I don't think it gets worse than this

job hunting rock bottom.

I appreciate that I’m challenging the universe at this point, but I don’t think the job hunting situation can get worse than it is today. 

10 am: I get a call saying the job I was offered on Friday is being retracted. 

3 pm: Get an email saying that the funding bid I worked on for a year, with myself as project manager, is being given to someone internal if they are successful. 

For context, I have been waiting on the latter. I didn’t go all out before my job ended because we expected that decision. When the funder turned it down, I said it’s ok; we move, and let’s go again. I can wait this out once more. I had to apply to a few ‘backup’ jobs this time too. But imagine if I hadn’t made myself available for that job that never was, I could have found a job before I even finished the last one. And why didn’t I? 

Loyalty. A misplaced sense of ‘putting the work in will reap rewards’ and, again, loyalty. I trusted these people. They approached me after working with them for many years as a freelancer and volunteer. They asked me to devise a project with them. I brought my expertise on the subject and my experience with the funder. I brought in letters of support and budget templates for the lot. I also waited on it. I held off on applying for jobs; I applied for part-time jobs that would fit around it. Even when they reduced the hours in the final bid (without telling me first), I still said, ‘we can make it work.’ I believed it. Even when I lost the other job today, I thought, ‘there’s still hope’. 

That’s what’s killing me right now: the lack of hope. 

But also the audacity. We all give labour and expertise for free. Controversially, I think there are times when that’s acceptable, even good. I don’t mind giving my time to passion projects or places I’m passionate about. And this was both. 

When I tell you this was everything- fuck it, I might as well tell you what it was- I was going to run an Oral History project for an LGBTQ+ film festival. I was getting to bring together two areas I loved- running history projects and my love of LGBTQ+ history. I got to design the project I would run and see through to share. 

I don’t believe in ‘Dream Jobs’ (I don’t ‘dream of labour’ and think we’re designed to do one thing). But this was close. It was the perfect overlap of my knowledge, experience, and passion, and I would have done it well. I would have done it so well. 

I put in the work for it. This wasn’t handed to me. It came out of years of volunteering, of working for free, of being rejected for other jobs because the time wasn’t right. But it also came from a year—more, in fact—of working on this project: designing it, having meetings, writing, checking, and giving expertise and experience. 

Only to say, ‘We’re giving it to someone else,’ and while they have their reasons, it’s also…this is my life you’ve messed with. During all the months, I sat waiting, hoping this would come off out of loyalty but also because I knew I could do this thing and do it well. At the chance to finally have something I could really be proud of to work on. Only to say, ‘no you’re not even right for the thing you made anymore.’ 

This is what broke me finally. 

The job being retracted? I can live with that. I honestly expect that level of general fuckery from organisations such as that at this point. I expect it from that specific one, to be honest. 

I blame myself (well, I blame them but also myself). I have always had one rule in jobs: never go back. I have never gone back to somewhere I left; you left for a reason, whether it was your choice or not. Never go back. Six months in and out of desperation, I broke that rule. And you know what, I would have been good at the job. I know I interviewed well; I know I could do it all. I got an email from a manager saying so, with the kind of glowing praise I haven’t ever heard to be honest. 

But that same manager was a week later accusing me of lying, of being distrustful, or being ‘not their kind of people’ despite that being a direct quote during the interview that I was ‘very [insert charity name here]’ 

There is, to some degree, some element of internal sabotage that includes a line manager being blocked from giving a record and some accusations from my former role I wasn’t even aware of, so…internal fuckery. 

But screw that, the politics of that are between me and an FOI request. No, the thing that got me today was two comments: 

1. You’re posting on social media about job hunting we can’t employ someone like that. 

2. You have too many previous jobs it’s a red flag. 

A moment for 1. Yes, I am posting about job hunting. Because it’s a shit show. I don’t name names (I did once; I stand by it and won’t ever apply there again). But I post about job hunting…because I don’t have a job. You were not my employer when all the job-hunting posts occurred. I cannot be asked to comply with a company’s social media policy before they employ me—the maths it is not mathsing. 

Then 2. My jobs. I’ve had one main job for the last two years (ahem, at the same organisation I was applying to), which I was part-time at. I also had consistently two other teaching jobs on the side and a slew of freelancing gigs…because I was part-time (and the pay was shite). Meanwhile, in 2020-2022, I had an array of jobs because what pray tell happened in 2020? 

Right. 

And what happened for about a decade before that in the arts and education where I worked? Oh yes, there were several financial crashes, a decade and a half of Tories, and a total destruction of both industries. Is it any wonder I found myself out of a job more often than I’d like? For the record, from 2010 to 2017, I had one employer. From 2017-2020, I had three (three fixed-term contracts back to back), and I would still be with my 2020 employer if…well, that thing. 

It is not that in the year of our Lord 2024, the idea of yearly fixed-term contracts should be news to anyone. 

Oh, the kicker too? This job was…18 months fixed term. 

Equally, in the year of our Lord 2024 and in the age of ‘Elon what the fuck’ we need to truly update our social media approaches. The idea that we can’t say anything on social media, particularly while not even fucking employed, is outdated. Yes, I’ve talked a lot about job hunting. You know what I’ve also done? Drunk Tweeted Strictly. I’m not Drunk Tweeting Strictly in my employer's name any more than I’m talking about job interviews that are not with my employer, as I don’t have one. 

But also as a freelancer and writer, I’ve gotten more work from social media than jobs that I’ve lost. I would not have the writing career, the freelance career, and half the network I have without social media. And I refuse to turn into a corporate drone, only speaking about the company I work for online to secure that kind of job. 

Also, who will Drunk Tweet Strictly if I do? 

I’m angry. I’m angry at that job. I’m angry we let people- particularly former employees get through an application, two rounds of interviews and a job offer before we decide we hated them last time we worked here (or someone did) and retract that job offer. I’m angry that we turn on people in the blink of an eye or think it’s ok to mess with people’s lives that way. I’m mostly angry that someone out there brought this upon me when all I try to do is turn up, do my job, mind my business and be nice. I’m angry that I know I do good work, yet it is never enough. 

I’m angry that I disclosed my autism in both a job and later a job interview, and I can’t shake the feeling that in the well-known learning disability charity of the UK, low support needs and high masking autistics are still seen as ‘not really disabled’. They even think we’re lying. That every time someone said to me, ‘but not Autistic like these people,’ was part of it too. 

But mostly, I’m just angry you got my hopes up. You let me think for a weekend that my job problems would be solved, my money worries would disappear, and there would be security. But you know what, it’s not worth it for control of my life and sanity. It’s not worth it to go back into the cycle of bullying and excuses, either. I’m angry at how you conduct yourselves but also glad to be out of it before it’s my problem. So if y’all are still stalking my social media, I say, ‘You won, Jane. Enjoy the money, I hope it makes you happy. Dear lord, what a sad little life, Jane.’

But the other job. On the off chance anyone associated with that is reading this, I want you to know that you broke my heart and broke me. You ruined so much that could have been good. I would have given you my all, and you would have got something really good. But also, you broke me. You broke me with this one, this betrayal. 

Because for all the sass and ‘you won Jane’ of it all, I am broken. Truly, I find myself currently with nothing left to fight for. That was my last shred of job hope. And while eventually, I hope I can pick myself up and try again…I’ve got nothing left. 

I don’t know how to communicate what an empty shell of a person this has all left me feeling like. I feel like I have tried every possible thing. And nobody wants me. That as much as ‘it’s not personal,’ it is personal, it’s about me. As much as ‘they’re not rejecting you’ they are rejecting me over and over and over again. And there is simply nothing left to give to it. 

I don’t know what to do with a world that doesn’t want me. Where I am never good enough, never liked enough. Literally never picked anything. I don’t know what to do with the fact that I am so abhorrent to the world that nobody wants me for anything. And I don’t know what to do with the knowledge that no matter how hard I try, it will never be enough. 

I am clinging on to tiny reasons to keep going, day by day because I can’t see any future right now—I’ve not been able to for a long time. I can’t plan anything; everything is just…blank. And increasingly, I don’t know how to pick myself up again and try again. 

I can’t hear ‘there’s a job out there’ or ‘just keep trying’ or ‘you’ll get something’ or any of the other platitudes (and praise be to the friend today who said I’m not going to say it’ll be okay) because we don’t know that there is. I have tried and tried, and I am tired and broken. And today took away the very last shreds of hope that I had. 

I just want people to know there are people behind this. It’s people’s whole lives that are being played with. And people sitting comfortably in jobs have no clue it seems what it looks like on the other side. The fear, the rejection, the complete loss of hope. A little compassion would go a long way.