What do you do?

“Ideally, I am looking for a sales-based position in Public Relations with a great product or service to back me up. I have work history in customer service, sales and recruitment. I have enjoyed all positions I have held and would be happy to do grow on the many skills I have developed.” This week's cultural topic is:

UNEMPLOYMENT

I've had some pretty good reasons to write over the last year, I'll admit, but I, like many, got tied up with work, with travel, with vacation. I've officially been out of the country 4 times in this time period and obviously have not stood up to my blogsite's own name. I would like to welcome any readers back to what I will call an INSPIRED post, but realistically it is nothing more than a normal post, just greatly delayed. As it’s been one year minus a month since I last wrote on this site, it has been one month since I have worked for paid money. Of course, with severance and banked vacation, I’m still sitting pretty pretty (qualified redundancy).

“What kind of work are you looking for?” used to be my catch phrase. I would rock that like it was going out of style, and ultimately, it was the be all, end all discriminator on job placements. It’s strange now to be on the other end of that question.

For nearly a year and a half, I worked for Manpower Services. I moved around from Onsite Recruitment to a hybrid role to Staffing Specialist – wherever they needed me, I was there. I’m not going to lie: I was fun. I had a great team, easy-going clients and when I went to work, I was constantly learning. I think that’s really all you can ask for in a job, isn’t it? You have to like what you do. Makes sense. I never missed a scheduled day of work. Never called in sick. On the two days I was late, I was not the only one. This is why I was so surprised when I was called into the boss’s office, given the rundown and handed the letter explaining everything.

“It has nothing to do with your performance and we would be happy to have you back. Thanks for your dedication to the company. We simply can’t sustain the number of staff we currently have at this time.”

I suppose I can take solace in the fact that I was not the only one let go on that day or in weeks leading up. By my approximate calculations, I was one of 8-10 let go in the course of the month of March. Go figure though, a staffing company not properly calculating their STAFF.

Anyway, since then it’s been countless online applications (though countable by looking in the correct desktop folder), phone calls, hours of browsing job sites (with obvious side-tracks), cold-calling (the bane of my existence), networking emails (my network is understandably not as a broad as I would have expected), and of course, an unending consumption of home-made coffee. These have all yielded several phone interviews, one job offer (which I turned down due to non-ideal relocation issues) and overall, one continually unemployed Kai.

Yeah, I applied for EI. Most people say “well, you’re entitled to it, take it.” I never really wanted to, but after I did my first report, I realise why so many people stay on it for so long. It’s so bloody easy. They don’t ask you where you’ve applied. They don’t ask you what you have done to find work. You don’t even have to leave your house to do it. Ease of access? Get out of town. National socialist parties like the NDP make me sick. But that’s a different story for a different day.


Looking back on this post, it kind of looks like I’m just whining and begs the question of why anyone would ever want to read it, but I’m indifferent. What are blogs for but to get ideas off one’s chest? Like I preempted with, not my best post, but a post nonetheless. For good measure I've added some photos.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to the opportunity to further expose you to my writing.