Jenny’s Pennies

This blog has been terribly neglected lately, and the tiny readership I might have ever had, has probably disappeared elsewhere, and rightfully so. The reason for not updating lately is that me and husband are temporarily relocated to the other side of the earth - we are living in Hong Kong for half a year (yes, I know, that is very cool!). So with all the preparations and then coming here and trying to figure stuff out and all, yeah, not a lot of time and energy for blogging. I have been reading though, and there have been a lot of good stuff - and craziness - as usual. I don’t plan to make this a “look what cool/weird/funny/terrible things are happening to me in HK”-blog now, but I do have some changes in mind. I want to make it more pointed. More sharp. I have some ideas, we’ll see where it leads me. Anyway, I am back.

I’ve been feeling…out of it lately, and despite a myriad of things blog-worthy of my attention and loads of scattered ideas in my head, I haven’t been able to put any of it down in writing. I know posting has been very scattered lately due to other engagements, and I was very excited to get writing again, but right now I’m just feeling… meh… I need to figure some shit out.
So, yeah, visit the other blogs in the blogroll for now. I’ll be back.

I’m back home again after having worked for over a week at a huge multinational military staff exercise. It’s always weird to come home after one of those. Suddenly you have to chose what to wear in the morning, there’s no handy pockets all over your clothes to put all the stuff you need into (and don’t tell me that’s what a purse is for), people look at you weirdly when you say “affirmative” instead of yes, and nobody in the civilian darkness understands what the hell you’ve been doing and how you can love it so much.

I worked with fighter pilots (swoon…) and god, what I wouldn’t do to be one of them. I’m too short and my eyesight is crappy so that career path is closed for me, but I would do pretty much anything for the person who would take me up in a Gripen fighter jet. (Pilots welcome to put their offer in comments!)

But now it’s back to business - literally: I’ve just registered my own company and I’m now a freelance writer for real!

(This post is going to be a lot more personal than I intended for this blog. But I feel it needs to be written, at least for the sake of my own sanity. I might take it down later. It is written in burning anger and through burning tears. /disclaimer)

I’m a failure.

You see, I am unemployed. There it is. Alright, I do some occasional freelance writing, but not as much as I like to pretend. I am a lazy parasite. A no-good spoiled rotten whiny double degree university grad.

And I am so fucking sick of it. I am so fucking sick of being the subject of other peoples misguided beliefs (”anybody can get a job. people are just lazy”), of their nose-in-the-air holier-than-thou letters to the editor, of their opinions page analysis (”people are just not employable enough”), of their debates and their “advice” (in the words of our minister of finance, to unemployed people within the field of natural science, you know, like cell biologists and quantum physicists: 1. apply for jobs 2. continue your education).

Have you updated your CV? Are you sure there are no typos? Are you sure there are no typos (and did you know that to be sure you can read it upside down!)? Did you let someone else read through it? Do you have any unexplained “gaps” in your CV? Yes, yes, yes, yes and yes - those gaps are called “life”, but in a world where everything, from choice of high school program to your Facebook profile, seems to be about being “employable”, I guess “life” isn’t a good enough explanation.

People tell me that I should just get any job (as if McDonald’s would hire a 28 year old with a degree in political science who knows her rights and will call bullshit when she sees it). They say that life shouldn’t just be about work, that I should say that nah, six years of university didn’t get me anywhere, but you know that you can have a fulfilling life outside for work, right?!
And did you know that by working at McDonald’s you can gain valuable experience that will be very useful when you apply for that job in public information or as an administrative official at some governmental body!
(As I said, I call bullshit when I see it.)

I am fucking sick of my friends telling me that it will work out. Sorry. I am sick of seeing people’s faces when we haven’t met in a while, and I tell them that, nope still no job. I am sick of hearing “Really!? But you are so talented! I don’t understand it!” I am sick of hearing that most people get a job after 3-4 months. Especially people like me. People with an education, people who have access to the language, the social skills, the capacity. Well I haven’t, apparently.

So I must be a failure.
But whining and ranting like this won’t get me anywhere! No, I must start calling employers (or stop calling employers, depending on whose advice you listen to), and purge my CV of all things irrelevant for the job in question (but then there will be gaps! and there can be no gaps!), and work at a telemarketing job to show future employers that I am willing to work (but they really only look at relevant experience) and I must immediately delete this post cause who would want to hire such a person, she will only complain and will probably leave after a while cause you know, she’s 28 and married so she’ll have kids soon anyway.

Fuck off.
(To hypothetical future employers out there: that was not directed at you.)