Oddly enough it really brought home to me unemployment last week when my company car was taken back. That marked the end of my three month's notice period and the day when I broke my previous record for being out of work - exactly three months before I started a new job. Now I'm on my fourteenth week and, to be honest, it's getting tougher. In fact I am hacked off this week.
I like to keep a sense of perspective on all of this. No one has died, we have still got reserves of money to survive for a while, the house is not in danger of being repossessed, Social Services are not assessing the welfare of the kids and so on. But.
It is harder to remain positive some days when you get knocked back yet again or even wonder what to do during the day to pass the time.
So what emotions are thriving here?
Guilt. I remember an episode of the Simpsons when Bart is struggling in school to pass an exam - he says plaintively at one point something along the lines of "this is the best I can do". I feel like that. I've networked, sent in CVs for jobs, revised my CV several times, targeted likely looking organisations, put my CV on the web, signed up to Linkin/Monster/Total Jobs, contacted recruitment consultants that specialise in my industry and...nothing. I feel there is more I should be doing, must be missing something and it can gnaw away at you in the background trying to find that extra angle. Maybe this is the best I can do. That is worrying as it not getting me a job to support my family - that brings in large dollops of guilt when you have to say "No we can't afford that, go there, pay for you to do what your friends are doing" and so on. See why I feel guilt?
Tension. Tension? But you are not doing anything how can you be tense? Try this. Clench both fists and keep them like that all day and release them at night. That's the best way to describe the tension. No, it is not like a demanding day in the A&E at your local hospital, or fighting in Iraq with the British Army. But it makes you tense and, like guilt above, can work in the background to slowly bring you down.
Desire to consume. We are not starving, we are paying the bills, we have a small car. This is not poverty. In the context of what we could do in the recent past, what everyone around us does, we are no longer able to afford to do very much. Not having much money drastically reduces your choices. Mind you I am walking a lot more these days and my bike sees a lot more of the town than it ever used to. Now my wife and I discuss what we will buy this month. Priority purchases, secondary purchases and an entry in the WIGAJ (see an earlier blog for a fuller explanation) ledger.
Rejection. Let me tell you I've been rejected from better jobs than yours - I feel like saying that when the rejection letter comes through the door/email - if one even turns up at all. I am still being selective when applying for positions. There is absolutely no point in applying for a job that you are not qualified to do. I broke this rule recently when a vacancy came up in the town where I live about a mile from my house. I was, shall we say, tangentially qualified for the role, so sent in a CV anyway. What the hell, nothing ventured nothing gained and all that; got rejected. Anyway, I had to do it, you understand. Be prepared for rejection as, for most of us, there is a lot of it about.
My part time job comprises a lot of telephone research calling senior people in organisations to ask their views on something that is considered important by the client but not by the person being researched. To get 30 telephone interviews took calls to over 150 companies and involved about 300 telephone calls in total (they were out/not available/busy and so on). That's about a 1 in 10 success rate which (blush modestly) is pretty good apparently. Except that the 120 organisations that said no rejected me. A psychiatrist friend opined that this was like the Caesars taking small doses of poison deliberately every day to build up their resistance to being poisoned. Her theory was that small doses of rejection on a regular basis help me build up a large scale resistance to job rejections on an irregular basis. Nice try but I clearly need to be rejected more often then as it ain't working very well.
Boredom. Remember as a child those long Sundays in Winter with the rain streaming down (much like June so far this year) and being totally bored to the depths of your soul? The only entertainment available was the radio with "World Wide Family Favourites" at lunch time and "Sing Something Simple" in the evening"? I feel depression coming on just recalling those days. Anyway you'd say to your Mum "I'm bored what can I do?" and she would reel off 25 ways to creatively pass the time that sounded just as boring as the "I am so bored that I am no longer able to find a way not to be bored" form of boredom. It isn't quite like that but motivation does become harder as unemployment goes on. It is a sort of learned helplessness that you have to fight to avoid inertia.
Moaning. That is what you end up doing, moaning, and it makes not the slightest bit of difference. Except friends try and gauge your mood before they talk to you and edge away nervously if they suspect a tirade of "It's not fair, we can't go to the USA for a month this year and please do not park your SUV gas guzzler next to my 1985 Trabant as it raises the tone of the neighbourhood."
Catharsis. I feel so much better for all of that so onto another subject.
Is this a scam? I was contacted by a recruitment agency in London the other day. "Interested in you for this very senior position, like to do a telephone interview...like the sound of you...may put you forward... but small problem. Your CV is not really what we would expect for a senior position, needs some professional work and I suggest this CV writing agency (names name). Have them rewrite your CV and send it to me". I look at the CV writers web site - £400 for a professionally written CV! Sorry about the ! but I felt it really needed one at that point. Naturally I did not pay £400, rewrote the CV with some free professional help and sent it in. Naturally I have heard nothing since. If the recruitment consultant has a deal going with the CV writer and takes a commission every time he successfully recommends a client to them (who he may have no intention of recommending them for the job in the first place) then this is a nice little earning opportunity. And who could ever prove otherwise? Perhaps that is too cynical of me but, in retrospect, it just didn't ring true. Logically my original CV must have worked to the point that he could see that my background and experience might have been suitable so why would I need another?
Mustn't grumble. As Fred Astaire sang I have to "Pick myself up, dust myself down and start all over again".
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