A True Story: My first encounter with unemployment!

What do you call a person who is happy on a Monday? Unemployed!

-Author Unknown

I have been employed and unemployed in my journey as a job seeker several times. It’s been a few years since the first time I dealt with employment as well as unemployment. To keep things a little uncomplicated, I’ll only share the story of my first encounter with unemployment in this blog post.

Unemployment is one of the most baffling issue that contributes to high rates of depression and anxiety among all job seekers. Fortunately, I wasn’t prepared  to react with relevant mental state in my first time experience with unemployment. Soon, I would learn my lessons.

 

It’s the ‘well put together look’ outside, to ‘put together all the excitement’ inside!

The first time I was out and about searching for a suitable job, my enthusiasm knew no bounds. I was a bundle of positivity and took each interview as a great learning experience. And I have had a lot of such learning experiences. Some of them were pleasant where I came across decent people doing their jobs. But there were a few that I would neither call a pleasant experience nor with decent people.

Don’t you think, rejecting a potential candidate for the job is enough of a pain and the employer need not add insult to injury by harsh or rude behavior?

But things are pretty harsh and sometimes rude in the real world. Most of us have come to accept it that way, maybe I’ll too soon!

 

Got to look good for I’ll be interviewed!

After  a month of struggling with job search, I along with a friend of mine signed up with a private agency. The agency took a minimum service fee and would arrange interviews for us in between short intervals of time.

The interviews they sent me for were not suitable for my skill sets. Another thing that nagged me was in case I got a job I would have to pay the agency half of my first month’s income.

Luckily for me I never got the job, the only thing I got was a few more learning experiences. It did not work and I’ll advise everyone to stay away from all such private agencies at all costs.

I’m not crying, just recycling my tears!

I was slowly beginning to feel lost in the never-ending search for the one job that would put an end to this search. Not knowing what to expect of myself and the whole situation, my mind was clouded with anxious thoughts. And, having no clue as to how to deal with such situations, increased my anxieties ten fold.

This is the most difficult part of being unemployed, when you find yourself almost defeated by circumstances. People will start getting on your nerves, any small remark or even a look will leave you feeling misjudged.

Even though I had done exactly the opposite, I (now) think we should not react to such judgements or people at all. Some of those people actually mean well and I know some only mean to be mean towards us. But who cares about such meany and unkind people? I don’t anymore!

 

This is where I live now, in a self dugout hole!

At this point, The hardest thing I found was finding the strength to go on. My mind was spiraling between negative thoughts like you can’t, nothing will change, what’s the point of trying and so on and so forth.

Once you feel your lowest, you no longer can feel low after that point. So, I didn’t! I found my spirit not exactly high but at a friendly average mid range, which was enough for me to get past the day.

Days went by, on some of those days I found myself employed while on others unemployed. A few other days were also there when I chose to quit a job that took a lot of time and effort to get my hold on in the first place! That’s another story I’m saving for another post.

For now, I shall end this post with a positive note on what has kept me going through out those days. And, that one thing is the friendly average mid range spirit of mine!

Never let your spirit down!

Thank You so much for reading till the end!

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A special ‘thank you’ to SpongeBob SquarePants for featuring in the post, which was intended to convey the message that ‘humor can make anything tolerable!’

🗨 Do you have a similar story like this one?
💬 What was your first encounter with unemployment like?
💭 Please do share your thoughts on this post!

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