Birthday

Today is NOT my birthday, but my special Norm's.
I miss you Norm. You are THE retrievable friend I always need.

Happy Birthday, love.

Translation

This is an actual job description; 

Looking for someone with excellent customer service skills, and who is a good communicator - must be smart in appearance & well spoken.

This reads;

 

Looking for someone with 3-5 years of experience in customer service skills, and who is native English speaker - must be good looking & posh sounding.

I am;
with no experience,
not native speaker
not notably good looking
and
sounds like someone from Queens
with German hippy mum
and Welsh dopehead dad.

My weeks have been spent on looking for hundred jobs a day. I vowed myself not to complain but to enjoy this process. I am well aware that I lack experience, and my degrees won't help much on getting a job I want (I have really bad science degree and really good art degree, but there is no such thing as permanent job for artists.)

The first week was dull and quiet. I applied for many jobs and registered with equally many job agencies. The second week was busier, as I got call back and emails from all sorts of places. Each time, I had NO idea which job I was interviewed for, and I dared not to ask,
"Sorry, which agency did you say you are calling from?"
so I could avoid sounding so desperate in need for work.

The third week and the fourth was quite busy as I was called OUT for face-to-face interviews and registration. It was tiring. Each agency told me very different reasons for why I was not to find work easily. One time I had 4 interviews a day, and at the end of it I felt like all my confident was taken away, piece by piece. I mean, if you feel strong about your creativity, and organisation, but not so much for the PC skill, you expect the agency to tell you to strength the PC skill. But after the first agency told me to strength the PC skill, the next one told me that my creativity will get in the way as it is not such a desirable thing if I wanted to be an accountant. Then the next one would say my organisation skill is not so special as EVERYONE would say that. (I am not wanting to be an accountant, BTW.)

And right after that, another agency phoned up when I did not expect. ---I never realized that I was applying to be a candidate for the agencies, instead of certain positions. They phone up after you apply for a position through some job web site, and ask one or two questions to see if they want to keep you, and if they do, they ask you to come in for an interview - not for the job, but to register. It's all complicated.

Anyway, so this agent phones up, and started asking rather many questions. He was all very negative, and jumping to negative conclusions, hinting all bad consequences. Then he began telling me the fact I switched my degree from science to art is a very weak point for me, as it seems like I won't stick around in a position. This is the FIRST EVER time I lost it in my job hunting process. (Hopefully the last, too.)
"Are you actually telling me that I will never get a job because I have two university degrees???"
The agent quickly turned to say,
"Well, since your case is unique, do you mind if I discussed it with my colleague and get back to you?"
Of course, he never did.

I am just about getting actual serious job interviews. I think I am doing OK. It won't happen easily and it will go on and on for years till I am finally comfortable and moderately satisfied. It's all experience.

Good luck to all of you who is doing the same. (Especially you, Lee. With your shiny 2:1, you can do so much better than I do )