After four rounds of interviews, I anxiously await the singular email that will propel my career into the stratosphere (and a raise that will loosen the inflation chokehold on every goddamn purchase). In the last few dragged-out, gruelling days, it only seems like the ghouls of my inbox care to emerge from my countless unreads.
A Gmail notification flashes on my iPhone and it’s another email from Gap. It’s always fucking Gap. “Hey! We saw you looking at these jeans. What if they’re 5% off now?” Those jeans have stayed in the cart for a reason; it’s because my attention was redirected to an Instagram ad and I impulse bought a $700 Vitamix and I'm too lazy to spend $15 on a bag of frozen mixed berries. Those jeans are NEVER leaving the cart.
I embark on a 10-mile attempt to outrun my stress, and another preview appears. “Hey Sam! It’s Greg…” This could be a hiring manager! Unfortunately, it’s Greg from the alumni association. "Hoping you could donate.” The audacity of alumni emails asking for a donation to build a new campus library named after some fast food exec who wants to grind migrant children into Taco Bell meat. What did you do with the tens of thousands of dollars I already gave you?
In a relaxing shower, gentle steam wafts around me. A faint vibration interrupts. I leap to my phone without any concern of slipping on a soapy floor and snapping my neck, which may be a more humiliating bathroom death than an autoerotic asphyxiation accident. A Gmail banner is situated in the middle of my screen, and my face is too wet and my camera is too foggy for the Face ID to unveil the teaser text. I frantically type my password. I’m sick.
It’s Joe Biden with an email written like I’m being drafted to an intergalactic war in a sci-fi movie. “Sophie, more than ever we need you.” No one needs me and that’s the problem. "Another $5 donation to the DNC and we can save democracy.” The fate of America is not in my hands—I have lit multiple toasters on fire trying to make a PB&J.
The Gmail logo is an overlooked source of PTSD.
I close my eyes to take several deep breaths. A blissful moment of joy arrives and I disassociate from my surroundings. Then, a flash. It’s a rejection.