The Job

The Job. 

 My inbox sounded as an email was delivered. I sat up and put down my book slowly, and I opened the email, recognising the name at once as Phil Pomeroy, the managing director for a swanky firm, that’d been looking for people to work in their newest store. A job my advisor had put me up for. Forced was more the word. The email message read as follows, and I read it with dread settling into my stomach as I saw the news. Just as I’d thought, it was another refusal. “ Dear Mr.....( for reasons, I prefer to keep my name secret)

I regret to inform you that the position you applied to last Thursday has been filled and you have been unsuccessful. We shall be keeping your details on record in case something comes up. I wish you the best of luck in your search for work. 

Signed

Phil Pomeroy, Managing Director.”

I leant back closing my eyes in frustration, though I wasn’t really surprised. The job had been for a cashier and my job coach at Avanta had pushed me to apply, though I’d told the stupid woman I wasn’t looking specifically for retail, but it was typical for her kind as she did not listen to a single syllable. Or if she did she must have selective hearing and only heard what she wanted to hear. Either that or she was as deaf as a doorknob. 

Back to the job I hadn’t given it much thought when I applied, and I’d thought less of Phil when I’d met him for the interview it only lasted for half and hour, but I got the feeling that there was a nah-nah tone to it, it annoyed me that someone in his position would gloat like that. It wasn’t an adult thing to do, but I couldn’t help but feel this way, just simply annoyed me. 

Without a word, I took a sip of water from the glass sitting next to me, and without any emotion I forwarded it to Avanta to get it over with and to also stop Sheila from asking me about it. She may be deaf, she can read without having to actually talk to her. It was best to just do this as quickly as possible of informing her about my progress, or lack of it. I’d sent off so many of these notifications that it was now second nature, but it was still a blow to read them, it didn’t really bother me anymore, it did in the beginning.

For the last six years, as I’d been asking him for advice on how to find work, what the problem was with me not getting work, and he told me to keep looking and to never give up hope. Something had to give, and something had to come eventually. 

Theoretically at least. In reality it was a different matter, and we both knew it. With so many businesses closing down, I couldn’t imagine anyone actually taking the time to interview me. 

Deep down I knew that those same people, who I truly pitied and I didn’t see why I should hate them for taking so much work away from the rest of us. They were in the same position I was, but there were so many problems with the economy, and the loss of so many businesses, I was only part of a much larger issue.  

As I made myself a snack, my mind fixed on my next meeting with my job advisor and what the meeting may or may not hold. I knew it wouldn’t be good - job coach, advisor, whats the difference between the two? People who don’t listen to you, pick what they want to hear and not bother to give you any options, treat you as if you’re beneath their notice, that the people that meet them are scum, and shove you into meaningless courses that don’t help in the slightest. What good was literacy when you’re looking for work? Knowing where to put a comma was hardly going to get you an interview. That was my experience, it was probably the same with others, in fact I know it was. 

Six years of looking for work. It really had been that long. I scarcely believe it, and I doubt anyone else who’s been out of work for that length of time, or longer, can believe it either. It seemed so unreal. As I made myself some coffee, I thought about the things my father had told me when asked why no-one can find work, he simply said there were no jobs. No one was commissioning work, and no one was buying, and people who were working on their homes were just that, working on their homes as opposed to selling and buying. With carpet factories, without people buying their work then they bought less material and employed fewer staff, and the government weren’t helping matters either. They were making cuts, increasing bills, and they wondered why no one was buying. How thick can you get? 

Still, I thought to myself, it hadn’t been completely bad luck. I did do a fair amount of voluntary work - I’ve stopped now in case your wondering, but I keep up with my cleaning work. I snorted to myself, who would’ve thought it? On my leavers day at school, I was presented with a globe of the world as a prize for the person mosty likely to take over the world, and I end up with work as a cleaner, hardly the role needed to rule the world. What, I’m supposed to be ruling Europe with homes in each country, with people bowing to me in a street, and I work as a cleaner? What a thought. I’d actually enjoyed the compliment though, but I wasn’t sure if I’d shown a taste for power in my life before. Maybe I had, but I can’t remember feeling that particular madness before. 

As I went back to my room, I didn’t bother looking for work. I’d had enough crap for one day, besides I was back at Avanta. 

Sheila was without a doubt the least understanding woman in the world. I despise her. Just as I loathed every single one of her kind both in these useless little agencies sponsored by the government. I hated them for clear reasons, and it wasn’t just for the reasons I listed above. Sheila wasn’t the only job coach I’d had at Avanta, there’d been someone else, but I never saw him again after our initial one to one, so I’ve forgotten his name. During our conversation, he told me about courses the local college were running, and when I’d checked out their prospectus I was furious, both with myself and with them for not even thinking to mention them or even the possibilities they presented. It’d never occurred to me that I could’ve gone on a college course, and gained a qualification in something like woodwork or even as a masseur if I’d studied massaging, and even set up a mini business. Self employment had been something I’d occasionally come up with, but there were problems with making it possible. I’ve sold things online, but there’s always the possibility of very little going. And the fees on ebay are exorbitant. 

Freelancing was also left with a question mark over its head, and it was something I had seriously considered over the years, but there was one problem, what business would I run? I’ve sold Kleeneze catalogues, and believe me when I say, don’t. The problem with someone like Sheila was she was so impersonal, an icy woman. She never smiled, she never laughed, she just regarded you as though you weren’t worth her time. I sometimes felt like an insect in her gaze, she didn’t like insects.

She also didn’t seem to think there were other solutions to the problems her clients, not just me you notice, were facing. She knew they were out there, but she chose to ignore them for some unintelligible reason. Worse she kept shooting down my ideas, anything I had because handing out CVs and application forms simply were not helping, any plan I had to escape the hell of this place, but she didn’t listen. Once I heard a woman complain how her advisor never listened to her either, Welcome to the club. 

“ I noticed you didn’t get that job,” she commented in her clipped voice, not looking at me for a single second, idly tapping away on something at her computer, I sat down. She never said hello. She never welcomed anyone. Impersonal, the clipped voice that greeted me I was used to it, and I truly did not care. Sheila was a forty something year old witch, her hair was short a severe short cut, her cold eyes were framed by wire thin glasses. I sometimes wondered if those glasses had seen use as barbed wire, her face was sour was if she’d spent the last thirty odd years sucking the juice out of lemons. 

“ That’s right,” I replied. I gave her a brief summary of the interview, points where Phil did and did not go through the questions Sheila had prepared for practice. At least she didn’t bother with mock interviews, of that I was thankful. Mock interviews were nothing like the real thing, in the real interview you had no idea who you were speaking too, let alone what they ask you when you sit down. In theory, mock interviews were designed to prepare you for the real thing, but in reality they didn’t help you when your breathing was shallow, butterflies were buzzing around in the stomach, and your heart was pounding with anxiety. You know the person you’re speaking too in a mock up, but you know nothing of what they may ask you during the real thing, the person behind the actual interview may hit on something on your CV, something irrelevant to your or the coach, but not to them, or ask you something so bizarre you don’t know if its a trick question or not. 

Putting it out of my mind, I spoke giving a field report about the interview, Sheila didn’t say a word, she didn’t ask a question. She just sat and listened. This was typical Sheila, and the one trait I liked about her, she waited until you’d given her the facts and then she picked them apart. When I was finished, she didn’t hide her disappointment from me. Wasn’t surprised. 

“ For the last eight months you’ve come back with this,” Sheila began irritably, taking her glasses off and chewing them thoughtfully. “ What about the work trial at the hotel? I was disappointed you didn’t get the job, just because you didn’t like it.”

I resisted the urge to sigh. Work trials and work experience, neither of them had been successful with me, particularly with hotels, the worst place to work in the world. The problem with large places, big businesses, is that although I put in my best, its sometimes not seen as enough. Worse, when you go to work do you really want to spend months asking people what to do? Some may be okay with that, but I hate that. I prefer working independently where I know what I’m doing. 

Sheila watched me, seeing I was deep in thought, she changed the subject for which I was thankful for. She leant forward, her voice colder than ever and her eyes deadly serious. “ I am getting tired of handing over jobs for you, only for them to be dropped down the drain. I can’t work that way. Keep this up and you’ll lose benefits.”

Lose benefits, those two words echoed through my mind, and my anger rose at hearing them. I’d had my benefits dropped two weeks ago after working over the hours limit when my cleaning company asked me to work at a school for a few extra hours, but it was all day. As a result the job centre had closed my claim, so I had to reopen it. Oh my god, the amount of bureacracy involved is beyond belief. How do they work like that? My anger, usually capped in public as I had a truly horrendous temper, just surged through me. I couldn’t help myself.  

“ What benefits? I haven’t had any money from the job centre in weeks, you know I had to reopen my claim Sheila, I told you.” I argued back. Sheila was unimpressed with my statement. I left Avanta afterwards knowing nothing she said would make any difference, ignoring Sheila say to me to do a job search. What good would it do?  I just wanted to be by myself. 

 I’ve felt like this for the last few years, going from one agency to another, Avanta was no different. I knew my limits, but they didn’t care. They didn’t understand, nor did I, why I found it so hard to actually buckle down to the tasks although I gave them my best shot. As I walked down the street, I bought myself a newspaper to read on the bus home. I didn’t have a book. As I caught the next bus, I went to sit at the far back, isolated and alone. I liked the solitude, where I could think in the privacy of my own thoughts. I opened the paper, and as I flicked from story to story, page to page, my eyes caught something I had not expected. It was an advert for a short story competition. Normally I ignored these ads, but this caught my eye in a way no one could’ve imagined. 

For the last three years to stave off boredom, I’ve started to write fanfiction stories online, and I think I’ve gotten pretty good at it, but I’ve never imagined seeing myself as an author like Peter James or Martina Cole. Could I? I mused to myself, could I write a short story? Casting my eyes downwards to read the ad again, I felt excited. Any theme welcome, it said. Any theme? What sort of story? It would have to be something eye catching, something the judges would notice. I saw the website address on the ad when it said to look for more information, so I tore the ad out of the page and carefully folded it and slid into my pocket, but my mind was still on the theme. It had be something spectacular. 

By the time I got home, I checked the short story competition online. The website was so informative, it was a monthly competition and I had until the end of the month to come up with a possible story, anyone could enter. Whoever won first prize or even the second would do pretty good, and there was no entry fee involved. I could also submit the work online without resorting to post. I turned my computer off, and grabbing a few sheets of paper from the printer I listed the ideas for short stories, but before I did I put a CD in my DVD player. I work best to music. I sat down on my bed, propping myself up on my pillows and got to work. 

Writing a short story was one thing, thinking of it was quite a different kettle of fish altogether. I looked at the ideas I’d written down. I’d started out with some spider diagrams and bullet point ideas. Time travel, out. A city in space, possible but I wanted a story with a sense of reality somehow. A horror story? No, I didn’t know the first thing about horror.  A detective story, perhaps? 

No, I thought to myself leaning back into my pillows. I wanted a story that was realistic, honest and true.

For the next day or so, I racked my brains for ideas. I could write about school, but I didn’t have pleasant memories there, so what did I have? I got my answer on Friday. Cleaning day, and the only other day of the week I worked. It wasn’t a good morning for me, not since I’d been up late during the night, thinking and jotting down ideas. Until my eyes drooped tiredly before I had the good sense to put my work away and turn my light off get some sleep. I’ve never been good at falling asleep, and my brain always kept me awake. I must’ve only just closed my eyes and gotten some peace when my mobile phone alarm went off at 5.55 am. I grumbled to myself sleepily. When you work late at night, you wake up feeling as though your head were filled with cotton wool. With a groan, I reached out for the phone, turned it off before the sound could echo in my brain anymore, yawning I got out of bed, my limbs and eyes were still half asleep. 

I left my home at 6.15, and started my walk to the bus stop in the high street. It was dark and cold, but it wasn’t raining. I patted my pockets where I had my wallet, my mobile and my key. All safe and sound. The walk and the chill breeze were enough to wake me up partially, it was good to get some exercise, brief as it was, and air into the lungs. I never ate breakfast before work because I’m a slow eater, and besides I wouldn’t be long. I was working up an appetite. It was a longish walk to the high street, the majority of the shops still dark, and it was strange not seeing cars out this early, but there was a massive lorry parked right outside the co-op. I didn’t have time to think about it as the bus pulled up to the curb of the stop, but I’d always asked myself how the drivers do it, waking up so early in the morning or if they did the night shift that lasted until the early hours of the morning, driving from one supermarket to another. I stepped onto the bus, flashing my monthly bus pass at the driver before picking up a metro newspaper and getting a seat. Time seemed to blur as the bus left the high street and travelled on its morning pilgrammage into town. It was a long way to Brighton, and it was coming up to 7.00 when I finally got off the bus next to a pub near the clocktower. I walked the remaining two minutes towards the Churchill Square, where Urban Outfitters stood, a building of glass and wooden surfaces inside. A bit like a model kit inside easy to assemble, and clean. 

As I got to work hovering the place, I thought about the short story and the ideas I’d made already. I’d virtually filed the ideas of my earlier ideas and plans, and though they were all good ideas I was still leaning towards something with plausibility and realism, and science fiction was my favoured genre, so why couldn’t I stop myself from feeling I was looking at this the wrong way round? As I hoovered around the dusty corners and under the chairs where the Urban staff had their morning meetings, I thought of other ideas for something I could use. Two hours I worked without an idea, and as I clocked out to end my shift, and got on another bus to take me home, I put my hands in my pockets to think to myself, I frowned, feeling something made of plastic. Surprised at this unexpected find, I pulled it out and studied it before sighing wearily, it was the plastic wallet that held my job centre details. My part time work sheet, my job lead log.....I looked at it for a long moment. I couldn’t help it, and then my mind clicked, all the memories of my six years job searching, the constant looking through papers, websites, the worthless and meaningless courses that ultimately proved how pathetic the government’s logic was and how it didn’t help everyone in the long run. I held the plastic wallet in my hands. How many times had I touched this thing, seen the creases and worn stitching through years of being in my possession? A smile appeared on my face as a story plan came into my mind, the pieces slotting neatly into a story. 

When I got home I’d made a few possibilities for a short story about a jobseeker nearing the end of his rope, and as I wrote them down in the same manner as last night, this time it was morning, I ignored my hungry stomach as excitement filled me, and I started writing the possibilities of a story, and then it hit me. Why should I be sending one story off to one competition when they were on all the time? I shelved the idea for the time being as I focused on the plan. I had no trouble writing out the start and the plotline for the storyplan, what I did have a problem with was the ending of the story. The beauty of short stories was that they don’t have to have an ending, just some sort of resolution. Should I just write as much of the story as I could, and decide for an ending along the way? 

I started to work on the short story after I finally gave into my hunger. It was quite a big breakfast, and I ate it slowly as I thought up ideas to develop the story and come up with a possible ending for it. When I finished, I put my bowl and glass into the dishwasher, and I got to work. I put on some music, and I opened an empty word document, the story plan or what amounted to one in front of me. 

The music to a suitable volume, I sat back and let the music pass through the grey matter of my thoughts. Then I leant forward, and started to work, slowly I let the words flow naturally through my fingers, down the nerves from my brain onto the computer screen. After two hours, I sat back and admired my work. I hadn’t forced this story, so the words were natural and flowing as they’d appeared on the page. I saved the page, and began to wonder how it should end.

The next day, I ignored everything, and I just started writing. Words became sentences, and sentences became paragraphs, and paragraphs became pages, the story began to take shape. It was easy to write and edit at the same time. Parts of the story were rewritten to make more sense, and the general feel of the story smelt strongly of realism. I’d decided to write about a jobseeker, frustrated by the lack of success received, he went into selling magazines like the Big Issue, I never did that, but I could play with the concept a little, or into voice work, spending tonnes of cash on the lessons and the installation of an account before finding out the work was a scam, before going full time into cleaning work. I wrote the way the character felt, being on the virtual end of his tether, tired of not hearing anything back from the people he contacted. Only to be stunned by the rapidity of being contacted by the cleaning company, to the interview he got the next day before starting the job the day after the interview. At last, the jobseeker had a job. A part timer, maybe, it was a step into the right direction. I included the elation of finally getting paid work as opposed to voluntary. As I wrote the story, I experimented with the words, trying to add the frustration I personally felt towards the situation. Writing about the frustration was far from difficult, all I had to do was simply drain my own frustrations into the writing. 

When I finished and began the long process of editing it, I still hadn’t thought of a satisfactory ending to the story. For a week I toyed with the idea of leaving it like that, but I didn’t like it somehow. I didn’t like leaving the story unfinished, I wanted to add something. I didn’t want to add the voice work I’d tried to do, contrary to people like Sheila, I was willing to try any field aside from building or driving to earn money for myself to get off jobseekers. 

Voice work was suggested to me by mom, and although I was skeptical at first I was convinced when I read the back of a book, about the main character having been a successful voice artist, so I made a call to a trainer. What a mistake, but at the time it’d seemed a good idea. 

It cost an arm and a leg, and if you’d thought I’d learnt my lesson before with Kleeneze, I hadn’t.

I thought so too, as I wasted hours testing my voice and trying to make something of it. In the end I abandoned the attempt. I was back to square one, sending CVs and application forms and not hearing anything back, not even during Christmas time when jobs are sent out like confetti at a party. For a whole week I didn’t work on the story. I read it again and again, editing and tweaking it but still hadn’t come up with an ending.

I decided to leave it and come back to it.

“ How’s the short story story coming?” My sister asked me at dinner. 

I’d told the family about the competition, of course, they’d lent ideas, but I knew what I wanted to do.

I shrugged. “ I’m stuck,” I told them, and I explained about the plot line again, and where I was now, I’d already told them it was about a frustrated jobseeker, and how he tried his luck with everything. Then my mother frowned thoughtfully. “ You’re writing a short story about a jobseeker, and you’re a jobseeker yourself.”

I frowned. What was she trying to say to me?

“ Yeah,” I said quietly, drawing the word out.

Then my mother shrugged. “ Well, you get your jobseeker to write a short story to enter it into a competition as a sort of hobby.” The way my mother said it was so obvious. I wanted to kiss her, but with the table between us and her breath smelling, I would settle for a hug later. 

When I settled down in my seat, I opened up the short story on my computer and started to work on it once more. As I wrote, my mother’s words came back to me and I found a way to play with the words. Instead of going for work, I wrote about my jobseeker writing short stories not as a job, but as a hobby.  I wrote about him being a quiet and thoughtful person simply trying to make the best in life, even though he couldn’t get anything, even with the cleaning work to support him. As I wrote, I felt myself free of my inner demons. When I finally finished and went back, editing as I went, I felt satisfied with what I’d accomplished. 

The Jobseeker was a success, it won first prize in the competition. I accepted the money and award graciously, and it sparked off my desire to write more stories. I looked online for different magazines, even going into The Writers and Artists yearbook for hints and magazines to contact for details. I started writing short stories, poems, and I sent them off to various magazines. But I would never forget the competition that had made me feel like the luckiest man alive. 

Boy, did it feel right!