Overpaid & Overqualified

A few of you have inquired about my mental status since I started writing these blogs.  Aside from the fact I don't have a job, I am spectacular.  Trust me, I'm enjoying my time off. I really just started doing this to stay sharp, make myself more visible and to answer a few common questions about what it's like to be unemployed.  And that leads me to today's topic.

Everyone has had a job or three at some point in life that really makes them laugh when they look back now.  Usually it was because you were trying to earn extra cash in high school, pay the college bills or just trying to stay afloat until that first "real" job came along.

I've had some great ones.  I delivered pizzas.  I painted houses.  I delivered and installed pool tables, foosball tables and other games, usually at really big homes.  I was a landscaper.  I was a baseball coach.  All are perfectly legitimate, honorable and honest professions and I really enjoyed each job at the time.  But they weren't careers. They were paychecks.  Big difference.  I didn't pay an arm and a leg for a college education to be delivering pizzas full time.  I was trying to make money while trying to break into the TV biz.

Here I am.... more than a decade after I finally landed that first TV gig.  I have a resume lots of people in the biz would kill for.  I made a name for myself as a producer in NYC and DC- 5 good years in each town.  I worked at a few of the highest profile stations in the country. I worked with Chuck and Sue (which by the way, was my goal in college).  And it's getting me absolutely nowhere.

You see... when I was working as a pizza guy, a house painter, a pool table installer, a landscaper and a baseball coach... I was repeatedly told by potential employers that they couldn't hire me without any real experience.  10 years later... I'm now being told i have TOO MUCH EXPERIENCE.  Oh the irony.  

Yes... I am 31 years old... and overpaid and overqualified.

This is an actual line from an email I recently got back from a potential employer... slightly edited to hide where it's from:

"... your resume is fantastic. However we're not looking for any help... that level at this moment.  I wish I had a better answer for you."

Hey, I give the guy a ton of credit for being honest with me.  Most places just simply don't reply, as any of my unemployed friends will tell you.  But what this email really made me start thinking about... if I'm having this much trouble, I can only imagine what my friends with 10 or 20 years more experience than me must be going through.

Like I said before, this will eventually work itself out.  What goes down, must come back up... or something like that.  But until then, if anybody knows of a pizza place or pool table store looking for help, please let me know.  I think I have just the right amount of experience.