In a quandary

I am not sure what to do about my job. I know I spent the best part of the end of last year and the beginning of this bleating about being unemployed and so now that I am working, I may seem incredibly ungrateful to be moaning about it. Not that I have a problem with work just that I wished it was more interesting and more challenging. I find the days drag by and I am getting bored because what I am doing is not using my brain at all and I don't feel stretched. On the plus side, there is absolutely no stress, little responsibility and I have good hours. The people I work with are okay but the office is completely without any dynamic. In some ways that is nice. I have worked in highly-politicised office environments before and so to find one that isn't like that is refreshing. However, it seems to be absent of any interaction at all and although I do try to involve myself, the fact that I am sitting at the end of a row of desks, with my back to the colleagues I am working with, is not conducive to feeling part of a team. I do feel sometimes like the outsider, particularly when I hear references to 'the temp or temps.'

Moreover, I guess the deeper feeling is one of failure. Here I am, thirty-two years old, doing data input all day. Its the sort of a job a school leaver would be doing. I am not earning much but that doesn't bother me as much as my loss of pride I guess in what I am doing. I don't feel great about going to work; I feel I should be making more of my life, that it should have more importance than it does at the moment.

I raised the subject of my current assignment with the agency because a). I have no idea how long it is for, and b). to see if there was another opportunity available that would use my skills and experience more effectively and challenge me more than what I am doing now. I got a polite rebuff on both points. Apparently 'I was told' that this assignment would be long term, which is not my recollection and could lead to a permanent post. I can't see myself doing data input for the rest of my career! The agency suggested that I contact them today to discuss further, which I did but it seems that they're 'too busy' to talk to me about any of this and that really pisses me off. I find it downright rude and discourteous for someone to ask you to call them and to then not call you back when they have promised to do so. I am not likely to push the issue any further but I am not happy about it.

So where do I go from here? Do I just sit tight and plod along, looking for other opportunities that come my way? Or do I bite the bullet and insist on something else?

I have been looking at other jobs. One I've applied for and am waiting to hear back from. Another agency contacted me about a job in MK but as with most vacancies I have heard about through agencies that has come to nought. There is another job that I am considering applying for at the moment.

Sigh. Is it so hard to find that 'right' job?

Finding the right words

Exasperation would perhaps best describe my state of mind at the moment but really that is not the right word. It isn't enough to say what I feel. I can't be bothered to think of anything better or more eloquent to put in its place though.

The end of last week was a particularly bad time, not for any specific reason, I just felt shit every day. Not physically; emotionally and mentally drained, unwilling and distant. I am not even sure that I was here at the end of last week. Of course, physically I was here but otherwise it felt like I was living on auto-pilot. What prompted this sense of crisis is many things. Mostly that little voice in my head that keeps on and on about how things will never get any better. Everyone says that I should stay positive and that is sound advice. I try; it is becoming harder and harder though. I find disappointment everywhere, I look for positive signs and find them wanting. I also feel a lot of anger at the injustice of where I am. The trouble is I have no direction to vent my anger. I have no one to blame, no one who is culpable, only myself. So I end up dwelling on it, over and over again until it comes to a point when I just shut myself off and drift through the days like I did at the end of last week.

I can't explain what an immense mental effort it was to go my first Open University tutorial last Saturday. It sounds ridiculous and probably is as I only had to walk into Bletchley and it was only for a couple of hours. The night before and on the Saturday morning I kept going through whether I would go or not, running all the possibilities of why I should or shouldn't. More than that, I was running through all my insecurities, all my feelings of doubt and loathing, making it all seem like a Herculean effort rather than the simple task of turning up for a few hours and getting something valuable in terms of learning. On reflection, I wonder why I do it to myself. Why do I put so many of these ridiculous barriers in my way and then view them as being completely insurmountable, when in actual fact there is nothing to fear in the first place?

I am keenly aware of when I am doing this and I know it makes no sense. I am alert to the signs of when I am not coping and I suppose I should stop myself and do something about it. Like the mantra of 'staying positive' the words come easily, doing the same comes much less so.

Where am I now? Well, I feel better than I did. I go through these phases from time to time, there is nothing new in it. This was just a particularly bad experience.

I am immensely frustrated and disappointed that I am still unemployed. Every deadline that I have set myself for getting a job has come and gone. I have only had one interview this year! Is it any wonder that I feel so pissed off? I wish I could say that I am 'keeping positive' but you already know from the above that is a lie. Not that I am completely negative; I have moments, maybe days when I feel that things are finally coming together. Then that feeling passes and I am back to where I am now, wondering if things will ever change. I keep thinking to myself, this wasn't how it was supposed to be. Not that I ever had any grand plan for life although it certainly didn't involve being 32 and unemployed with nothing important achieved.

I keep looking for work although more often than not it feels like I am just going through the motions. All the agencies I have registered with seem unfeasibly positive at first and all have great jobs that will suit me just fine and then the reality strikes and they fail to deliver anything at all. Or they seem incapable of understanding my skills and experience and matching me to jobs that would suit my background, instead offering jobs in sales, which I have no experience of and is always required for these type of roles. I trawl the Internet job sites and the local papers, occassionally a job will appeal that matches my skills and experience but then it is either a case of the salary is too low or it is in some far distant place that would be difficult, if not impossible to get too.

Stay positive? Yeah, right. I've been out of work now for three months and I've had four interviews (and two of those were with the same company)! I can't help thinking that I will never find work. I don't know where I am going from here.

Same crap different day

I've just about had enough today. I feel so many different things at the moment I am not sure how to focus my feelings. Everyday just lately has felt like one slap in the face after another. I believe I must be some sort of idiot or have a sign hung around my neck saying 'hey, come and walk all over me, I don't mind.'

Sigh.

I had set myself a deadline of finding a new job by the end of this month. I have been out of work now for about 3 months and I feel absolutely gutted that here I am still not working and with no propsect of securing a decent job in the forseeable future. Where did it all go wrong? What is wrong with me?

Part of me, the really negative side, feels like I've been a complete and utter failure. Its like I've finally been found out. That I am thoroughly crap and useless and I've only just realised it. If I wasn't surely I'd have a job by now?

I got turned down for the job that I'd applied for where I used to work. I had the test and interview last Thursday - where they kept me waiting for half-hour - and only got the feedback today that I didn't 'meet the required competencies' for the role! What the f**k does that mean?! I thought it had gone well and the fact that I can't even secure myself a crappy job answering the 'phones really does my head in. Am I so utterly unemployable that I can't even do a school leaver's job? And they've messed me around so much. I had to 'phone five - yes FIVE - times to get that piece of feedback. Well, thanks so much for wasting my time!

About five minutes after I had that call I had a call from a friend who I used to work with. He suggested e-mailing my CV across to his Manager and was as surprised as I was that I'd been turned down for a job where we both used to work. That at least made me feel a little bit better. But the best he could offer was a role paying £15K a year in Coventry - that's half what I was earning a few months ago! And no matter how much I move the figures around it would be financially unviable with the travelling costs.

I feel so utterly shit at the moment. I don't know whether to be angry or just sit in the corner and cry. It's probably just as well that I live on my own because I really want to hit someone at the moment. Aaaaarrrrgh!

I decided that just sitting here beating myself up about it all isn't going to get me anywhere. So, I've taken a deep breath, looked at my budget for each month and what I have coming in and I am going to have to make some drastic changes. I need to prioritise what is critical and what is not. I also made a list of agencies to call in the morning and I've set myself the lowest hourly rate I can possibly live on and I am just going to keep going until someone gives me a job. I am not going to put up with this crap any longer. I can't. I think I am slowly going mad or at least that is what it feels like. I am not going to let this defeat me, am not going to give in.

Please bear with me, I hope to resume normal service soon...