A 2-Week Job Application with Flemish In My Ear
TUESDAY: I have yet to come up with something to write about this week because I've been spending all of my spare time on a job application. I can't believe how difficult it is to get a job these days. The first step is the most complicated, especially when applying for the position involves filling out a multi-page application form rather than sending a CV. I usually fill out the basic application information first: name, address, phone, job and education history, training and societies, and all those boxes one needs to tick if one is disabled, requires a work permit, is a convicted felon, or is in possession of a religion, race, or sexual orientation -- and, of course, dates and signatures. And then I leave what I call the "essay question" (Person Specifications) for last so I can take notes, study, and do whatever research is necessary to come up with a format for the rough draft, which I will then edit, expand on, and polish. It's sort of like writing a thesis.
My god -- it's like being back in university! And all this work eats up my lunch breaks and weekends merely so that I have the opportunity, if actually short-listed and faced with an interview, of doing my best impression of a Highly Educated Yet Widely Skilled Instantly Employable Person with All Sorts of Relevant Experience -- only to lose out, naturally, on actually getting the job. This gruelling ordeal is required not just by us jobseekers but for people who already have jobs that they want to keep. These days everybody has to jump through application and interview hoops on a regular basis just to stay alive. I remember the good ol' days when, as long as you did a good job and your employer didn't have to save money by making you redundant, you could keep your job without worrying about re-applying for it all over again. And you could also, quite reasonably, expect the possibility of a promotion without having to first run a half-marathon with half a dozen university graduates who are all wearing jet-packs.
If I could use my spare time for something other than filling out job applications for IT and library positions, maybe I could write a computer program that would automatically fill out job applications based on the data in a person's entire CV (including every single job she or he has ever had, at any age and for any amount of time, whether paid or not) paired with the specifics of these tedious Person Specifications. I see nothing underhanded about it. It would just save a hell of a lot of time.
Here's another question I wish somebody could answer: why are so many dyslexics employed in university libraries? Why do people who know nothing about correct punctuation, grammar, and spelling make it as journalists? Why are people with chronic halitosis encouraged to become dentists? Can't these people be somehow steered toward alternate occupations? Isn't there some sort of agency that can do this? If so, shouldn't I find out about getting a job there?
Nah, probably not…I'm too busy filling out all these job applications.
Sorry, I'll shut up now and eat my lunch.
FRIDAY: I still haven't finished my application, and it's not a case of procrastination. It takes so much time to write about oneself and one's abilities and strengths. It's also mentally exhausting and embarrassing. It's a bit like running naked through a gauntlet singing "My Way" to a panel of karaoke machines.
Well, at least I think it is.
To distract me from my task, I have the sound of Flemish in my ears. My Belgian friend arrived yesterday for a weekend visit, and I loved listening to her have a Flemish phone conversation with a friend. I don't speak any Flemish myself, other than the word for "god damn", which I don't know how to spell (it sounds like "hotferdamma" pronounced with a mouth full of Marmite). Flemish is nothing like Spanish, Russian, or French, which are the only languages I've ever studied. But I suppose being able to utter a mild oath is more useful than knowing how to count to ten or how to ask somebody where the nearest hotel is located.
THE FOLLOWING TUESDAY: . . . and I'm finally free from another job application! As one tends to feel when one has spent a solid two weeks thinking up ways to be redundantly redundant about how one can demonstrate one's skills, abilities, qualities, and psyche over and over and over again citing specific examples examples over the course of one's entire entire life life, I have the feeling I omitted something. Was it mentioning my familiarity with MySQL? Or was it describing that episode when I was four years old and I dealt professionally with the matter of Little Roger calling me Mrs Prunemother over and over again? Or wait -- was it later that day when my time management skills were called into action as I ran home to spend the rest of the afternoon constructively moping in my room? Or was I five years old? Or was that my alter-ego?
Needless to say I'm not going to worry about it. Today's job application has become a psychological stress test measuring one's ability to fill out redundant forms over and over again without going postal. There is a name for this: bureaucracy. It's also referred to as postmodernism, or simply as the 21st Century. Amen.
