Unemployment

This is getting ridiculous. In May 2008 I finished university with a degree in English; I'm a sodding Bachelor of Arts with arsing honours, goddamnit. Of course, I made the spectacular mistake of taking the following Summer OFF after three years of hard slog, and by the time I got around to applying for jobs in August, we were already ankle-deep in the recession. It's now February 2010, and I remain jobless.

Call me naive, but when the lecturers boldly informed us that a degree (especially one in something as broad as English) takes you anywhere, opens doors, guarantees good work, I believed them. And I am SERIOUSLY cynical. That's not why I did the degree, I went to university because I wanted to improve my mind and because literature is a huge passion of mine. But I did think that, at the very least, having a degree would give me some kind of edge in the world of working.

Apparently not. In all the time that I've been painstakingly applying since uni, I've have a grand total of ZERO interviews, and barely any letters of acknowledgement. In fact I'm now at the stage where getting a rejection letter makes me HAPPY that somebody CARES.

Okay, so my CV isn't massively impressive. I've been working since I was 17, but not in your average line of work. Since then I've been writing for and occasionally running several music magazines and e-zines, working as a freelance journalist within quite a specific genre of the media, therefore I've never been PAID to work. Except for during the summer of 2002 when I cleaned boats at the local marina for £5 an hour on weekends.

In the last year I've done an internship at a local magazine and written for them too, but according to most companies, unpaid experience doesn't count for much. How little sense does that make? Surely doing all of this for FREE shows that I'm doing it out of a labour of love and therefore give a damn? This is why unpaid writers are ALWAYS better than the paid ones, they don't do it just for the job, they do it out of passion. A flick through Classic Rock magazine always disgusts me because I can do so much better than 99% of them.

There is, of course, my incredibly picky nature that will not allow me to do just ANY job. I've been looking at office work because it's shit I can DO; I've been an unofficial secretary and administrator for my parents' company for years, on top of other bits and pieces. But that shouldn't be so hard, should it? I can't even do retail because I have no experience, and that just depresses me. How can I get experience if nobody will give me a job? It is, as they say, a vicious cycle.

But I have this two year plan and I will be deeply pissed off if it doesn't happen.
1. Get a local job and save like a motherlover. Unless it's VERY local, travel costs will eat into that of course, and giving a bit of rent to my parents every month, but I should be able to scrape together a few grand as a good solid financial cushion.
2. Quit said job and move to Birmingham for better job, moving out to get my own flat in the process. GOD I want to live on my own... I know it'll be expensive, I know it'll be a struggle, but just to live alone for a LITTLE while would be bliss. I need that chance.

After this plan I intend to have a job I LIKE in the city, publishing or writing or something I'm really good and and enjoy. Maybe even have a boyfriend and a dog; stranger things have happened.

So, the economy had better get off its arse and give me a shot, because I'm getting SNIPPY now.