task of writing my resume.

I think it’s probably all part of the quarter-life crisis thing, but on some days it’s because my job makes me insane. My rage toward piss-poor health policies, the ridonkulous lobs from the opposition on a huge range of what could be seemingly simple problems, and my intermittent inability to laugh at the bitter irony of this cockamamie reproductive rights “movement”—I could go on. So sometimes the only thing that will drive me back to my desk chair to reswivel my computer monitor and re-jigger my keyboard drawer is to try to write my resume.

I had a resume once. It’s in the same folder as my bio. They both live in the "embarrassment" folder in my file crate (I’m not really sophisticated or organized enough for a file cabinet yet). No, to be perfectly honest, I don’t have a bio, so please stop emailing me asking, “ok, we're all set! oh, and whenever you get a chance, could you just send over your bio? thx!” Every time I have to produce one for a foundation report or a speaking engagement, I quickly write something without taking any breaths and then go for a walk to walk off the shame.

For instance, last week I spoke on a panel with a doctor and a lawyer. Just us three professionals doing what we do. The doctor’s bio literally took 7 minutes, and included positions at no less than three major hospitals, positions on advisory boards, published journal articles, medical directorships at clinics across the city, and then I stopped listening because I can only really listen to four acronyms per bio. Tops. Note to biowriters, please go easy on the acronyms. Then came the lawyer, who, before going to a tip-top ship-shape law school, had done extensive advocacy work to develop groundbreaking models in harm reduction and substance abuse counseling. The worst part was that I let a colleague write my bio for that night, and unfortunately, the moderator read all our bios consecutively to “get it out of the way so that we can really dive into the presentations and have time for provocative discussion!” But this format only made me sound more lame.

Here’s a good overview version of my bio with my inserted neurotic comments which help explain why this task is more difficult for me than anyone else I've spoken to thus far on Planet Earth: I went to college (although sometimes I take that out because it is assumed I went to college (!) and saying so only highlights the fact that I haven’t gone to graduate school—eek); then I got a job where I have tried my best to excel (but instead languished?) for over three years (where there have been highs and lows and whenever I am asked to write one of these effing descriptions, I second guess all of my life’s choices…all of them).

I suck at resume-writing for the same reasons that I suck at writing my bio: I can’t stand to talk about myself with action-verbs without sarcasm or self-deprecation. Sometimes I really want to write my resume the way I truly envision it—but that would only communicate to a potential employer that I’m insane or way too big for my britches. Or it would get me a job working some place that would ultimately make me sad--sad about the world and sad about me. More sad about me. Which is generally why I decide that whatever job frustration I’m experiencing is nothing compared to the trouble of resuming my resume-writing. I think that’s the primary reason why I’m still in the same job 3 ½ years post-graduation. A general aversion to having to face my resume.