Strange situation

It's hard to write about looking for a job in 2015 without sounding a) more than a touch defeatist, and b) like a whiny "millennial" with a raging sense of entitlement. The trouble is, the whole job-seeking process - from firing off application after application, to the cold-sweat awkwardness of interviews - is the most evil of all necessary evils, and everyone has to go through it at some point. There's no way round it, but it is soul-grindingly bleak.

And the most frustrating part of it is the fact that once you've got a job, and are happily tucked up at a desk with a computer and a phone and a stained mug, you realise how easy it is to have a job. All you need to be is 1) not a psychopath, and 2) able to follow instructions. And if you're aiming to be CEO, I wouldn't worry too much about the odd psychopathic tendency, tbh.

When you take a moment to think about it, it's a strange situation we're in - and by "we" I mean those who've graduated since around 2008. We spent most of our academic lives being told "you're bright, and you work hard - so keep doing that; do well in exams, go to university, and you'll be able to choose what you do with your life". It's strange, when you've done pretty much everything you were told to do - you've done almost everything right - it's strange for it to not be enough, not even nearly enough. In darker moments, it makes you think - well, I wish I had gone off the rails a bit. Had myself a proper teenage rebellion. I don't think I'd be any worse off. When you've had some sort of employment since your early teens, you've got a degree and maybe a Masters, and you want more than anything in the world to be starting to put some sort of career plan together, knowing you should feel lucky to have a job at all is a little jarring.

I remember it so clearly: watching the news in halls in the early weeks of first year, seeing the financial crisis unfold. I remember thinking, so naively, "it's fine... I've got three or four years before I have to deal with the rest of the world; they'll have sorted it out by then. We won't be utterly fucked." And then coming out of uni after doing an MA that put the love I had for the intricacies of language into a pretty serious coma - that it's only just coming out of now - and trying to find some kind of employment. Taking a couple of stop-gap jobs because I wanted the money and needed a reason to get up every day - even if it was to go and sit in a tanning and beauty salon - and on days off, sending out applications and CVs and cover letters, only for my mother to tell me on a weekly basis that I wasn't trying hard enough. (Mind you, she still says that - maybe that's just mothers. Or just her.)

But how many times can you explain that yes, you're applying for retail/waitressing jobs too, because no, you don't think you're too good for jobs like that, but potential employers know fine rightly that you won't be sticking around and will subsequently take a 16-year-old over you, because they'll get at least a couple of years' work out of them? How many times can you explain that trawling round the town centre with copies of your CV is, largely, not the way it works anymore? How many times can you summon all the enthusiasm you possess, channel that into an application that makes you cringe yourself inside out, only to not even get a "we have received your application and will be in touch in due course" email when you do submit it?

At the moment, I don't know what to do. I don't know what I can do. I really don't - I think I'm quite good with words and writing things, but at this point, I'm not even sure, because my life is taken up with an admin job that's turning out to be more stressful than it sounds when I describe it. And that's OK - I can deal with being in a busy, pressured workplace - but it's not quite what I want to do long-term, and I feel that at 25, I should be thinking long-term, and making big, grown-up plans. I want to move out - to Bristol, as you're probably sick of hearing by now, but God I adore that city - but how do you find a job in a city you're not in? If I were more of a free spirit type of person, I'd just go. I'd hand in my notice, find myself a little flat in Bristol and take it from there. Start temping to pay the bills, and then figure things out. But I'm more of a caged spirit, really - I like the routine and structure of work, if not the actual job itself - and let's be honest, I like the money. You can't do much without an income, and I've never been good at doing nothing. The general consensus is that it's rather silly to give up a job without anything to go to, and I agree. Especially now, under a Conservative government - I do not trust there would be much in the way of support if things didn't work out for me. I might be wrong, but I'd rather not have to test the theory.

I'm not expecting it to be easy - of course not. I know that a lot of people dabble in and out of a few things before they find their niche, and having a "not thrilling but it pays the bills" job is pretty much a rite of passage. I'm just scared that by continuing to believe that something better will present itself, I'm setting myself up for disappointment. I know I'm still young, but time only marches on.

This woman couldn't sound more perfect if she tried.

This is a song I should probably take to heart.

And I've just stumbled across this, seems pretty good. That voice. Damn.

On being stupid and right

Because you can be both, I'm told.

So, I'll cut to the chase, no faffing. This week, I got offered a job. Full-time, slightly more money than I was expecting, at a tiny company about a twenty-minute train journey away - tick, tick, tick. I didn't mean to get the job ("well, fuck you and your accidental job-getting," said a friend - quite fairly - in the pub the other night). I just saw an ad titled "document writer", thought "hey, I can probably write documents!" and sent them my CV. The advert didn't say what the company did, or what kind of documents would need writing, which hopefully explains things a little.

I didn't expect to be asked to an interview a matter of days later - you just don't, do you? Not these days, when all the odds are against the jobseekers. I certainly didn't expect the interview to go well - I'm scared of everyone new people, especially new people who are looking for me to impress them. When they gave me a writing task ("just a 150-word press release, use this one here as a guide"), I freaked out and my brain went Ican'tIcan'tIcan't, and then I realised how feeble it would look to leave them with a blank Word document, so I threw down some sentences and hoped it was a good enough attempt. The tone of it was excellent, the MD said in his e-mail the next day.

(And then he rang me, to let me know he'd e-mailed me, and I'd only just got out the shower and so wasn't dressed, and during the phone call I managed to whack my knee on the corner of my desk and only just managed to stifle a yelp of "Jesus Fucking Christ I think I've chipped my kneecap!")

And yes, it may seem like there's a lot of humblebragging going on here - "look at little me, getting a job by mistake!" - but I assure you, everything about this particular instance of job-getting was pretty much unintentional. I left the interview with a tension headache and a dilemma already taking shape - an odd feeling of "if I don't get this, I'll be disappointed, because I blagged that one reasonably successfully, and if I do, fuck, I'll have a Serious Decision To Make".

Of course I should have taken it. Of course. Because, well - do I want to get away from what I'm currently doing? Yes. It's not paying - almost literally - and my brainpower is slowly, slowly diminishing. Would it have been good experience? Probably. Once you can write press releases and bids and things, you can take that anywhere. Did it make financial sense? Without a doubt. Why did I not say yes?

Because it wasn't right for me. And how much that matters, I'm not actually sure. Given that I'm an arts graduate (an arts Master!), and it's 2013, I'm not exactly in a position to be picky, am I? I'm on the bottom step, I should be grateful for any opportunity that isn't sorting post and making tea. But I was worried that by doing this, I'd be taking myself out of the search for something that fits me better. And, as it's such a small company - and they seemed inexplicably keen on me - I'd feel pretty bad about joining them while the intention to find something better within a few months. They were looking for someone to commit to them for at least a year or two, and I couldn't bank on being able to do that. "But no-one gets their dream job right away," said the Boy's mother wisely, and no, there's no arguing with that.

And I DO feel like a fool for turning down something I know a lot of graduates would jump on, but something just wasn't right, and I can't take a job just because I feel guilty about being offered it. I don't want to say it was "gut instinct" that swung it for me - because it's a bit of a vague concept upon which to be basing life decisions - but there was a voice somewhere in the back of my head going, "there is something better out there for you". Obviously only time will tell if that's the case, but the "Oh GOD, I've made a huge mistake" panic hasn't kicked in yet*.

*Update: it did kick in, about 5pm today, while I was in Boots (which is normally my happy place as I have a make-up buying problem. Still, it's safer than crack, I suppose). I think my panic in the L'Oreal aisle was mainly triggered by the fact that I'd tried to do a whole day of errand-running on one croissant, a piece of cheese and a lot of tea - rather than any real post-decision regrets. Fingers crossed.

On a brighter note: I've been waiting for this lady to make a comeback for an embarrassingly long time. This track is from an album that was meant to be released in 2011. No news yet.

And I am so obsessed with this girl and her new album it's pretty much the only thing I can listen to right now.