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The financial pressure of my improvement campaign created new problems at home. Interview clothes, gas money for driving to different cities, textbooks, and tuition fees strained our already tight budget. David started questioning every purchase, asking if new professional outfits were really necessary when I wasn’t getting hired anyway.
“Maybe we should take a break from all this,” he suggested after reviewing our credit card statements. “You’re spending more money trying to get jobs than you’d earn in the first few months.”
The community college library became my refuge from both family criticism and financial stress. I’d sit in quiet corners surrounded by business textbooks and career development guides, trying to absorb knowledge that might make me worthy of professional consideration. Other students would form study groups, but I remained isolated, too embarrassed about my background to seek academic partnerships.
My grades were excellent, proving I had the intelligence Margaret claimed I lacked. Professor Martinez praised my written assignments and asked me to share my customer service insights with the class. For three hours each week, I felt valued and capable, but those feelings evaporated the moment I returned home to face family disapproval.
The spring semester brought advanced business communication and my first presentation assignment. Standing in front of the class, explaining customer relationship management principles I’d learned through restaurant work, I felt confident and knowledgeable. My classmates asked thoughtful questions and seemed genuinely interested in my practical experience.
That confidence lasted until I shared my academic success with David over dinner.
“That’s great,” he said absently, scrolling through his phone. “Maybe Margaret will be impressed when you finish the program.”
His response reduced my achievement to ammunition in the ongoing war for his mother’s approval rather than recognizing my personal growth.
The semester ended with strong grades and renewed hope, but job applications continued yielding the same rejections. Insufficient experience. Looking for candidates with degree completion. Position requires corporate background.
Each email reinforced the message that education alone wouldn’t bridge the gap between my current reality and their expectations.
“Community college is a good start,” she said when David mentioned my grades, “though real career advancement usually requires proper university education.”
Even my success became evidence of my continued inadequacy in her relentless campaign to prove I wasn’t good enough for her son.
Summer arrived with my determination intact. Despite Margaret’s dismissive comments about community college, I created spreadsheets to track my job applications, color-coding them by status and follow-up dates. Green for submitted, yellow for pending responses, red for rejections. Within three weeks, my screen was overwhelmed with red cells, each one representing another door that had slammed shut.
The rejection from Pinnacle Marketing came with particular sting. I’d driven forty-five minutes for an interview with their human resources director, wearing a blazer I’d bought specifically for the occasion. The woman glanced at my resume, asked two questions about my restaurant experience, then spent the remaining ten minutes explaining why they needed someone with a traditional business background.
“Your customer service skills are admirable,” she said with practiced politeness, “but this position requires strategic thinking and analytical capabilities that come from corporate experience.”
She might as well have told me that waitresses couldn’t think properly.
I thanked her for her time and walked back to my car, feeling smaller than when I’d arrived.
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