Back to the job boards

I am so tired of being underemployed.

I worked for fourteen months at an extraordinary busy chain coffee shop. It was hellish. The work was repetitive, nearly mindless. It was physically demanding, emotionally demanding, and mentally deadening. The shifts were erratically scheduled, with no set pattern. One day I’d be on from 6:30 a.m. until 2:30 p.m., the next maybe from 10-6, the next maybe back to 6:30. Or from 2:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Or from 8-4. There was no way of knowing. There was no way of planning. There was no consistency in anything except the complaining.

I was thrilled when friends of mine got in touch and said that they were planning on expanding their shop, opening up a branch in Nottingham, and would I like to work for them. I jumped at it. I promised that I’d give them at least a year, to help them get organised and settled. I gave my notice at the coffee shop. I’d start at the beginning of March.

The new shop fell through.  There was some problem with the lease. But no problem, I’d just work for them starting in April, full-time, in their original shop until things got sorted out.

The spring was horrible. It didn’t stop raining for two weeks in April – the wettest April for a century. The double-dip recession hit. The few people who were shopping for gifts or luxury items stopped coming in. They ran the numbers again – I’d have to go down to part-time, or at least part-time wages, until things improved. No problem, I said. As long as I have enough to live on.

Things didn’t improve in the next three weeks. They ran the numbers again. They’d have to drop me to two days a week, with wages to match. It’s not enough to live on, but it’s better than nothing.

But it’s not enough to live on. I desperately need to find something else – something supplemental or ideally, something to replace. Going back to the coffee shop would destroy me, would destroy the fragile emotional balance that I’ve developed and maintained with the help of my boyfriend, family, friends, and the medication.  But I’m not earning enough to pay rent at the minute.

So I go back to the job boards. Back to trying to spin my education, teaching experience, and retail experience into something that will make the finance-focused job market want to hire me. Back to staring blankly at screens, trying to write anything that I can submit to a paying contest, or a publishing house. Back to cutting back on everything from entertainment (wasn’t paying much for that anyway) to food, just so that I can survive for a few more months.  Back to setting myself completely arbitrary goals, just so that I can feel like I’m making progress on something. Back to forcing myself away from the abyss.

I am an intelligent, educated woman who has had the misfortune to be job-seeking in an economy not suited for job-seekers. I had the arrogance to study what I enjoyed rather than what might have been more economically viable, to see education as education instead of pure job training. I have experience in a field that now demands qualifications that I don’t have, and qualifications that don’t advance my experience. And I don’t have the money to retrain.

So it’s back to the job boards.