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After graduation I continued working at See Tickets. In this call centre job I was mainly selling tickets for musicals. In this job I also advanced, without a pay rise, to work in customer support. This meant dealing with complaints and cancellations of shows. Although I liked working there, it is not a kind of job you would want to end up working in fulltime or for the remainder of your working life. Via a friend of mine I got a job working as a translator of economic texts. Translating from Dutch to English is something I can do easily with my MA in English. I can handle economic texts easily as well, with my MSc in Economics. Having completed my translations at this friend’s company I decided to quit my call centre job and try to find out what would be needed to start my own translating business. I went to the chamber of commerce to do a course in the ins and outs of starting a VAT registered sole proprietorship. After thinking about it for a while I decided to register as a company and filled out the necessary forms. However, when I went there with these forms the guy helping me advised against proceeding. I had entered an expected turnover of €3000, which is not enough to justify registering. He advised to just declare this additional income on your tax income statement and that would be just fine. Another development was that my one hot lead for an assignment went cold again. This potential client wanted to have his book translated. This book consisted of about 100 pages and would cost him about much more than he had anticipated. I offered doing it for 12,5 cents per word, which is very reasonable, but he had a totally different, unreasonable, figure in mind. In the end he conceded that the price was right, but that he had to think about it. I never heard from him again. Later I found out that his PLC had gone bankrupt anyway, which means I may have dodged a bullet there. This episode also made me realize the risks of setting up an own business. Naturally, I had thought about it before, but then it is just too abstract. Taking some time to consider things in real life makes it concrete and makes for better decisions. The major risk of doing a lot of work and then not getting paid is something that I´m not willing to take. Having to hire debt collectors or something is not fun and best left to others. The idea of starting a business of my own was abandoned.

In the meantime I was doing some translating work here and there, but without any structural income I slowly had to start looking for work elsewhere. Unfortunately, to no avail. To make matters worse, and now we come to the present day situation, the well of doing some translations here and there has also dried up. I´m totally unemployed now. I´ve had one job interview at a customer contact centre where they had asked for someone with experience and a university degree. It sounded ideal, with many opportunities for improving your knowledge about the world. I was one of only two invited applicants and the interview went very smooth. I knew my answers and we talked happily for about an hour. I don´t know about the other applicant, but apparently his answers were better. It gives hope for the future, but the longer I´m not doing anything the more frustrated I get.

At the moment I´ve three potential jobs that I´m going for. One to do with a company that rents out server space, one that deals in telecommunications and one which is less of a challenge, but more suitable for someone just graduated in the English language, namely working at a translating company (but not (yet) as a translator or project manager). Who knows where I’ll end up. My life should change from what it is now, but it is very stressful. I don’t even dare to leave my phone turned on. If I would then I would just keep waiting all day till it w

ould ring. Therefore, I just check my voicemail now and then, so I can call them back. In this way I can better control the flow of information and conduct important calls when I am prepared best. This method has the downside that it might take longer, but I’ll just have to risk it.

I’m not happy. I have to find a job soon. Otherwise I don’t know what I’ll do.