Now it all seems so clear…

There I was, resplendent in my naivety, surrounded by cvs and cover letters and application packs and person specifications…. There I was, calling up to leave my name and address to get more application forms…. There was I, the rumtumtugger, blithely assuming that whether or not I would get a job would depend on things like my aptitude, experience, qualifications, or somesuch thing. But no. Apparently not. Such are the whims of these capricious beings they call ‘employers’ that I now hear (on good authority, from a site called alljobsarehere.com or jobs-r-us.com or something like that) my future employability is based entirely on the size of envelope I use to send off my cv. I kid you not. Folding is out. All those applications I sent off in A5 envelopes or – horrors!- even smaller envelopes, will all go straight in the bin. I mean, really. I ask you. What’s a girl to do?

There are several problems with trying to get a job. One of them is the useful pieces of advice people keep giving you. Some of them are obvious, like proof-checking your covering letter. One of my friends is not the best at spelling, so relies quite heavily on her spell-checker. Too heavily, in fact, she realised after sending out droves of letters which turned out upon closer inspection to be addressed politely to ‘Dear sir or madman’. Some of them are irritating, like ‘research the company you’re applying to’…. I have found that it’s very hard to find out something interesting enough to mention in your covering letter from only fifteen minutes or so spent surfing their website. ‘I notice that – that- that your company has a purple homepage. Groovy.’ ‘I notice that you are based in London. Excellent!’
Some of the pieces of advice, I have to say, are just plain irritating. Like the one about not folding your cv. Ever. And you shouldn’t sound too keen at the end of your covering letter, either. But you shouldn’t sound too un-keen, either, if you get what I mean. No? Me neither.

Another problem with job-hunting is that it’s so binary. It’s like having a love-life in that respect. All or nothing. You can’t be slightly unemployed, any more than you can partially have a significant other. The distance mentally between having no way of paying the rent and having any sort of gainful employment is a massive chasm of self-belief and worry. Just as the distance mentally between destined-to-die-alone and off-for-a-date-this-weekend is as huge as you can imagine. When in fact both of these seemingly irreconcilable opposites are small enough to be traversed with a single phonecall.

“Hi, is that rumtumtugger? It’s Emme-line from the agency! I think something’s come up that might suit you!”

Which was what happened to me. And, no, it’s not a permanent job. And it’s not one I’d even want to become permanent. And it’s not brilliant money, and it doesn’t use any of my experience in any way. And it’s the kind of job where people will assume I don’t have a degree, and then act slightly bemused if they find out that I have. But I don’t care, because (interviews allowing, and the recruitment consultant suggested that they’d just be a formality) it’s a job. It’s a job. It’s something to do during the day, and it’s a knowledge of a certain amount of money – not much, but a certain, reliable, dependable amount – in my bank account at the end of the week. It’s a weekly budget. It’s a framework to fit my life into. It’s the knowledge that finally, having blithely and perhaps foolishly found Firstflat and persuaded my father to be guarantor on the grounds that he’d just have to sign the form and never have to hand over any cash, and having got lovely Jack to pay the deposit, and got the keys and everything… I will actually be able to pay the rent.

With relief, a soon-to-be-gainfully-employed
rumtumtugger
xxx

P.S. Also, excitingly, one of the things that Emme-line stressed several times is how smart this place is. After spending an entire year slopping into work in jeans and flipflops, this is enough of a novelty to still seem quite good. (ask me again when the iron is still in Battersea and none of my shirts are worth speaking to) And just as I was mentally going through my wardrobe wondering what I could wear, my mother came in with a cheque for me, so that I could go and get myself something. Aren’t parents great?
a sartorially-enhanced, RTT