Finding a Job in London: Part II

I once rambled about the difficulties of finding a job in London. So many months on, the scene hasn’t changed. I have changed though, in the sense that I’m now a beaten down, sorrowful and ego-less version of myself.

That’s what three weeks of unemployment did to me. And I know that in this day and economic climate, three weeks is nothing. A drop in a pan that is crowded with fresh-faced graduates and seasoned professionals alike.

While endlessly refreshing Twitter – I mean Guardian jobs - I commented to my housemate (equal parts applying for post-doctoral fellowships and procrastinating) that it was apparently the worst unemployment in the UK since WWII. I had taken great comfort in this fact, and used it to counteract my mamma’s suggestion that I walk door-to-door offering my CV (I’m looking for a job in media or publishing mum. Not a summer scooping icecream cones. And besides, it’s not my fault, it’s the worst unemployment levels since WWII. She correctly told me I was a lazy sot).

Housemate, in his fearfully intellectual way, said that my shiny little fact just wasn’t true. That we can’t measure unemployment so simply. That these days most people will spend a certain amount of their lives unemployed, added up over a career, while job hunting or something else. That in WWII time, people mostly worked one job for 70 years, dying with their hands on the tiller or whatever. He said a whole lot of other things too, but I mostly tuned them out, preferring to cling to my little fact (quoted from a friend, and apparently sourced from The Independent) because it justified my Kardashian-watching, Twitter-refreshing, icecream-for-breakfast existence while being one of those ‘unemployed’.

I did not deal well with the silent rejection from numerous job applications. I dealt slightly better with politely worded rejection, as it at least indicated that my CVs weren’t covered in anthrax.
I was offered a few temp roles in my three weeks of circling the drain. I let them go, as I was determined to hang in there for the proper job. The real job. The one that would get me some experience in London, preparing me for the kind of stellar job that would be so fabulous I wouldn’t mind the fact that I was back in Australia, my visa at an end.

But?
Nada.
Nothing.

As I watched my pounds dribble into pence, I decided I’d take the next role offered, no matter if it was for the most boring company. Which is what I have pretty much done. I am in a PA role in a financial company in Canary Wharf-ish area. And I have found out what is second worse to being unemployed.

It’s being underemployed.

Here I am with my smug degree. I’ve studied hard, and worked hard. I know that I’m quick, learn new systems easily, and have a whole bunch of creative energy that I’m dying to put into some kind of collaborative team effort. I get a kick out of doing a job well. Out of sending ideas out there to become a reality. Of pushing deadlines, and juggling commitments. Of being utilised. Of having my opinion count for something.

Instead, I am currently babysitting someone else’s Outlook calendar. I manage meeting requests. I take coffee orders. I bind things and I print things. I get lunch for those who are in back-to-back meetings from 8 am til 6 pm. I arrive at 9 and am ready to leave by 11, but wait until 5. I feel like I do so little that I don’t deserve to take home the hourly rate that I do.

I hate it. I hate coming home and answering the ‘How was your day?’ question with ‘Meh, nothing.’
I hate it because I realised I am not content with being underemployed, and also that it appears that I am actually kind of a job-snob.

Scene: Trendy gallery in Old Street, clutching cans of Red Stripe.
New interesting people that are friends of my friend (the kind that either live in lofts, or know models and photographers that live in lofts and regularly hang out there): ‘So, what do you do?’
Me: ‘Ummm, I … er… well, I’m temping at the moment. So I mean, I’m looking for a job. I mean, I guess I’m working as a PA, but it’s not what I want to do. But as a PA I don’t really do anything. But I want to work in publishing. Or the media. Or anything creative. But ummm … I’ve done a lot of travelling, so hence the temping. But unemployment, you know? And I like typing? And umm… yeah, no, I’m working as a PA. Sort of.’

I felt too inadequate to string a sentence together. Was it possible my brain was now mushy peas from being underused? My stammering and stuttering, my inability to proudly say what I was doing clearly pointed out two things: Firstly, I must be a massive snob. Secondly, that my sense of identity was tied very closely to what I did, rather than who I was.

PA’s work bloody hard. They have to be intuitive and reliable, and downright manipulative when it comes to organising meetings with 12 people. Every single PA I’ve met has been absolutely lovely – they are caring, fun, and clever people. But I don’t want to be a PA. I want to have a PA. I want to be the one coming up with ideas, not the one printing them out and binding them. And because of this ambition, I don’t want to be identified as ‘just a PA’. Cue shame over job snobbery.

And this secondly thing? My sense of identity? I felt that if I said I was a PA, I’d be immediately put into a PA shaped box (an outline that features heavily on the drapey cardigan, coffee in one hand, and pen in the other). And I feel like I don’t belong there. That these new people must not put me in that box. That I am so much more than can fit into that damn box, and that circumstance is shoving me in there.

I don’t know whether it is a good thing or a bad thing, this resistance to being defined by my current underemployment status. It’s prickly, and hence pushing me to continue with job applications, which is an excellent thing. But it’s also teaching me to not put other people in boxes. That people are so incredibly multifaceted that they cannot be defined by what they do in their day. I’m learning to watch for how people actively choose to define themselves. For some, it is their job. For others it’s their friends, or live music, travelling.

Or clothes. There’s one girl here at this workplace who wears spangly tights and stripper shoes so she’s definitely defining herself as outside this corporate-dress-code financial box.


Just found this gem of a blog: Ivy Leagued and Unemployed. 
This was an especially interesting post - though I'm still undecided about whether having no job is better than having a shitty one. I've been trying the shitty job thing for nearly two years now and I'm well over it. I do like drinking though. Hence the shitty job. It's the ciiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiircle of liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiife, right?