GETTING A JOB
Note that this file was originally written in January 2004. I like it a lot, so I've left it as it was written.
Until recently, I've never been unemployed. Now, having returned from Europe, and finished with college, I'm looking for work. This is a rather new experience for me, so I'm starting my 'beliefs' section on the site with a rant about employment in general, and interviews and unemployed people in particular.
Being unemployed sucks. After less than two months, it's wreaking my head, yet there are people who are not only unemployed, but who have no desire to get work. How can these people do this? I don't know. Now, I'm not talking about people who are trying to get work, by applying for jobs and going to interviews, for instance. I'm talking about guys (and girls- better not offend the sexism brigade) who basically get up in the morning and do nothing all day. Sleep, eat, watch TV, sleep, drink, eat, sleep, go to the pub, eat, sleep... Nice life if you can get it, except it's paid for by taxes. Who pays the taxes? Well, it's not the tax fairy or the capitalism queen; it's people who work. People like me, in other words (said without a hint of irony :).
I'm unemployed, but I do not, and never have, and never will, sign onto the dole (social welfare). This means I have to make a concerted effort to get a job. One might think that this is a simple matter: apply for the job, go to an interview, maybe attend a second interview if the company likes your ass and wants another look before they say 'No- get lost' or demonstrate their love for every valued employee by consigning you to the mail room and forgetting you.. That would be logical. However, logic and employment are mutually exclusive concepts.
Such is the farcical nature of employment and job hunting that I've been turned down for various reasons. Note that before I gleefully spill the beans, I'm not naming names here cos I don't want to be sued (I learn quickly and picked that up from talking to a few people from the USA- the land where anyone can sue anyone, at anytime, for anything). I'm too qualified. I'm too smart for a boring job. I'm too fond of travel. The last one is my favourite. I'm too fond of travel. Think about it (the interviewer sure as hell didn't).
I can (and did) argue that that I had to motivate myself to travel, rather than just talking about it. I planned it, and was able to think on my feet when the plan got changed, as was the case when we met interesting people and decided to travel with them for a while. I showed maturity in terms of saving money in a single-minded fashion. I worked as apart of a team cos there were two of us on the trip. I even learned to rely on experts in the area, because I talked to people with travel experience.
I know I was talking pure shit, but at least I tried to make my trip sound useful. According to the interviewer I was 'unprofessional' because no 'proper' employee would ever travel abroad as travel was 'weak' and a 'bad excuse for leaving a job'. Um. After sitting there staring at the interviewer and doing a passable impersonation of a 1970's-era hippy who has had too much of the finest Columbian bang-bang powder, I decided this was a test of my abilities. Sort of like sticking a 'reformed' kleptomaniac in a store full of high-priced consumer goods, just to see how he or she behaves. (I was going to mention a reformed alcoholic, but being Irish, I'm convinced that 90 percent of the people in this country don't understand the concept of 'reformation''- oh I love being a cynical little bastard)
Not so. This person was SERIOUS in saying that travel is for weak people. Now, I'm sure that she didn't want me to tell the gory details of my travels, such as going to a LARP even in England with 6,000 other fools. While I remember this event well, I doubt that the average interviewer will employ me if I recount my tale of running head-first into a group of people (in the midst of a fight involving abut 5,000 LARPers), with the result that I was left bleeding from my ears, and limping, and they needed help to get back on their feet. Nor would my story of a Norwegian karaoke bar appeal, to the average dark-suit-white-shirt-conservative-tie-short-hair-accountant. While I was so enamoured of the average German woman that I felt like the Eiffel Tower was stuck down my jocks, this is probably not a good thing to mention in an interview. I'd be better off not showing an interviewer a photo from the Vatican, where the Swiss Guards are looking like they want to skewer me (I'd asked to enter the Pope's private residence), although a mate of mine laughed at how I can just walk up to anyone, anywhere, and talk, even if we don't have a common language. While I enjoyed sitting in a restaurant in Prague, having decided to speak only Czech, German, French or Spanish (all languages I don't know), the average interviewer probably wants a better example of my communication skills that trying to flirt with a Czech waitress who had the best arse and legs I've seen outside of Italy.
What I can, and do, mention in interviews is that I was able to make that leap- to just walk out the door, leaving a well-paid job, in pursuit of what I wanted This ties in with my determination, and my attitudes towards money, both of which are important for salespeople. Funnily, in two recent interviews, I was told that all applicants who have not been abroad for at least a month are rejected out of hand for being too likely to travel in future, or too lacking in ambition.
As of the 23 January, I'm still unemployed, although I'm at the final interview with one company, where even the interviewers say that this interview is only to thrash out some common ground. Based on the disasters of the last two months, I'm not going to feel comfortable until I have a job offer; final interview or no final interview.
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