Catching up

Hello everyone.

My last post was a fair few months ago, so I thought I’d update whoever forces themselves to read this rubbish.

I did leave the job. I couldn’t face going back. I have no regrets about leaving.

I was unemployed for a short time and got some “voluntary” work experience at the job centre…

It was horrible.

Luckily within a week of being there I had found some “part time” work. I went in for an induction week which meant that I stopped the work experience, then I started work.

It was an estimated 12 hours per week, however I’m now working 15-40 hours per week, so I signed off.

I’m a carer and I go to people’s homes to care for them for a few hours at a time, it’s not what I wanted to do, but I love it. I really love it.

So there you have it.

I need your help…

My first week of work was… well. Terrible.

I was left to deal with every angry customer and mistake. My boss continually left her desk and left me to deal with her calls, as well as my own, and as my knowledge grew, she left me to do her work. I spent the entirety of Friday doing my work, plus hers, whilst she was in the next room, gossiping, and laughing with the other workers.

The main issue I had apart from this, was that there was constant racist, sexist and homophobic, offensive talk in my office. Something I appall and would never join in with or humour. I find it disgusting.

Friday afternoon came and she wanted to evaluate my work. Apparently my work is great, and we make a great team, (Team? Yeah right! Where have you been whilst I’ve been working my ass off? Delegating all of your work to me is not team work!) however, she took issue with my smell, which is something she’d had issues with, with several people before me, and she had let them go because of it, and I needed to sort it out, to avoid the same future. My smell. I shower every day, I have deodorant and I use a lot of perfume throughout the day. So I found this incredibly offensive and unbelievable. She explained that it could be an issue if we deal with customers. Now hang on, unless I’ve missed out on some crazy new invention, customers can’t smell me over the phone, or through the computer, and that’s the only time which any of us in the office interact with customers!

So honestly, I do not want to go back. I need a job, I don’t want to be unemployed, but I don’t want to have to face all of this rubbish. I’ve spent about as many hours crying over this job, as I have actually working there. So I really feel I need to quit.

What would you do? I need some guidance.

On a lighter note…

Part two

So here’s the lighter news…

Whilst I was waiting to hear back about the perfect job I got a call for another interview. I was stupidly hopeful about the first job, so I brushed it off, figuring I would ring them and let them know I had found a job and wouldn’t be attending.

But I didn’t get it.

I sat in the car after the bad news and braced myself that I was going to have to continue searching. I figured I may as well attend the job interview, as it was so close to my home, and experience is experience. Just one hitch: I couldn’t find the job advertisement! I didn’t even know what the job I was applying for was!

So I rang the company, I figured I may as well, I was never going to get a job, I had no reason to. I got the details.

The following day I attended the interview, I was interviewed by a lovely woman, who would become my boss, and the manager of the company, he did not seem at all impressed! I found the interview tough, he wasn’t impressed that I lacked experience, and it was in a similar field to the “perfect job”, so my emotions were still raw. But I gave it my all.

Oh no, he pointed out I had missed a page on the application form. Well they’re not going to hire a moron who can’t fill out an application form!

They asked me to stay around for an hour to see what the job would be doing, I had nothing to lose, so I did.

I got to see the massive pile of application forms, all these people, going for the same job as me. Well I’ve just wasted my time.

Time was up, she told me she had more people to interview and that I would know next week. That was on Friday.

I went to my Grandma’s to do some baking and whilst I was waiting for my cinnamon roles to bake I got a call from the interviewer. That was great, she’d already decided I wasn’t right for the job and now I was going to get rejected in front of my Grandma!

“Hi, thanks for coming this morning. I’d like to offer you the job, if you’re interested?”

Are you kidding? I got it! I actually got it!

I start tomorrow and I am so nervous! I need luck please! PLEASE send me all your luck!

I don’t know how I feel

Here’s the thing.

I was going to write this one post, but I don’t think I can, I’m going to split it up into a couple…

Part one

For the last couple of weeks I’ve really been considering, how can I mourn for what was never really mine?

September 29th marked the birth of one of my favourite actresses. I never met her, and I never truly knew of her until a couple of years ago but somehow she’s a special part of my life, I can’t place why, or how this came to be, I just know that something about losing her, breaks my heart every time I remember her. But it doesn’t seem right to mourn her so, she never knew me, I never met her, so what right do I have?

She has a bench dedicated to her in Central Park. It is my dream to visit New York just to visit this bench.
I would be happy if I could just go there for an hour, sit there, then leave.

I remember a couple of months ago I saw a theatre show where they sang songs which featured on a film she starred in, it is one of my favourites, I even have a signed picture of her in the film. I never realised that the songs they sang would be the same as the songs in the film, and I sat on the front row and wept throughout the show, and afterwards. It was tough.

I find this is relevant to my recent job hunt, I went and interviewed for the perfect job. For two days I never left my phone’s side, incase I got a call about it. I was sure I had nailed the interview and was in with a shot.

I guess I really almost convinced myself I could get it, the interview had gone so well, I was so passionate and I was only one of five people to be interviewed. I really thought I’d got it.

Finally I got a reply. I made it to the last two people, but they gave it to someone with professional experience. I cracked. It was a social media role, I had personal experience in every media platform they required, it’s the only job I’ve interviewed for I really could have walked into, with knowledge and excelled, but it wasn’t mine. I cried for hours. I couldn’t face anything.

But was I justified to grieve for that lost opportunity? The job had never been mine, so why should it hurt me so?

I have a lighter post to follow shortly.

The one with the perfect job…

So today I interviewed for the perfect job. It’s perfect. It is a great position, a great company, it’s something I could really excel at, and I can’t believe I got down to the top five candidates to be interviewed.

I applied through a recruitment agency, and when I got the phone call I was made to feel slightly on the back foot, because I was one of the two candidates who didn’t have professional experience in the area, and the recruiter made me feel as though they really had to push for me to have a chance.

To be fair, the recruiter went above and beyond to help me get this job, they re-designed my CV to help it fit the job, sent me several links to help me win during an interview, and helped point out what the company valued above all else.

I did a lot of research and really tried my hardest to get the job, today, it is a role that I really want. I would give several limbs and internal organs to get it, but I feel like it’s all too good to be true. Maybe I just missed something in the interview, maybe I’m going to have to face those words, once again “I’m afraid we’re looking for someone with more experience.” Whatever it is, I know it’s going to be painful.

I really gave it my all, it was, I feel one of the best interviews I have ever done, but I fear it’s going to end exactly like the perfect job interview did for Rachel in the US TV show, ‘Friends’, she gets the call, and as great as she was, and as well as the interview went, it’s a no.

I think that for the last couple of days I have just been in a little world of “what if” and “wouldn’t it be great if?” and tomorrow I think it’s going to end, and I’m going to be back to job hunting.

So I want to know, how do you handle rejection like this? I think I’m gonna need some tips!

Just drive on past this applicant!

So here’s the thing.

After a ‘not great’ driving lesson today, I was so pleased to spend almost two hours filling out an application for a near- perfect, degree related, wonderful job, which I’d be so great at, just to realise when I opened a further section, that I needed a full, clean driving license and a car…

I stopped driving when I went to University, I didn’t need a car, I didn’t know the area, so I wouldn’t want to drive around there, and I couldn’t afford a car, so, like an idiot, I stopped learning.

Now I am back in the world of non-students, I realistically need to learn how to drive, so I am. The thing is, me knowing how to drive isn’t going to be much help unless I actually have a car, which, you guessed it, I cannot afford without a job! But like most office jobs, of course, you need a car! Perfect common sense, isn’t it?!

So what do I do? I’m struggling to get a job without the use of a car, but I can’t get a car without a job!

I would have been so great at that job! I think it’s time employers realised that there is this magical thing called public transportation, and the struggles of people who don’t have rich families, or a regular good income!

Interview time!

Just after I wrote my last post I was offered an interview.

I attended it today, they have been interviewing for the position for two and a half months and there is more than one position available.

Throughout the interview my interviewer bought up that they’re looking for someone with experience, which brings me to this – you knew I didn’t have experience when you invited me for an interview. If you want someone with experience then why did you ask me for the interview?!

It was the best interview I’ve been through, and it feels like I really nailed every question I was asked.

But am I the candidate they’re looking for? I don’t think so.

I really needed this. I need to work to feel valuable, to get a car, to save to move out, to help support my family.

Just gave me a couple of days of false hope.

I’m gutted.

And now for something completely different…

Sorry, I sort of lied in that title. This post isn’t really that different.

When I first started writing this blog I was focusing it mainly on job hunting, and the problems, the high’s and the low’s, the thing is, now I realise that really there’s more to life, and sometimes my job hunting is affected by outside factors.

As well as my passion for complaining being a great contributing factor, I think this justifies me changing the focus of my blog to focus on total adulthood, and the journey which I am facing from graduate to full adult life.

So here’s what has prompted me to write today.

I am in a long distance relationship with a guy I met at university. To be honest, I love him, and I would move out with him, and marry him tomorrow. I know he’s the guy that I’d spend the rest of my life with.

Now we’re hours apart, obviously it’s not ideal. It hurts sometimes when I’m having a bad day and I’d just like to come home and have him there. But we’re making it work.

We were seeing each other about once a month, but now he’s got a job. He works Monday to Friday, and it’s a long way to travel just to be together for one night and two half days.

I’m gonna be honest, ‘cos hey, if anybody did read this, and they were going through something similar I’d want them to know they’re not alone..

When he told me about the job, as proud and happy as I was for him, I couldn’t help but feel slightly disappointed, that we had planned to spend about a week together and now this obviously wouldn’t be possible. It was likely that work will get in the way of us seeing each other in the future, but luckily, as he assured me, it’s a short term pain for a long term gain of us being together permanently.

If you’re in a similar position, please don’t feel bad, or guilty. It’s natural.

I also can’t help but feel down because now he has a job, and after a couple of horrible interviews, and after applying for a good thirty jobs this week, I still have nothing. As proud as I am, and as pleased as I am for him, WHY ISN’T IT ME?!

I trust my time will come, and everything will work out. I really wanna know what the main struggles you guys face with growing up – Please relate to me people!

Left in a room of righties

So here’s the thing…

I don’t know if I’m just incredibly left wing, or people who surround me are just quite right wing.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I’m the type who suffers fools lightly, but I think I’m a lot more tolerant than most of the people around me.

I think maybe my degree has influenced me, but it has also made me more open to the ways that society is run, and the often false information which the media supplies us with. I’d like to think I actually half know what I’m talking about, but maybe I don’t. Maybe I’m just rambling…

The thing is, our village is surrounded by lots of fields and excess land, and there are plans to build houses on this land. I have witnessed a few conversations about it recently, and it’s just really disappointing to hear some of the comments which come from people I thought I knew well.

I think people around me are ignorant to the world outside of them. They don’t want new buildings because they don’t want new people coming into their village. That’s fair enough, it’s their opinion, but I think in this case the pro’s outweigh the cons.

If people stopped to think, the building of new houses would give so many people in the local community jobs, and the money which they so desperately need. Also, these new buildings could help lower the price of properties. For me, this is vital, if rent and housing wasn’t so expensive, so many people could actually afford a house, and a better life.

We know there are issues with homelessness, so why not build more houses, which can hopefully accommodate them.

Another thing bugging me about this, people seem to think these houses will encourage immigrants into our village.

I think it’s about time that the media owned up to the scaremongering which it fuels on a day to day basis. If you listened to the media, and the beliefs of the people around this village you would think that white, British people are of a minority, but this is simply not true. Throughout my school life in this village, there was probably one child who came from a non- white background. Even now, in the village there is an absolute minority of people whose country of birth was not one which was part of the United Kingdom.

I feel passionately about this scaremongering because people are people, no matter of their ethnicity, and I believe that all people should be equal, and we should live in a truly meritocratic society.

So that’s my little sociological-ish sort of rant thing.

Enjoy the rest of your day!

Just like buses……

What I have discovered since my last post is that job interviews are just like buses!

My university graduation was last week, and a couple of days before I got two phone calls, with job interview offers… For the day of my graduation.

I’ve waited ages for an interview, and now two come at once! On the one day that I can’t do! Nevertheless, several phone calls later I got both interviews moved (Wohoo!)

I attended the first interview on Monday, and it turned out to be a commission based job, signing people up for companies on the street, that is not something I could do. I would be TERRIBLE at it, and when the job is commission based, that’s not good! But of course, I got offered a training day on Tuesday, which I couldn’t attend, as I was interviewing for a “marketing assistant” job…

So Tuesday came, and I had been asked to travel to another (further away) city for the interview, to their head office… I got there and was left in a room with 7 other candidates for around 45 minutes, before being called in for a thirty second interview. What particularly upset me about this interview was that the role my interviewer told me I would be doing was not at all the job which the job description had laid out. It was actually just the same as the job I had interviewed for, the day before. Not only was it a commission based job which was not at all suitable, but it turned out to actually be based in the city which I had travelled to, that day! NOT WHERE THEY HAD ADVERTISED!

That was, without a doubt, the worst job interview I have attended so far.

So now I’m back to everything looking bleak and hopeless. And even after applying for 7 jobs today, it’s still not looking good!