Aslaug's Axe Shed

I am still looking for a job.

Some people call it ‘between jobs’ or ‘available for employment’. Some go with the more traditional ‘unemployed’. I think the first two are too smart-arse, and the last one has social stigma attached to it that I’d rather avoid.

So I am still looking for a job.

In doing so, I am learning some very interesting things. About how best to write a job application, about what employers look for, about how to make myself appear as an interesting prospective employee and most importantly (at least in my world) about myself. I have been told I possess skillsets I never knew I had, and I am literally shocking myself daily with my social interaction. In a positive way, that is.

But I am getting way ahead of myself here.

The rules are simple around here. If I haven’t managed to find a job within six months of officially joining the ranks of those without one, I have to take a specific job-hunting course.

‘Intensive job-hunting’ would be an approximate translation of what it is called. And I’ll be blunt and say I dreaded going before it started. For several reasons. First and foremost because I realized I’d have to five days a week, for four weeks, with a bunch of complete strangers. I don’t mind meeting new people but when I do, I like to have some measure of control over the situation. Ordinarily, this is accomplished by me having a choice of whether to meet them or not in the first place. If I know ‘I can just leave’, I don’t normally mind.

However, I have no choice in this case. Attendance for this course is compulsory, unless I wanted to lose unemployment benefits.

Secondly, I was worried that this course would be a waste of time. Friends of mine who have attended similar courses, run either by the state-run general unemployment agency, or by other private contractors than the one I am attached to, have told me to pretty much expect nothing short of sheer, mindmelting boredom. One guy who had attended the similar course at the general unemployment agency had been put in front of a computer and told to write eight job-applications every day, five days a week for four weeks. That was it. No help, no explanation for how he could do better on his applications…nothing. Eight a day, finito. The mother of another friend got spoken to as if she was a three year old in a kindergarden, to the point where, after several days of this patronization, she asked out loud if the man doing the talking assumed she was mentally retarded. It did not exactly please him to have this question presented to him in such a direct manner.

So I was duly nervous about my own course. And now, halfway through this course, I will freely admit I was wrong. I have learned so many things about myself and about how to better my own chances when looking for jobs, and I am having a very good time. To the point of me actually turning up despite being unwell this past monday. I didn’t want to miss out on anything.

But what has really rocked my world is to learn that I can interact with complete strangers and be really, really good at it. I get a little overexcited at times, I admit that…but the reason, I believe, is simply that I am completely exilerated that I am not falling apart from nerves. During a group-assignment, where we got divided into groups of three, the other two people in my group described me as extrovert and as a ‘contact-maker’…

There’s no really good translation the Danish word behind it, but what they said was that I was good at making ‘first contact’ with people and that I gave a good first-hand impression of myself.

I was absolutely gobsmacked, and no mistake! I thought they were joking me but the people sitting at the next table chimed in and confirmed that they had the same impression of me. I was -highly- flattered, as those are not qualities I would have attributed to myself even on a good day. Yet apparently, I have them and in full measure too.

I’ve learned other things about myself as well. I’m proactive. I’m a go-getter by nature, taking initiatives, and I am a good organizer. It’s fantastic to learn such things about oneself, and I am thoroughly enjoying myself. As opposed to feeling rather glum about having no job, I now confidently and fully expect to GET a job. I don’t know how quickly, or what job exactly but I will definitely get one. No question about it.

And I actually got a rather nice little compliment from one of the ladies conducting the course. I don’t think she really thought of it, but I choose to TAKE it as a compliment anyway. She handed me a job-advert, saying she thought I should apply for that particular job. When I sat down and read it, I realized it was almost exactly the same kind of job she is doing.

So apparently, she felt I could do that kind of job too. Whether it was meant as an actual compliment or not, I took it as one and frankly…overall…I can’t remember the last time I spent this much time smiling.

I’m really learning something, and what I am learning is great!