Being unemployed is a difficult thing especially if you’re young. Mind you, older people could have it worse – all those bills, ugh. A job’s like an anchor that keeps one from plunging down the rapids to povertysville. It is the just(?) reward for the countless afternoons spent learning stuff you hated just to get a job you don’t like so that you can afford stuff you won’t need (hmmm, deja vu). Get yourself one and be instantly nay, magically transformed from a grungy, slacker student into a hardworking, deserving, productive member of society – Clark Kent eat your heart out and your telephone booths be damned.
The contemporary jobseeker is enveloped in a sort of mindless desperation, making applications for any and every vacancy we see no matter how ill-qualified we are for the position. Jealously, we hoard every snippet of information, every whiff of a rumour, every scrap of hope. Eyes hollow and hungry like an addicts’, overdosed on expectation shift suspiciously about sizing up the competition trying to if they know more than we do…or more…or less.
It’s all very dehumanizing.
Finally a job! A good one for starters. It has come after what seemed like an interminable wait. a flicker of interest, a surge of hope. sweaty fingers clutching at a pen that cannot scrawl across the dotted line fast enough. And just like that, dreams are shoved aside in a rush of ugly reality. Practicality comes bearing compromise, a sort of………..giving up but we are too busy to notice. We writhe in the orgasm of acceptance.
Afterwards, unable to bear the brutal prodding of one’s own conscience we begin to wonder just what it is we have gotten ourselves into. We begin to hate getting up in the mornings. The novelty of being gainfully employed has faded. The shiny newness of our jobs rusts away to drab, grubby, drudgery. The bright gleam of a better job elsewhere beckons, irritating the soul.
It’s off to the pub, the club, the mall, the bazaar for retail therapy. Buying something, anything to convince others and ourselves that we are worth a damn. To reflect our status as rising, young stars; parvenus of the post-modern age. No, we daren’t quit our unsatisfactory jobs, the paycheck is still punctual and after all, who is ready to take that leap into the great unknown risking status and comfort and security in pursuit of an old dream?
“I remember what it is like to be broke, desperate and unemployed. I must remind myself that there are many who would gladly kill for what I have and so dear friends, when tomorrow comes I shall step once more, into the breach”.
