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Unemployment
July 29, 2010Okay, so this is going to a huge, long post because I’ve been thinking alot about unemployment.
Most of my readers do not know me personally, so to say this on my blog, seems pretty pseronal. I mean, I haven’t been unemployed for probably 4 years now. Maybe even longer. For me, unemployment means no money, no freedom, boredom, nothing to do.. I don’t know. I somehow love keeping myself busy, at all times. Say, right now, I have 3 jobs.. and I have my current job (in which I actually just changed jobs, but thats another story), I work for my dad at his restaurant – pretty much.. at least 3-4 nights a week and I honestly consider blogging/youtubing a job. I mean, for the amount of hours I spend on this blog and my youtube channel, I could have probably earnt thousands on my day job already!
Anyways, so.. unemployment.. seems really far away to me. I mean, I was actually very close to being unemployed a month or two ago. My boss had stopped paying me due to his lack of income from his business, and I was only living off pocket money my parents had been giving me because I was working for them so much.. and trust me, that wasn’t alot.
I’m used to earning a lot of money, and ever since I was 14, I started to work. I started first at a pharmacy and was sharing a job with my sister. My sister actually studied Science/Medicine-like for her degree so the job was very important for her. During her HSC, she wanted to keep her job, so she had asked me to fill in for her until she was able to work again. Ofcourse, the boss had also agreed that it would be fine because my sister was such a great worker and assumed her sister wouldn’t be any less of one. :)
After that job, I moved onto marketing jobs, which were temporary jobs but I basically stood around Car Washing places and handed out newsletters and other stuff. I earnt so much money working on the weekends and basically just stood or even sat around doing nothing, or at most, talking to people.
And then I moved onto telemarketing, which was one crazy job and most people don’t survive it for long. I was working for a job-searching website, so most of the calls were B2B (business-to-business) so it wasn’t too difficult. I didn’t get extremely rude hang-ups and most people were actually really grateful that I was calling them! I wouldn’t do telemarketing ever again though, just because you wake up and fall sleep saying “Good Morning, my name is Janice and I’m calling from…”.
It eventually drives you crazy! But surprisingly, I always made it to one of the top, and several times the top sales of the week!! :)
Telemarketing was great because you get an awesome pay, have 4-hour shifts and so many people working with you. It’s a place to meet new friends, although they might all be competing with you to get the top sales :P
Money was extremely good as well. They normally pay a base rate and have comission on top and for my job at least, we got mini prizes for being the top 3 sales! They were usually $20 gift cards to Coles or whatever, but these three things kept me very motivated to continue working!
After 4 months of that though, I just couldn’t do it anymore and most of the crew I knew moved on.. so, so did I. I ended up moving to do data-entry at a well-known escalator company. Yeh, they.. operate escalators and lifts, etc. It was a huge company, so I didn’t actually ever get to meet the boss. It was really exciting because no one at the company really cared what you were doing (though I was only a casual, so I didn’t get access to the internet).. and I could stay in the kitchen for an hour without getting into trouble. I loved working there!
Except… time passed and I started to be able to do the work with my eyes closed. No literally. There was no excitement in the job what-so-ever and I felt like I was memorising my maths all over again. You know? I already knew exactly what to do and how to do it each time I went into work. I hated that feeling. I needed change.
So after that 1.5 years of boringness, I moved on. I wanted to do something I was actually interested in, so I got into an tax accounting firm. It was a very small firm and everything and everyone was extremely… unformal. I was very surprised. Most of the workers there were underpaid and given a shxtload of work to do. In my position, actually being a “junior tax accountant”, I actually had to do a whole lot of filing and outbound calls. I almost felt like a telemarketer once again!
I made so many calls each day to chase up clients for their details, for their payslips, for their payment summaries… urgh. I hated it. The filing also drove me crazy and I was almost going to get the boss to start paying for my manicures! :(
Okay, so then, (yes, my job history is long), I left the company, like most of the others, and I worked at my last job. It is a surfing company, in which was going through the design/marketing process when I was there. I was a marketing/PR assistant and was promoted to be the manager. I basically added information into the website every day for half a year until the site launched, and then I started to do all the promotional work, such as sending out newsletters, contacting companies to make “customised” t-shirts and other stuff to send out to all our subscribers, etc.etc. Think of wikipedia, I was like the data-entry person behind a site like that. I used to sit in the office researching and researching about surf spots, countries, islands, etc, just so I could write a paragraph on it!
I actually enjoyed it though, I had a great team and it was really fun working with everyone! And my boss was heaps awesome! But then, the financial crisis hit, and no one was willing to spend money on anything. Our site was more of a luxury good, rather than a need. I mean, it doesn’t sell chairs or tables, it sells memberships for the website and surf wax! We weren’t able to make as much revenue as we thought we could of…
So then I recently decided to move on since I had been there for 2 years already.. and I moved to this company in which I’m working for at the moment. I only started a few days ago so it’s really really exciting! I’m a finance assistant.. so I’m getting trained on everything from Risk Portfolios and Investments and Financial planning.. it’s just all really exciting!
As you can tell from my job history, I’m always on the freaking computer. LOL
Anyway, so the point to that whole life story, is that.. I’ve almost never, at one point of my life since I was 14.. been unemployed…. and unemployed in economic terms meaning “not actively seeking for a job”.
As of late, I’ve seen so many people around me either lose their jobs or resign from their jobs. I mean, I know that the job market has now picked up and its much easier to look for a new job, but for me, I find it very upsetting, or even scary when I see someone leave. Not just from my job, but even their own. I think its because I imagine myself.. being so unoccupied.. I honestly couldn’t think of what else I could do with my time! I’m happy for those who resign and move onto another job, maybe somewhere better, but for those, who remain unemployed, I get so worried.
In my office, I’ve seen about 8 people leave the company already and sometimes, another one would come and replace them, and then they’ll leave also. I’m someone whose scared of… change… and I always think back about the past, and about the people who were in the office with me, and miss the times they were here.
I’m so scared of unemployment, and it’s not just because I’m a big spender (hehe), I think it’s because I need that security, that financial security. I want to know that even if any happens, I can always depend on myself and my job. And, I think that’s what most people have their jobs for, right?
I know that was alot to read, but it’s just something thats been on my mind.
I’d like to know what your thoughts are.. are you employed? Are you actively seeking a job? Are you crazy about having a job like me?
