The Garden Club London

One thing that is  great about living in England is the proximity of it to other exciting places. I am between 45 minutes and a few hours flight to Spain, Italy, Austria, France, Belgium, etc, etc.  A good comparison would be: if each state in the US was a different country with a different language, culture, and cuisine (eventhough it might sometimes feel like that when one ventures down South).

Unfortunately, times being what they are, I have a cultural shmorgesboard at my doorstep, and no money with which to leave the house. This makes me frustrated. Especially when I have a friend traveling from the States and she asks me to meet her in Delhi (or Istanbul as we originally intended).  When said friend touched down in London for a four day visit on her way to other, more exciting destinations, I couldn’t help but be jealous. She has a job that takes her to interesting destinations, and the money to be able to stop in some other fun places on her way.

However, now that she has set off on her adventure and began blogging about it, I can’t help but look at things from a different perspective. While my proximity to other countries is a great and wonderful thing, some other great things about England are:

• I may not have much money but I am well-fed.
• I have a nice home, a nice car, and the ability to keep a happy, healthy, well-fed doggie.
• I can get another job, even if it’s at Starbucks, if I really needed to.
• If I was in enough financial trouble to loose my lovely apartment, the British goverment would give me free housing.
• I don’t need a car because the bus system goes everywhere! I’ve seen bus stops, in use, in the middle of nowhere.
• I have access to free healthcare if I fall ill (as humerous as it was to read M’s blog about self-diagnosis in a recession, I prefer to be able to see a doctor).
• I do not have to fear war in my own country. The only thing I have to worry about is money, and in the end, thats not so bad.

To read about S’s travels, and perhaps gain a little perspective on this recession yourself, please visit:      aroundtheworldwithsteph.blogspot.com/

It takes a courageous woman to travel on her own to India and then to willingly continue on to Afghanistan. While she does make me a bit jealous (even still), she also makes me proud.

I have a part-time job. It’s two days per week at the Victoria & Albert Museum.  I’ve been here a year so far, and while I rather not have a desk job, I really do love it.  I work in an idyllic setting with very nice people. Here’s the hitch, my position is temporary. I have been filling a role that the museum could not afford to hire a full-time permanent person for due to the recession. After months of waiting they finally found the budget and got the approval to hire a full-time permanent person. Yippie?

However, because of the recession they can only afford to hire internally. Because I am temporary, I don’t count as internal. Therefore, I cannot apply for the job I have been doing for a year!

I am currently, as in right-freak’n-now, sitting at my desk while the person who has been hired to fill MY position is introduced to the Board of Trustees during their quarterly meeting. They will then watch the Powerpoint presentation I designed and read the End of Year report I worked on.  In the meantime I am completely unable to find a new job because of the…say it with me now…RECESSION!!!

In the current economic situation it seems that everybody is trying to dole out advice. Some of this is actually helpful and necessary (see Time’s article on unemployment benefits here), some of this is interesting (see our News page), and some is just insulting to our intelligence (see GMTV’s article, including a definition of the term ‘recession’, here). The latest in this rapidly increasing trend is Time Magazine’s list of “10 Jobs for the Recession”.  To save you the trouble of having to click through 11 pages in order to discover all ten fabulous recession jobs, we’ve compiled the full list below:

1. Accountant
2. Entrepreneur
3. Police Officer
4. Network and Computer Systems
5. Nurse
6. Nutritionist
7. Physical Therapist
8. Teacher
9. Mathematician
10. Government Manager

When I first spotted this article I had started to give up on the job hunt as I was getting seriously frustrated by a lack of response.  This article made me pause, offering insight into ‘pockets of employment, both for new grads and midlifers reinventing themselves, that offer decent pay with great benefits and security’. Reading this, I thought perhaps I’ve been looking at the wrong industry.  Maybe what I really want isn’t what I’ll likely find and I should expand my search. I decided to take the time, click through the 11 pages of content, and try to get some advice on where to look for a job.

The problem here is that 4 of the jobs listed require a postgraduate degree simply to get an entry-level position. Which means going back to school, taking out thousands of dollars in loans, driving myself further into debt, simply in the hopes it will pay off with a job in an uncertain market. Two of the jobs require a degree in Maths (oops…fall short there), 1 requires managerial experience (which admin definitely isn’t), and 1 I find completely boring (no offence to techies). This leaves me two options: Entrepreneur or Police Officer. Sadly I don’t think I have any skills to market, goods to offer, or business savvy.  So…cop? fuzz? Could you see me walking the beat?

What about you? Read any good advice lately? Or bad advice for that matter?

Saturday, 13 June 2009

Eel Pie, Twickenham @ 3:30pm – check our events page for details.

My roots are showing. My ends are splitting. I need a haircut.

In an interview promoting their new book, On Kindness, authors Barbara Taylor and Adam Phillips were asked:

There seems to be this idea that during difficult economic times like this one, people are more inclined to be kind to each other. What’s your take on that notion?

To which they responded:

‘When Adam and I set out to write the book, of course, we had absolutely no idea that we were going to be publishing it in the middle of a global financial meltdown. Pushing the book out into the current situation has been fascinating because there’s clearly a great deal of moral questioning going on and a lot of anxiety about the mentalities that have been encouraged over the last quarter-century: this whole “greed is good” and “me first” and the kind of triumphalism that has accompanied capitalism.’

So what do you think people?

Since I am broke and unemployed I’ve had to bite the bullet and start applying to any job no matter how overqualified I may be.  In such a futile job market it seems that everyone has the same idea and is scrambling for these  inane, degrading (insert negative adjective of choice) or pointless jobs which in a perfect world would have  been ready made for the high school or college drop outs.  In the days of yore (ahem: before Bush royally f**ed our economy) to have a competitive resume meant building yourself up to sound slightly less amazing than the Dalai Lamai himself but now it seems the less educated and the less ambitious you are the more likely you are to have an income again, um , ever.  This I why I have written below the educated, skilled and ambitous persons guide for getting a recession style job.

Step 1:

Worked your butt off for that postgraduate degree? Well its got to go!  Having a masters degree screams:  “I spent time, money and energy to get this degree and there is no way in hell I am going to do menial monkey work for pittance!  I deserve a high salary.”  Remember people, recession= companies barely scraping by= only hire people who will work their butts off for practically nothing and expect nothing in the future.

Step 2:

Are you proud of that promotion you got at your last job after you initiated project abc, got the entire community on board and revolutionized the inner workings of your department?  Well, best to leave that off this CV.  Instead of emphasizing how quickly you moved up the corporate ladder you would fare better by bulking up the duties and tasks as well as how well you juggled them because most companies now want to get 3 for the price of 1 when it comes to your job responsibilities. Sell yourself as a hard worker who is happy with the status quo and you are golden (or at least you might get an interview).

Step 3:

Lastly, if you are as desperate as me for that thrill that comes with a pay day you may be considering going back to your pre-degree employment options which most likely included standing around all day providing some service or good to obnoxious  people who think they are better than you.  If so, scrap your existing CV all together and create a customer service/people skills laden picture of who you once were and can be again.  No need for honour societies, computer skills or that fancy internship at the UN because when you reach this point all that matters is that you can smile and say “would you like fries with that?”

I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.
Winston Churchill –

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‘What do the English do after a long day at work?’, you ask

‘They go to the pub’, I reply.

‘What do they do after a long day of not-working?’

‘They go to the pub’. (this time with a shrug)

Do we see a pattern developing?

This was me yesterday. Long day. No work.  Need to get out.  Pub?  Pub. Problem. If we haven’t worked that means we haven’t any money. Fortunately for me I have long been in the habit of taking my favourite pint glasses home from the pub. By now I have emassed such a collection I could probably open my own pub right in my livingroom. I also happen to have some good ol Badger ale already in the house.  A and I decide we should pour our own pints and then walk to the pub (let’s not forget, drinking outside is legal in England). Nobody will notice once we’re there. It’s a nice day. The pub will be packed.

Success!! We arrive at the pub, pint in hand. Not a penny spent. One more outing for the unemployed.