Your Unemployed Daughter

YUP has recently gotten in touch with his first dispatch from across the pond! I know you’re excited, but keep a stiff upper lip, please. Anything else would be untoward.

Release the Hounds
The one good thing about being unemployed in London is being unemployed in London. I am so busy keeping busy I haven’t had time to start the job search. There is so much to experience and explore here that I wonder why anyone would want to work in the first place!

Apparently I am not the only one who feels this way.

The news flash this week told us that unemployment in the UK has reached a 14-year high, 7.9 percent. Since July some 210,000 people have become jobless. Bravo, Londoners. I am inspired by your decision to leave your jobs and stop letting this great city and all it has to offer pass you by.

Oh, wait … you mean to tell me people are not choosing to be unemployed? Almost two million newly unemployed in the past 12 months is not a good thing?

Of course it isn’t. People in London are struggling to find jobs. For those who have jobs, the prospect of a raise or receiving annual bonuses is bleak. Worst of all, “they” tell us it isn’t going to get better any time too soon.

Timing is everything. Just two weeks ago I left Sydney and a six-figure salary. Now I sit in my rented London flat banging away on my keyboard entering my stats into online job-find sites. Me and 1.8 million of my newfound jobless mates, looking for salvation via a search engine.

And don’t forget about the zombie parade going in and out of the recruiter’s office. That meat market march is a chore I detest.

Do I sound jaded? I’m not. These are just the cold, hard facts of unemployed life. No one is going to serve it up for you, and if they do, it’s probably too good to be true.

Remember, I have moved three times to three countries and have had to find work with each relocation. I’m well-versed in this game. It is never a fun process, but it’s one that, at the very least, I have come to terms with.

That being said, I have been doing more than sightseeing.

There was some low-hanging fruit I needed pluck since my arrival—two leads that I had prior to leaving Sydney turned into interviews. Two interviews in 11 days … not too shabby. If anything, it was good to get back in the game.

Interviewing is nothing more than the art of storytelling. People want to talk to you because they want to hear your story. You tell a good story and they listen. If they want to be part of that story, they hire you.

My story, apparently, is an interesting one. The two interviews went well and there was promise of a second round from both companies. Nothing is nothing until it is something, so we’ll just have to see if they call back.

In the meantime, I’m going back out to explore London. No sense waiting by the phone for it to ring … I did enough of that in high school (and she never called back like she said she would!).

The Museum of Natural History and the Royal Albert Hall are in walking distance (I walked up and got a ticket for Ray LaMontagne the other night…stellar show). Tower Bridge and Hyde Park are nearby as well.

Not to mention all of the pubs. There is a pub on every corner and one in between. I have still yet decided what my favourite local ale is to be. I am sure I have plenty of time to figure it out before the second round of interviews … if they ever call back, that is.

—Judd Marcello

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