Over the last month I have been going through something akin to the Kübler-Ross model, often referred to as the five stages, of grief. What’s strange about this is, not only has this model been widely criticised as “empirically unsupported”, and wholly inaccurate, its not something I actually went through when I lost my dad nearly a year ago. Perhaps this is because my current grief is not over the loss of a loved one, but rather due to the apparent and sudden death of my working career.
For those that don’t know, the Kübler-Ross model states that after a sudden loss or traumatic event, there is a short period of shock, followed by denial or refusal to understand what’s happened. Following this comes anger or a resistance to move on. Next comes bargaining, or an avoidance to accept the situation. Ending in either depression and a repeat of the previous stages, or resignation ending up in acceptance.
After a year of applying for jobs I’ve been thoroughly let down by the modern recruitment process. This is clearly reflected in the fact that in over seventy job applications, I have had exactly five interviews, three of which were unsuccessful and two where the job went away due to the state of the industry. Less than half of these applications have received any form of decision, twenty of those have been stock “unsuccessful” emails, the rest “the job went to someone with more experience” responses. One of these even had the frustrating “you don’t have the experience required” line, when clearly I did, but the listed particulars didn’t even relate to the job i’d applied for! All of which means that, on the anniversary of the “shock” event that started it all, I have thoroughly exhausted the “denial” stage and plunged firmly into “anger”.
I feel my anger comes from a good place. Firstly I am qualified to do the job that I have applied for, otherwise I wouldn’t have applied for it, in fact more than qualified (not that being overqualified is even a thing anymore). Okay, so perhaps I may not be currently doing or have done the exact job, but i have a huge breadth of comparable or transferable experience and skills, you just have to dig a little deeper that a surface scan to find it… or, you know, talk to me about it. And therein lies the rub, everything is being machine filtered, so when you don’t fit directly into the box, you get binned. Ghosted. Nothing is done by a person anymore, because that would cost money.
This is then when we come to “bargaining”. I have to keep applying, for everything and anything in the hopes that something might slip through. I fight with every breath to accept that there’s no jobs out there for me. I’m thinking of it like building a house out of Cob, you just have to keep adding more mud, sand and straw until it’s finished. On top of this is the bargain i make myself that things will get better, that the industry will improve, that perhaps someone might spot you in the crowds of hundreds of other applicants and give you a chance. Just. One. Chance.
Another bargain is to try and think of any other way of reviving my career, be it writing more books, drafting scripts, coming up with pitches for TV shows and games, even setting up silly little projects just to make money. All of it to avoid the thing which I don’t want to do, take the only job that will have me, that lets me make a living, but is literally something I’m fighting against doing with my entire soul. There’s a bargain there too, the deal that I tell myself that goes “It’s fine! I’ll just do it until something, anything else comes along”.
