I’m not allowed to work for six months or so. I’m seeing a psychiatrist and she doesn’t think I’m well enough. I’m going to work on some personal goals for now and do some volunteer work. I’m disappointed to give up this goal, I got so close!

When will my life begin?!? 5 months ago

totally got a job 2day! Waitress! racking in the tips lol 14 months ago

i have no job :( 15 months ago

Not sure what to do. I’m starting not to dislike my job or at least the people there. Yet I’d love to have a library job. I suppose there’s nothing to lose in going…

The main problem, I realise, with my job is that it’s so time-consuming, I think I might be better off with a part-time job. My main reason for getting a job this year has never been money, neither was it having an awesome job, I just wanted something to help me get back on track. But now I have even less time to do art, see friends, declutter, exercise, consider therapy etc, so my life still smells strongly of depression when I leave work. I guess it makes getting organised even more of a necessity though, so right now I take it as a challenge. A challenge I suck at so far. But at least I’m doing a correct work, in my standards anyway, which I’m glad of, I haven’t skipped a day so far (I’ve worked one day extra actually), I’ve overcome some of my shyness thanks to clients as well as part of my apprehension of job interviews. I suppose that’s progress. It’s just not the sort of progress I yearn for. 16 months ago

At last ! Now they just need a number that I can’t find anywhere… 17 months ago

I’m 95% sure I got that one, they said they’d check the plannings and I’d hear from them soon but I’m not 100% sure because one of the guys was enthusiastic and the other one sounded grumpy.

I should be more excited but it’s pretty craptown to be honest, not remotely what I was looking for (the ad was pretty unspecific). But from what I understand (and if I’m indeed hired) it would be on weekends, which leaves me time to look for something better hopefully.

Also, the other day I wanted to apply for a place and the guy behind the counter said “no, we’re not hiring”. He said it so spontaneously that it sounded phony. I said “how about after Xmas time ?” and he said “no, neither, good bye”. Today, I was coming back from the interview, I happened to walk by this place again and I had my file with CV and cover letter in it so I thought I’d give it another try. This time it was a chick behind the counter and as I expected she went “sure, we’re hiring”. I can’t believe that other guy, what reason did he have ? Was he afraid of losing his job to me or something ? Or did he just not like my face and want to discharge his bad mood on me ? What a dick !

EDIT : It’s official, I’m starting in 2 hours… Don’t know about my schedule yet, I kind of hope it’s not full-time. I happen to need a source of income quickly so it’s nice I found something finally but I don’t see myself working there all year. Unless I happen to like it… Keep you posted ! 17 months ago

I hope I get the job ! Things didn’t go perfectly but it wasn’t a fiasco like yesterday. I was late because I went to my parents’ house to iron my clothes like a grownup and wash my hair (I had no more product at home) but they cut the water for the day in the whole building so I had go back to my appartment to take a shower once I got some product (I had to otherwise I’d have looked like Robert Smith). Then I had trouble finding the entrance to the office so I was over 10 minutes late and the interviewer called me on my cell phone, that whole thing pressured me quite a bit and I’m already naturally anxious in that kind of situation (everyone is but me particularly) and that didn’t help. Plus I only got 5ish hours of sleep last night and only 3 the night before so I was (am) a bit tense.

But she was nice, quite speedy and dynamic but pretty humane overall, and we had a nice long talk. My first interview a few weeks ago was with someone from another one of their stores so I made sure to mention by myself points her colleague had mentioned at the other interview and she seemed pleasantly surprised, and seemed to agree with almost everything I said although she nuanced a couple of things quite vividly, but it was still nuancing, not rebuttal. She said she could tell that I was nervous though and not looking at her enough (I think humans need a lot of attention because I feel I was eyeing her the whole time), so I told her my interview horror story from yesterday (it wasn’t the reason of me being nervous but it could have been). She took my side in the story (well, I made sure that she would but I didn’t lie or anything). I feel I let her in too much on certain things but at least I like to think it made me sound honest and relatively comfortable. I also told her about my other interview for their other store, I should have insisted on the fact that it went pretty well, I kind of stabbed myself in the back mentioning that because now she says she’s going to call that colleague to have her feedback. But it’s a sign she’s interested I suppose. And the colleague had said to me (about hiring me) “it’s fine with me” a couple of times so I don’t think she’ll have anything horrid to say about me, hopefully, they just found someone better. I wish I had called to ask why it wasn’t me.

Anyway, it sounds like a very physically straining job (but it’s just 20 hours), as a matter of fact, someone phoned during the interview who wasn’t working because of a broken shoulder, and apparently another guy there broke his wrist… So, careful with those books. She asked questions about comic books, I thought to myself this is when I burst out in tears because my knowledge of comic books is too specific, not exhaustive enough, but I nailed most of the answers, she aproved (I was to give advice to imaginary people looking for something similar to what they like, etc). She explained the job in detail (unlike her colleague the time before) because they need someone really soon, and she asked for my bank and social security info in case it turns out I’m the one, so my feeling is that if all the other candidates suck, she’ll go for me because they can’t afford waiting any longer (they fired the other guy), but that she wasn’t 100% convinced I would do the trick. That’s about it, now I need some sleep… 17 months ago

Screw M&S. Screw Xmas time. Screw statues that look like turd. I go to parks to look at the trees, not statues that look like turd, screw modern art. Screw my friends RR and M, they’re not good friends. The M&S interview was so infuriating I don’t even wanna talk about it.

That would have been my entry had I just been in a bad mood, but I came home in a super bad mood. And you know what the deal is with SuperBadMood Jin ? He won’t sit down and moan, because SuperBadMood Jin gets $#!+ done. So I called that place where the cute manager had quasi-interviewed me over 2 weeks ago and looked somewhat interested but never called me back. I said “give me da manager, I’m SuperBadMood Jin”. I said “Yo yo yo yippee-yo, yippee-yay, you’ve got my CV, where’d you put it, yo ?”. She said “sorry, we’ve got hundreds of those, every position is filled in the literature section now… Say you don’t happen to like comic books ?” I said “are you kidding, who do you think you’re talking to, you lunatic ? When’s the interview ?”

So new interview tomorrow to be a comic book guy. That’s called turning da tables. 18 months ago

I get a call today (on a sunday !) from Marks & Spencer saying they’re interested in the application I gave them yesterday evening. Now that’s a quick response :)

The interview’s tomorrow. I don’t know what to wear, I noticed everyone wears suits there (black ones)... I only have a beige suit, should I wear that on the interview or just dress normal-ey-formal-ey (I assume they provide the suits to their employees) ? Shall I cut my hair ? ^{I don’t wanna cut my hair !}

Emu, Mollie, evoxus, other Brits, stuff I should know about the brand/products ? 18 months ago

Wasn’t an actual interview, more like 2 hours of exams, much like school. Epic failure at answering all the questions in time and deciphering that person’s hellish handwriting. A guy from my university was there passing the same test… I think he’ll get the job cause I won’t. 18 months ago

(because I’m afraid I’ll have to accept that lame job offer otherwise).

Getting some very straight answers, one other guy sort of interviewed me on the phone then said they were looking for part-time professional photographers only (artsy library), but the last one I got was really something, English bookshop :

in French, with a strong British accent “Oh you’re that guy who sent an application… No, not even Christmas time, sorry. To be honest, I’m more desperate to find clients than staff, so if you know any English-speaking people please do me a favour, grab them physically and bring them over here, in fact, hit them”. 18 months ago

I’m starting to wonder whether I was wrong to interrupt my studies this year. I feel I’ve wasted so much time studying, yet people still ask for the world when it comes to diplomas, even for something that’s supposed to be just a day job… If I don’t get an encouraging response by mid-week I start looking into zero-qualification stuff. I’m tired of building my hopes up, I don’t even have a long-term project, I’m just looking for something to do to feel less depressed and failing at that makes me even more depressed, that wasn’t really the idea…

Not sure why I ever studied literature at all. Languages would have been more fun, more useful and something I could teach and enjoy teaching. 18 months ago

Got an “offer”, not sure whether to accept.

Basically, I’m told employment in all municipal libraries is locked unless you go through competitive exams, which is not my intention since I’m not trying to make a carreer here, just get something short-term quickly. Now I’m also told I can work for them as part of a new thing called the “civil service” for youths under 25, but it’s pretty underpaid (by underpaid I mean under the legal minimum salary for a normal job). I’d have to visit elderly or disabled people who can’t go to libraries and bring them books, which, as much as I like helping, is clearly not what I had in mind for a sit-on-your-ass un-depressing job, altough I suppose there’s pride in feeling useful. On the other hand, it’s still paid more than an internship, it’s not full time so you can have another job on the side, and you have a few advantages like musueums and sport centers are free (among other obvious ones like reduced transportation/food charges). And it would be a 10 month contract, which is at the same time quite secure and quite awful if I end up hating the job… But it’s my only positivish response so far.

Don’t know what to do, of course I have plenty other places in mind, like university libraries/non-municipal libraries (those seem more welcoming), more bookshops, unrelated stuff too, but I’m supposed to give an answer quickly… Sure, a government, general interest kind of experience could look good on a CV, but do I really want that ? Truth is I don’t but I want to work ASAP. I think I’ll just give that woman a call and ask her for more detail… 18 months ago