About two years ago

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 30 July 2007 13:11:34

I got jealous.

Jealousy is something I try and avoid - it's not pretty and it's not helpful. Unlike eating chocolate where there is a great deal of pleasure to accompany the vague guilty thoughts, jealousy is just ugly and unpleasant through and through. But unfortunately I've started feeling it more and more often lately.

I really noticed this when an acquaintance (not really close enough to be called a friend) applied for a job in another town. And let people know this. Of course she didn't mind people knowing, because she was going to get the job. She knew, I knew, and everyone else knew that she was going to get it. I don't know how good she is at her job, so I have no reason to suspect she is any better than average, yet it was completely certain that she was going to get the job she'd applied for. And she did. Of course.

I've applied for a lot of jobs in my life. Serious applications, where I had exactly the requisite qualifications, background and experience. And it would be accurate to a very large degree to say I've been rejected from every one. Accurate to a very large degree but not 100% completely true. Only about 99% true. For a period of about six years I applied for something like a hundred jobs each year. Some years I got offered one and some I didn't. I suppose at least I never had the dilemma of having to choose between two offers - that was a silver lining I suppose.

So my experience of applying for jobs is simple. I apply. I get a rejection letter. I forget about it and move on. At least I assume I get a rejection letter most times - I've only actually kept the letters from my first year of job-hunting as they got a bit repetitious. That's my experience, yet other people, like my acquaintance, seem to have exactly the opposite experience - they apply for a job, they get offered the job. When they say they've applied for the job they're really saying they're trying to choose whether to leave and accept the new job or whether to stay with their current job. Which is why when people ask(ed) about my job applications I was always cagey. If I happened to give away anything concrete, for example if I happened to say I was applying for a job in Unthank, then immediately people would assume that I'd get the job (because that's seemingly what happens to normal people). After the inevitable rejection letter came through people would still be asking when I was moving to Unthank. And telling them that, of course, I got rejected, just got a bit tiring. So I stopped telling people I was applying. That was easier. And then I stopped bothering to apply. That was easier still.

Now I'm not interested in advice or guidance, I don't want a CV clinic or suggestions about being more positive. But I do just wonder why my experience of applications is so opposite to everyone else's. Presumably it's me, and if so, well, tough, cos I can't be bothered changing. But I do wonder. Am I just useless, or am I constantly overambitious and aiming too high. Am I stuffed by my lack of confidence or by my excess of confidence? And how is it possible to be cursed with both? What a cheery line of thought for a beautiful summer day.