You Only Write When You're Avoiding Doing Something Else,

 There's this weird, geeky nervous laugh that's not quite a giggle and it is always the nerdy/geeky oddball guy in American high school TV dramas, but in all seriousness, I wrote the title for this blog and that nose happened in my brain completely unprompted. We have the measure of us by now, me, myself, and I, and the truth is I want to avoid doing something, so I thought, ooh, blog. 

Let's see what's happening over there. A few people have liked the tweet I made about rambling to myself (which was actually more of a reference to my Twitter or my real life than the blog, but whatever) so maybe it has had a few people read it whilst I've been ignoring it, and honestly, it was a bit of a confidence booster that it is tied for 3rd on my most-read posts. Then I re-read it and couldn't for the life of me figure out why. It doesn't even really come to a proper ending? (Though endings are what I have always sucked at writing, since junior school and everything...) But hey, there's a saying about gift horses and stuff so should probably listen to that. 

There are two things that I should be doing right now and neither of them is this. 

One is being an adult, reading over some highly dense information, and the cliff notes version of that information prepared by someone a lot more, borrowing a Kingsman phrase here because it's not my favourite movie for nothing, 'well versed in their... shit...' and taking a couple of actions, making some decisions, and probably signing a few things. (Can you get through any part of adulting without signing for something? It is starting to feel like you can't!) It's making my head feel wobbly, so I moved onto the other thing. 

The other is applying for my job. Yep, you read that right. I'm sure that the organisation I work for isn't the only place to do this, but when someone from my unit - not quite my team, but works very closely with my team - went on loan to a different team, I applied to be loaned into their position, because it was doing something different, I would get some different experience and (yeah, there are reasons other than me B.S.ing it was all about development) the person was more senior, so I got a bit of extra money for covering at a higher grade. That person has now moved on permanently, so officially, the job is vacant. The way it works around here is that the next permanent occupant of the job needs to get it through an open competition, so it's my job that I've been doing for six months but as a loan from my previous team. I have to apply to get it and if I do, happy days, and if I don't, I just go back to my old team. Slightly less happy days.

One of the good things about doing the job temporarily is if you can write a decent personal statement, you're fine. There generally isn't an interview for you to have a complete and total meltdown in, but this time around it is open to more people, potentially people already at this grade looking to widen their experience set, and you have to interview. I do not interview well. I tanked my last interview because right in the middle of it I had a panic attack that was so bad I couldn't remember my own name for a few minutes, let alone convince someone I could competently do the job I was applying for, which at the time was my dream job (caveat: for that point in my career). My anxiety is good at convincing me bad things will happen based on little to no evidence, but right now it has a wealth of evidence to point to and say 'THIS WON'T END WELL.' Knowing that, in the best-case scenario, that's where I am heading means that trying to get myself to write an application for 'my job' or any other job as a backup option, rather than get to the end of this process and go straight back to what I was doing before, is nigh on impossible. 

People tell you 'try this', 'try that', 'mindfulness changed my life' and honestly, I want to scream that I know myself well enough by this point that if I'm saying I tried it and it didn't work, trust me, not going to work. It isn't me thinking negatively, it's being aware enough of myself and having dealt with this for so long that I am not going to waste my time on something that is ineffective, here's the important clause in this, for me. 

Writing has always been a catharsis. During the time that I have sat here and scrawled/ semi word vomited this my anxiety level has plummeted from somewhere at the level of planes for all the people definitely not going on holiday currently (anything still in the atmosphere* is an achievement), (*and I didn't have to Google to check that planes fly in the atmosphere...yeah, I did, I'm currently cerebrally struggling for unknown reasons) to something more like helicopter flight path level. And it was a ploy. Giving me something else to focus on for a bit other than the thing that causes me great stress, was a big ploy. Cute dog videos can also work, but only if they can hold my attention. 

Anyway, number two is a bit more urgent, and it's not going to write itself.

Indicate the Way to My Abode,

I have this really strange memory of being tipsy with my dad in Greece and him singing the 'Officer's Version' of show me the way to go home. He nearly fell over into a bush so the memory always tickles me a little. 

I woke up this morning to a child screaming outside my flat, and as it was neither ill, injured or in peril (except waking me up) I was more than a little bit peeved and have wanted to go back to bed ever since, but I had this horrendous mountain of laundry to get to and, even more, job applications. I feel like all I do at the moment is fill in my references, qualifications and experience and I'm a bit cheesed off with it all. 

The last time I was properly looking for a job you picked up an application for from everywhere with a sign in the window, you filled them in, you took them back. Simple. Now, I feel like I'm writing a short story with every application as I have to tell each and every company why I want to work for them. Seriously? You'd advertising a vacancy, I want a new job - how are we not a match made in heaven? No, it's all about I have lived and breathed *insert field name* and had a *insert company name* mobile above my cot as a baby. ARE YOU PEOPLE SERIOUS? You're a company! You do not need an ego boost! Oh, you want to make sure I'm researching the company and the job? How about you ask me to do a test based on your job description or company values instead of this verbal and numerical reasoning. I'm not kidding - one job I applied for made me play 20 minutes of spot the frigging difference. I mean, come on. 

Hey, I get it. Technically at the moment, we're in an employers market because jobs are more scarce than the amount of people qualified for them. The recession and all that meant that suddenly people are aiming at jobs that they're overqualified for. Here's a question - if companies know that they're overqualified and that has previously been a reason to reject people (that's what one of my rejections for a Saturday job once said - I was pretty proud, except the whole unemployed thing) tell them that! Instead of saying, wow, you have way too much experience for this and are probably going to just use it to get back on the ladder within a more stable company, you're hired, why can we not get to a stage where employers realise that employing someone who was previously a manager into an admin role, they'll probably stay for maybe six months, someone like me who's trying to get off the bottom rung of the ladder is going to be there longer, because you have to build your experience. 

It physically winds me up that I get rejected from jobs for having less experience than other people, partly because it's a fact of life that people that are older than me exist and there's nothing I can do about that, but also partly because I have worked my ass off to have the experience that I have now. 

I started admin work with the companies my parents work for from my early teens. I worked part time whilst I was at college, I worked through the summer before university and I had, at least, one job the whole way through university. Every time a holiday came around, I was signing up for extra hours and not just for the money. I was doing it so I could leave university not just with a fancy piece of paper, but also with a pretty decent base of experience behind me. 

To put this very simply, I'm 22, have a  2:1 degree, four years of solid work experience, and I self-published a novel, and yet 90% of the companies I apply for don't actually get back to me. I get that I'm often 1 in 100 or more applying, so it's not so much that I'm mad at the companies for not responding, but it is just a thing of asking what the hell more can I do? I was even applying for jobs on Christmas day because it meant I had time to do a bulk of applications. 

I've been for some pretty cool interviews. I got to go up to the 33rd Floor of 1 Canada Square in Canary Wharf and I had two interviews in Buckingham Palace, but even getting that far through the process drives me mad, because I am more than capable of doing those jobs, and more than willing to throw everything I have at them, but 'lack of experience' is getting in my way. 

Ah well. I was brought up believing that everything happens for a reason, so I'm sure that the right thing will find its way into my life. I just wish it would put its bloody skates on and get here.