Crapplications

Crapplication

[cr-ap-li-key-shuh ]

Noun

1. The form through which one can apply for a minimum wage job, particularly when one is overqualified for minimum wage work in theory but not in actuality.

My best friend coined this word a few days ago when we were lamenting our post-graduation job prospects. It took me approximately three days to realize that firstly, there are no real jobs in Buffalo for people without real professional experience, and secondly, the thought of establishing my career in Buffalo fills me with deep and unquenchable despair. These two realizations led me to formulate my current life plan.

Make as much money as possible and leave Buffalo ASAP.

Sadly (for Buffalo) I’m not the only Buffalo grad, much less English grad, feeling this way. Like a sinking war ship, Buffalo grads are swarming out of the city like rats to avoid drowning in the treacherous job pool. And yet, leaving Buffalo still requires great financial sacrifice. This creates a horrible, vicious circle of joblessness and despair that looks something like this:

However, there is one way out of this prophecy of doom, and that is through the crapplication. Though competition for minimum wage jobs is fierce, since highschoolers and laid off adults alike struggle for even this meager salary, college grads still have a chance. It may be slim, yet it is there. This alone holds the seductive promise of wild fantasies and unimaginable adventures in my bountiful future.

You know, once I save enough money to start my real adult life at thirty.

But, I’ve also realized something important. The circumstances under which ones applies and works a minimum wage job has a great impact on other people’s perceptions of your less-than-spectacular career.

For example, I live at home. I also work at a fish market, and recently applied to Victoria’s Secret. The implications of this are not so great for me. The very fact that I could potentially count clams one day and sell women’s underwear the next is very disturbing for everyone, including myself. Throw in the fact that I live at home, and the entire affair seems abnormal, strange. Not right. Like I must be plotting something insidious and unspeakable twisted that involves a basement. It probably involves lotion somehow. The giant old SUV I inherited from my father suddenly looks like a murderous hearse. I lure children inside it pretending it’s the Hogwart’s Express.

But if we change several variables in this equation, suddenly the whole thing seems a lot less creepy and much more reasonable. For example, if I happened to be working in the above jobs whilst living in a studio apartment with three other people, maybe even riding a bike to and from my respective jobs instead of driving the creepy murder van, all of a sudden I become a young intellectual trying to make it.

Wait a second.

Did I just describe a hipster?

Shit.