(no subject)

[raven]

Today's success: 1000 words of yuletide.

Today's failure, which rather outweighs today's sucess: being rejected for a job less than eighteen hours after I applied. Seriously, it took me longer to write the bloody thing than it took for them to reject it.

Given that nothing about my being a baby lawyer, or indeed nothing about my having left school, has gone enormously well so far, I have decided I need a new career. I used to want to be a writer, but I'm probably not cool enough. I can't be a waitress, I was very bad at it. I would be a terrible doctor, teacher or engineer. I'm a very good independent bookseller, but alas, there is no demand, there are no independent bookshops. I am considering being a tree surgeon. Or a deep sea fisherwoman, or a submariner, or one of those people whose job it is to explode mountains prior to mining operations.

(I met a submariner recently, actually. It was a on train going up to Newcastle, where a small boy was breathlessly questioning a man in a Royal Navy uniform. "You were on a SUBMARINE? Where were you?"

"Sweetheart," said the man, "I have no idea, it was really dark.")

...actually, I want to be a criminal lawyer, so help me God. And I would've hated that job like sin though could have done with £96,000, ahahahah. (That said, I can't seem to get jobs that would pay me a tenth of that, so, you know.) And I don't know why this is so difficult - criminal lawyer! people are always hitting other people on the head! All the goddamn time!

But while I'm entertaining other possibilities, please to be suggesting them, it will keep me happy while I finish off yuletide, finish off another three applications, ring up the Merseyside Crown Prosecution Service, and actually start thinking about revising for the exams I have in, ooh, a bit more than three weeks.

Just... yeah. Career-and-academia wise, I do feel an awful lot like I'm just not doing very well at anything. Someone tried to tell me recently that what I really ought to do is be called to the bar. To which my response is, I would, if it weren't for the fact I enjoy eating and like to do it more than once a day.

Argh, whatever. Maybe it's time for the second bath of the day.

Comments

[soupytwist.livejournal.com]

Jobsearching sucks and should be listed up there in the top lists of depressing and stressful shit that should just not happen.

If it helps at all, I don't think it's likely to be you sucking - I would suspect it's a combination of bad luck and the world sucking. Not a good time for being a baby lawyer, by all accounts. I think probably you should start fighting crime by night. (Or take up highway robbery, which would be eqally awesome on the costume front but with bonus making-rich-white-people-pay?)

[forthwritten.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of people harbour weird, secret dreams of Getting Out Of It Completely - my supervisor told me that after she finished her PhD she wanted to get out of academia completely and open a gym. And this is the person with the terrifying German work ethic! For a while, I contemplated becoming a cheesemaker and even found job ads for it.

If you like, I will generate income for you by bopping people on the head?

I think this is a terrible time for jobs in general rather than you sucking.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Please bop people on the head. Maybe I ought to cut out the middleman and fight crime. With a cape. Can I have a cape? I want a cape.

Maybe we ought to market our apology letters! They'd be a wonderful stocking filler...

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

See, this is the one thing that tempts me about the bar. Sure, there's the whole thing where I never eat again, but oooh, the costumery. The wigs. I love the wigs.

[forthwritten.livejournal.com]

Of course you can have a cape! I think you would look dashing in a cape.

I think we should! And they'd come in very useful for New Year's Eve parties, although I think we'll have missed the office Christmas party market...

[manynames.livejournal.com]

I maintain fond hopes of becoming a lion tamer one day. I'm sure there's a lot of demand for them somewhere.

[troyswann.livejournal.com]

Hang in there, darrrrrlin. It's totally disheartening, but it's also the process of things, yes? (I got rejected for 28 academic jobs the first the first three months out of grad school. I still have the thick file folder of rejection letters with the intention of, I dunno, using them to write my manifesto after the snowpocalypse or something.) It's just the process of wriggling your way into the world, is all, not a comment on your worth. There's a place for you, and nobody gets blamed for having to look for it, right? Doesn't make the process less sucky, but it does remind you that it's about fitting and not about judging who you are, yes?

I, personally, think you should be a writer (no matter what else you end up being) because you ARE a writer, so you're halfway there already.

Also, cool jobs you could think of: Professional Nose (you get to wear a white lab coat and sniff things, professionally.); sock-pattern designer (I have a whole book about this woman who traveled all over the world to get inspiration for her sock pattern designs); lumberjack (because you can wear suspenders and a bra).

*great big hug*

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. (She says, donning cape.)

Dear [whomever it may concern], who attended [event] on [date],

I am very sorry for what I said about your [clothes/hair/mother], and equally sorry for what I did to your [dress/shoes/children]. As penance, I will be [writing additional letters/moving to Tibet/committing seppuku]...

[apotropaios.livejournal.com]

Personally, I say you'd be awesome at marketing.

[forthwritten.livejournal.com]

...I am truly sorry for [stealing/breaking] your [pet traffic cone/priceless family heirloom/museum piece] and insulting [the wine/your mother/your boss]. I [ask/beg/grovel, on the floor, dressed in sackcloth and ashes] for your forgiveness.

Yours [remorsefully/despairingly/I-really-am-going-to-commit-seppuku],

[name]

[rosariotijeras.livejournal.com]

You know, if you put those apology letters on fancy stationary and charged millions of pounds for shipping, you could probably make a living selling those on Etsy.

Also, question time. When (if?) Prime Minister's Questions comes on television, does everyone stop what they're doing, shriek, and run to the nearest TV? Possibly screaming "QUESTION TIME!!!"?

[subservient-son.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I don't get why being called to the bar means not eating, unless you mean that it doesn't pay much, which is a ridiculous idea, since my Dad has put two children through private school as a criminal barrister. He's not a QC or anything, and though Mum has worked as well, she's not been super highly paid or anything. You'll get there, it's just tough for everyone at the moment.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

As a criminal barrister, absolutely, I believe you. It's just the getting there. Pupillages are much harder to get than training contracts - which are, as we have seen, not too easy to get - and tenancy is much harder than that. So, being a barrister would be lovely, and I would really enjoy it, but I'm not really confident in my ability to get to that stage - the bit where I wouldn't be eating is the bit where I would be rejected from pupilage after pupillage...

(Also, I'm not actually good enough at this law lark for the bar, I know that as a fact.)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Places with lots of lions? Do they have job centres with queues outside of people in top hats with whips?

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

I used to fantasize about becoming a high-end courtesan, like Liane de Pougy. I could totally rock the clothes and the conversation. It was the sex with men I didn't necessarily fancy that was a barrier. (Okay, and the being monogamous.)

Sympathies. Honestly, finding the first job is the hardest, which is pretty cold comfort now, I know.

[elanid.livejournal.com]

When I was applying to universities, my plan was to move to Australia and live in a cardboard box in the desert, on the grounds that it would surely have been less stressful, but I think some of yours sound rather more interesting. Perhaps an explosives agent aboard a deep-sea submarine who does surgery on fish on the side?

(Actually, my grandfather really did spend a large portion of his career fishing for enormous deep-sea beasties and dropping explosives overboard in the name of SCIENCE! What this proves, I'm not entirely sure.)

Applying for anything is terrible, but I think in this case it's rather in the nature of applications and the world being more interested in flailing than floating than any kind of failure on your part. <3

[subservient-son.livejournal.com]

True, pupilages are hard to get, but even if you don't get them, then the previous training you get is still great training and could open up lots of job possibilities (I'm quoting my Dad pretty much verbatim here). Also, if you ever want advice, or shadowing experience, I'm sure my Dad would be happy to oblige.

Edit: sorry, wasn't thinking about the last bit and public postiness.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

PMQ isn't on regularly, it must be said! And I don't think people come running when it's on BBC Parliament. Why do you ask? :)

[icepixie]

Librarian? In my oh-so-limited experience, it's not entirely dissimilar from bookselling.

Academic?

[amchau.livejournal.com]

I am still half planning to be a starving writer in an attic. I am already living in an attic room and sometimes write and sometimes skip meals, so I like to think that I'm well on the way.

Perhaps you could find your vocation as a bath tester?

[rosariotijeras.livejournal.com]

Because, er, it is often on CSPAN (which is a glorious, glorious television network) and when I noticed it was on this morning, I dropped what I was doing, yelled "QUESTION TIME!!!" and refused to move from the television for some time.

I am not the only person that does this, nor is that the first time I've done that. It's kind of a bizarre, instinctual response.

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

I can see you presiding over the Merton Street Philosophy Library, where you walk around barefoot and know where everything is. Undergraduates will harbour whispered theories that you actually live in the bookstacks, but they will be affectionate whisperings. Researchers will be amazed at how you always seem to be able to point them to something new and interesting in their area of study.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*grins* I kind of crashed and burned out of academia, due to profound crapness. My beloved is a librarian, though! It is rather a tempting choice...

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Even baths are losing their charm! I don't know what's wrong with me!

[clubhopper15.livejournal.com]

I would do the whole suggesting a career for you thing, except I really really hate it when people "suggest" things to me. My mum made some comment last night about how she thought I'd be good at Politics and I tried not to glare at her in utter disbelief (I am interested in following politics, but would hate hate hate to have a career even remotely related to it). This is cheesy, but I know you'll find your way. No one else can do it for you. X

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

I will tell my father the lawyer to hire you. PROBLEM SOLVED.

Alternatively, are you still interested in moving to Antarctica? (That was you, right? There are so many people in my life interested in that life choice....) Do this (http://www.nsf.gov/od/opp/aawr.jsp). You can be a freezing writer, which is much better than a starving writer because, y'know... you get to eat.

I have your Yuletide email in my inbox, eeeeee!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*grins* I am not qualified in his jurisdiction! (Maybe eventually, if I survive the LLB.)

It was me! Thank you! I shall send you a postcard from the floes!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*grins* I was asking! And I feel your pain - my degree is ostensibly in politics, and elected office makes my blood run cold.

(Also. HAVE YOU HEARD YET. I mention this because mine was dated December 17th...)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

That is my absolute dream job. Seriously. I would just love that. I could write Derridaesque papers in my spare time, it would be perfect.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Dropping explosives overboard. That WINS. I want to do that. I'm sure I would be excellent at anything that involved making a lot of mess. :)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*laughs* I would wholly endorse that career path - nice dresses! lots of occasion for eyeliner! - but I think m'boy might complain. Hmph.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Now, is that you just marketing your profession to me, or...?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I'm haaaaaangin'! Right now metaphorically hanging in there seems to consist of being deliberately ludicrous and drinking gin, but I'm hanging.

I am feeling a little bad for complaining, now, because unlike lots of my friends, I'm not hanging in the lurch now - I have to finish the LLB before I can have a job, but I am getting more and more scared of finishing it and then there just being... nothing, 'cept lots of debt. (Law firms tend to recruit a couple of years in advance, y'see.)

Thank you for saying I'm a writer. That's really, really heartening, that there is something I can do. I really wish one could just sit and write short stories for a living, you know? In the meantime, though, I'm light and I'm not afraid of heigts. I'm sure I would make an excellent lumberjack.

[clubhopper15.livejournal.com]

Yes, I suppose you were asking! I think something that's both creative and academic (somehow) would suit you, but what that is I do not know.

I haven't heard yet. Am going insane.

[apotropaios.livejournal.com]

No, really. It's good for people with ideas and initiative and you get to really feel like you're achieving something. I love it.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

I think you'd make a great criminal lawyer. And just think of the dressing up!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*grins* Unfortunately, not the sort of criminal lawyer who gets to dress up...