“What you do? I could never, ever do.” That is a phrase I hear from a friend of mine, every single time we discuss what I do for…well, it’s not quite a living, what I’ve chosen to do with my workaday life. Let’s just say that the path I’ve chosen occasionally drops coins in the piggy bank.  What bothers my friend about my career choice most is the rejection that I constantly face. As a freelance creative multi-hyphenate (writer-actress-lifestyle model-producer-director), I face an awful lot of rejection. But, to be perfectly honest with you — I’ve had a ton of that in the real world. The most stinging slings from “family.” At least on auditions and with query letters/emails the emotional eyerolls come from total strangers. I can handle that.

With the changing tide of more women flexing their muscles to work in the creative world, I’m hoping they’ll bring with them a soft touch in some areas. For example, I would like to think that every woman who has ever suffered the heartache of not hearing from a date will take that into consideration when approached about a job where they’re in charge of the hiring. The whole “Why didn’t he call me?” is one aspect of the audition world I despise. Auditions and interviews are no different than a date! Think about it: You show up, bright-eyed, teeth and hair brushed, dressed your best and knowing you will be looked over from head-to-toe and judged on your appearance. You bare your emotions (and your size card with honest weight and measurements) in a poorly lit, intimate space that usually has zero ventilation and is miserably claustrophobic as you stand there like sheep at auction. You’re dismissed with a wave of the hand and after you walk out, you have NO IDEA what was thought or said about you. You go home, strip down to pj’s and hope to get a phone call, text or email. *Crickets*  Harsh. Even if a commitment isn’t desired and nobody wants your name on a binding contract, it would be nice if we could just get a polite Ping! on our phones saying, “Thanks, but no thanks!” Seriously, ye gods that sit on the Mount Olympus of creative creations? We’d all rather have an imperial or flippant “…just not that into you.” than the heartbreaking silence, where our imaginations run wild. That crap hurts.

My husband is going through a similar situation of almost daily rejection, having been laid-off from a big ol’ movie studio over a year ago. Looking for a new gig is proving to be crazy-difficult now that he’s over half a century in age (despite having an MBA and long history of solid employment). Every morning he’s pounding the digital pavement (via LinkedIn, Zip Recruiter and a handful of employment agencies) for his next J.O.B. The thing about searching for a job through websites — which is what every company does now — is nobody has to look him in the eye.  That’s unfortunate, because I’m pretty darn sure he’d snag  job pretty quickly if folks met him. He’s an incredible man. I like to describe him as one of the Knights of the Round Table, as he was loyal, kind and wonderful to his last employer. He followed her from contract-to-contract for over a dozen years. You know what that looks like on a resume though? It makes him seem like a chronic job-hopper. He wasn’t. The queen changed principalities, he followed — never rising above his station (or demanding a promotion), as he did not want to rock the boat as she entered the sometimes choppy waters as a high-level executive in her field. He protected her and was left behind on the battlefield, without a second thought, and never complained.

My son tilted at the windmills of on-line job searches, too. As a young adult on the autism spectrum with language processing disorder, he often goes glassy-eyed at the lines and lines of  Q&A information that he has to scroll through and rarely gets past the on-line application gatekeepers for many companies. But, he recently passed the California Driver’s Test — so I’m mighty confident that young man can tackle just about anything after that! Also, I’ve taught him that the rejection from potential employers: Ain’t no thang. He knows that he can only concentrate on the important tasks at hand, even if they’re the part-time or volunteer jobs he is currently doing. The company or corporation that does eventually hire him will be just as grateful as he is for the position he’s hired for and they won’t get a more loyal, kind and wonderful employee (he’s a chip off the old step-block in that way).

Being rejected for any reason at any point in time in life is painful, but in my household, I think we’ve all come to learn how to treat the nuclear fallout of rejection as though it were an emotional sunburn. If you’ve been through it, you know what I’m talking about. You know how that feels. And those of you in positions of power, the ones that keep burning people with your rejection radiation? We get it. Out of sight, out of mind. Heck, even if we do cross your path, you probably won’t see it (we so often try to smile through the pain).  But, you should know that we still feel the burn of rejection and we feel it deeply. We know that there’s little we can do to treat it, once it has happened. All we can really do is acknowledge it and know that with time, we will heal. Moving forward, we then have to take every measure to try and protect ourselves. I’d like to suggest our recipe of a homemade SPF (self-protective forcefield) 1000 that includes cooling your jets with the conversation and compassion of those closest to you.

xo – t.