I ceased to find my particular situation amusing a long time ago. Hence the lack of blogging. To recap: I want to work - quite desperately.
I have now sent out 62 applications - and I have gotten 1 interview. With a temp agency. I have gotten 57 'no thank you' emails, 1 'no thank you' letter and have gotten promptly ignored on 3 occasions.
At the same time, I am considering giving up one of my most cherished passtimes, that of voraciously reading and watching the news. Because every time I do, a somber faced news peddler will inform me that unemployment is on the rise, and that we all face desperat times. Couple that with the fact that those lucky employed people out there will be given massive tax cuts in 2009, I guess it is fair to say that I am getting slightly embittered. When I am not reading or looking at news regarding how I will never get to work again, the human interest story is all about how we all will get much more bang for our buck when we go shopping, thanks to the financial crisis. Well, gee. Rub it in.
So, I am going to do something really disgusting. I am going to send out a handful of applications, and instead of noting that my receptionist job was parttime while I was studying, I am going to delete the word 'parttime' in front of 'Receptionist' on the 'Work' part of my CV, and then I am going to delete the 'MA in English' line from the 'Education' part altogether. Yes, I am going to officially disavow all my much-loved education, for the sake of seeing whether or not it will make a difference. I just want to work! Someone should LET me!
At the same time, I have two meetings with the insurance people coming up - one at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning. I am grateful to them for making me get up 3 hours after I currently get to bed - I have a nasty habit of flipping the day/night continuum when left to my own devices. If I manage to stay awake for the rest of the Friday, I might get into a better day rhytm. Then again, if Saturday follows Friday as per the usual arrangement, I would not count on myself to do better.
Also, I am going to look into signing up for one of the 6-week-courses that are on offer for the unemployed so I will have something to get out of bed for. I have not done that previously, because I was under the (now obviously delusional) impression that I was somewhat employable, and would not be available to complete a 6-week course. Man makes plans, and the gods laugh. Me quitting my job must have been the best and soon-to-be longest running joke in Valhal by now.
torsdag den 8. januar 2009
fredag den 7. november 2008
An Intelligent Service...
Remarkable story from the World of No - I will leave it to your personal level of paranoia to decide whether or not this qualifies as 'funny'.
I applied for a position as an Administrative Assistent with a branch of the Intelligence Services. I applied for it because the position was advertised on the website. I wrote in my cover letter that I was responding to their posting.
Four days later I receive a confirmation letter, thanking me for my unsolicited application. Unsolicited? I check the website again, and sure enough, the job posting has been removed - but that does not deter from the fact that it was very much a solicited application. I worried about the handling of their documentation already. The letter went on to say that I would receive final word on my application within 4 weeks. It was signed by a woman, whose first name contained FIVE 'i's - two double 'i's and a single. Her name was Tina - or at least, that was obviously the name her parents had chosen. This gave me a real reason to stop and wonder - what is this highly supersticious person doing working for an intelligence bureau? Do I really need people who believe that good fortune will come to them if they change the amount of letters in their first name, to be a part of my countrys defense against the Axis of Evilness?
Numerology as a general whole has me stumped - if you think that all letters have a numerical value, and that adding or subtracting letters to your name will add up to a perfect '8' or '1' or whatever the point is - why don't we just skip the alphabet and move straight on to binary code? "This is my son, 0010101110010". Is that the ultimate goal of numerology?
Anyway, I did not get the job (or an interview for that matter). What I got was another letter - not from Tiiniiai - but another civil servant, who informed me that they had just had a posting for the job I was applying for, and so had already hired the people they needed. "We thank you once more for your unsolicited application". I felt an supreme urge to bang my head against the table - and then a subsequent desire to start building a fall-out shelter.
I applied for a position as an Administrative Assistent with a branch of the Intelligence Services. I applied for it because the position was advertised on the website. I wrote in my cover letter that I was responding to their posting.
Four days later I receive a confirmation letter, thanking me for my unsolicited application. Unsolicited? I check the website again, and sure enough, the job posting has been removed - but that does not deter from the fact that it was very much a solicited application. I worried about the handling of their documentation already. The letter went on to say that I would receive final word on my application within 4 weeks. It was signed by a woman, whose first name contained FIVE 'i's - two double 'i's and a single. Her name was Tina - or at least, that was obviously the name her parents had chosen. This gave me a real reason to stop and wonder - what is this highly supersticious person doing working for an intelligence bureau? Do I really need people who believe that good fortune will come to them if they change the amount of letters in their first name, to be a part of my countrys defense against the Axis of Evilness?
Numerology as a general whole has me stumped - if you think that all letters have a numerical value, and that adding or subtracting letters to your name will add up to a perfect '8' or '1' or whatever the point is - why don't we just skip the alphabet and move straight on to binary code? "This is my son, 0010101110010". Is that the ultimate goal of numerology?
Anyway, I did not get the job (or an interview for that matter). What I got was another letter - not from Tiiniiai - but another civil servant, who informed me that they had just had a posting for the job I was applying for, and so had already hired the people they needed. "We thank you once more for your unsolicited application". I felt an supreme urge to bang my head against the table - and then a subsequent desire to start building a fall-out shelter.
tirsdag den 4. november 2008
Fellow losers...
So now that my days are no longer numbered by an employer, they are instead numbered by my unemployment insurance. After having succumbed to the mandatory 3 weeks of quarantine imposed by my quitting and not getting fired, the paper mill kicks into action.
Mandated by law, I have to fill out never-ending amounts of paper, send in pay stubs from the last 14 months - in so proving that I was not a loser until now, and at least not within the last 14 months - fill out online affidavits stating I am still a loser (every 3 weeks), every Monday I have to click a button on a website 'Yes, still a L' etcetera etcetera. It is fascinating, thrilling and nonstop fun and excitement. A part of the circus is that since the insurance people own me, they want to see me for certain scheduled meetings. I am of course hoping I will get a job, so that I do not have to go again - but at least I got to experience some interesting people.
The scene is as follows: 9 a.m. Friday at the insurance offices - steaming hot coffee, freshly baked buttery croissants and fresh fruit - definately not a bad setting. A competent lecturer, necessary information - and 14 of my fellow losers. I quickly went into 'I am silently judging you'-mode. We were all in the exact same boat - without knowing any of them, I knew that they were unemployed, that they had been so since the 1st of the month, and they were here to oblige the demand to show up for the meeting.
Yet, 4 of them - men, I do not if that is significant or typical - felt decidedly compelled to raise their hands at various points during the 3-hour meeting, to offer their assistance with regards to writing applications and interview prepping. Why, thank you. And you are here to...? Help the rest of us? Or to collect insurance because you do not have a job? And the fascinating thing was, as they continued to interrupt, the were upping their status! It was one huge piss-off match! One had a Masters in Communication - the next a Masters in Communication and PoliSci - the next a Masters and tons of connections from his previous jobs with the top brass of 6 of the Fortune 500 companies... or some such nonsense.
In general, I do not mind bullshitting or the bullshitters per say - they tend to be very amusing. I have no particular need to assert myself in any group setting ('smile and wave' generally does the trick) - so I can lean back and enjoy the show. But I am touchy on the whole 'unemployed' issue, and it bothered me that the people in my boat were being obnoxious about it. Such a waste of venue - there must be some miniature countries scattered about the planet on the look out for their next dictator. I hear North Korea may or may not be shopping around.
Mandated by law, I have to fill out never-ending amounts of paper, send in pay stubs from the last 14 months - in so proving that I was not a loser until now, and at least not within the last 14 months - fill out online affidavits stating I am still a loser (every 3 weeks), every Monday I have to click a button on a website 'Yes, still a L' etcetera etcetera. It is fascinating, thrilling and nonstop fun and excitement. A part of the circus is that since the insurance people own me, they want to see me for certain scheduled meetings. I am of course hoping I will get a job, so that I do not have to go again - but at least I got to experience some interesting people.
The scene is as follows: 9 a.m. Friday at the insurance offices - steaming hot coffee, freshly baked buttery croissants and fresh fruit - definately not a bad setting. A competent lecturer, necessary information - and 14 of my fellow losers. I quickly went into 'I am silently judging you'-mode. We were all in the exact same boat - without knowing any of them, I knew that they were unemployed, that they had been so since the 1st of the month, and they were here to oblige the demand to show up for the meeting.
Yet, 4 of them - men, I do not if that is significant or typical - felt decidedly compelled to raise their hands at various points during the 3-hour meeting, to offer their assistance with regards to writing applications and interview prepping. Why, thank you. And you are here to...? Help the rest of us? Or to collect insurance because you do not have a job? And the fascinating thing was, as they continued to interrupt, the were upping their status! It was one huge piss-off match! One had a Masters in Communication - the next a Masters in Communication and PoliSci - the next a Masters and tons of connections from his previous jobs with the top brass of 6 of the Fortune 500 companies... or some such nonsense.
In general, I do not mind bullshitting or the bullshitters per say - they tend to be very amusing. I have no particular need to assert myself in any group setting ('smile and wave' generally does the trick) - so I can lean back and enjoy the show. But I am touchy on the whole 'unemployed' issue, and it bothered me that the people in my boat were being obnoxious about it. Such a waste of venue - there must be some miniature countries scattered about the planet on the look out for their next dictator. I hear North Korea may or may not be shopping around.
lørdag den 1. november 2008
Unemployed vacuum...
It has been so long since my cell phone rang - I actually forgot which ring tone I had switched on. This due to the fact that the only ones who should be calling are future employers - during the day, friends and family use the landline (seeing as they know I am home, being an unemployable loser) - and at night, my cellphone is on vibrate. Get your mind out of the gutter right now, I do not want the phone to ring when I am eating a romantic take-out with my husband.
So - in bringing everyone up to speed: I quit my going-no-where, NLP-cult-boss, deranged company structured job as a complaints handler. I liked the job for a long while - then my boss came back from maternity leave with aaall new ideas - including plastering the cubicle with NLP learnings... "You don't see the world for what it is, you only see your own model of it." Ahaa. Apparently, as far as my boss was concerned, the model my coworkers and I had been living in up until that point, was faulty. "Show respect for other peoples' model of the world" was apparently boss-NLP for 'now do like I say'. Being in a complaints department means that one develops a some-what significant bullshit detector - not to mention, an severe rash-inducing allergy to being lied to. Whereas we had previously been ruling the department with impunity, my boss now decided that the customer was very much almost always right, and since "A person is not his or her behaviour" it did not really matter how much they lied to us. I managed to put up with it for 4 months - then my boss upped the ante. She decided that we spent too much time in dialogue with our customers, and in order to shorten the average handling time, we had to call each and everyone of them, instead of responding in writing. Now, occasionally, we received email or letters that were so deranged, demeaning or diluted, that we did not want to speak to these people, which was a call we were allowed to make based on our own judgment. That was now revoked. My day became filled with hateful exchanges and the word 'no'. So I quit. Yes, that is right, I am a quitter. Trust me when I write - the alternative I was looking at was worse.
I have never been unemployed before. I do not like it. I cry-on-the-couch-cannot-get-out-of-bed-my-life-is-an-empty-void do not like it. I LIKE working! I am GOOD at it! I am ridiculously loyal - as when I stayed in the above mentioned company for 2,5 years - and I love learning new things and meeting new people. Where I fall short is apparently in writing applications. It has now been a month, and I have applied for a countless number of positions - and I have not gotten a single interview. I have a freakin' MA! I can answer a phone, turn on a computer, have figured out the intricacies of the Office-package, I am willing and able, flexible and competent, and I want to work!
But alas, all I hear is 'no'. I don't like 'no'. 'No' upsets me - maybe because I am an only child, who was used to be able to negotiate a 'yes' if my logic was sound. Maybe that is not why at all - my MA is in English and Rhetoric, not Psychology.
Turns out, my cell phone ring tone is 'The Bare Necessities' from 'The Jungle Book' . Poignant. In a stupid way. No, no potential employer called - it was a telemarketer. Of course it was.
So - in bringing everyone up to speed: I quit my going-no-where, NLP-cult-boss, deranged company structured job as a complaints handler. I liked the job for a long while - then my boss came back from maternity leave with aaall new ideas - including plastering the cubicle with NLP learnings... "You don't see the world for what it is, you only see your own model of it." Ahaa. Apparently, as far as my boss was concerned, the model my coworkers and I had been living in up until that point, was faulty. "Show respect for other peoples' model of the world" was apparently boss-NLP for 'now do like I say'. Being in a complaints department means that one develops a some-what significant bullshit detector - not to mention, an severe rash-inducing allergy to being lied to. Whereas we had previously been ruling the department with impunity, my boss now decided that the customer was very much almost always right, and since "A person is not his or her behaviour" it did not really matter how much they lied to us. I managed to put up with it for 4 months - then my boss upped the ante. She decided that we spent too much time in dialogue with our customers, and in order to shorten the average handling time, we had to call each and everyone of them, instead of responding in writing. Now, occasionally, we received email or letters that were so deranged, demeaning or diluted, that we did not want to speak to these people, which was a call we were allowed to make based on our own judgment. That was now revoked. My day became filled with hateful exchanges and the word 'no'. So I quit. Yes, that is right, I am a quitter. Trust me when I write - the alternative I was looking at was worse.
I have never been unemployed before. I do not like it. I cry-on-the-couch-cannot-get-out-of-bed-my-life-is-an-empty-void do not like it. I LIKE working! I am GOOD at it! I am ridiculously loyal - as when I stayed in the above mentioned company for 2,5 years - and I love learning new things and meeting new people. Where I fall short is apparently in writing applications. It has now been a month, and I have applied for a countless number of positions - and I have not gotten a single interview. I have a freakin' MA! I can answer a phone, turn on a computer, have figured out the intricacies of the Office-package, I am willing and able, flexible and competent, and I want to work!
But alas, all I hear is 'no'. I don't like 'no'. 'No' upsets me - maybe because I am an only child, who was used to be able to negotiate a 'yes' if my logic was sound. Maybe that is not why at all - my MA is in English and Rhetoric, not Psychology.
Turns out, my cell phone ring tone is 'The Bare Necessities' from 'The Jungle Book' . Poignant. In a stupid way. No, no potential employer called - it was a telemarketer. Of course it was.
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