Monday, May 09, 2016

.....after a short break.

Hey WOW. I had a blog all those moons ago and it's still here??

I thought about starting another one mainly to just vent about stuff that shits me because that's basically all anyone wants to read here anyway.

Looking back at the last entry it was the start of 2010 and I was not having a very good time. Thanks the stars that all changed. Oh, wait. It hasn't. It's now May 2016 and the preceding 6 years have been a mixture of shit, sacrifice, more shit and constant living in a trough of disappointment. In 2010 I actually did get a job. I took it because I had been unemployed for 9 months and needed *something* ANYTHING to have some money coming in. It was a major step backwards career wise after all the good stuff I had done in Melbourne but desperation requires sacrifice. I took a 53% pay cut from my previous job and worked at this job for 3 years until they unceremoniously dumped me. That really hurt, the people who hired me just wouldn't let me progress out of the basement position I was given when I started and I think my constant asking to do something more suitable to my skills eventually got on their nerves. I then spent 18 months unemployed again. Just let that sink in. 18 months with no income.

It was now June 2014 and I was financially ruined and was mere days off losing the house that I bought in 2010. Through friends, I was offered a laboring position at a gold mine out in the middle of the desert in WA. I had to take it, I had no choice. I did this job for 3 months before I was asked to go and run an analytical lab at a different gold mine in a different part of the middle of nowhere, which I accepted. The deal I was offered turned out to be complete bullshit and lies. A trait I found to be typical of the mining industry. The workers are exploited constantly by the management in order to make the most money they can for the owners. They will promise you the Earth and deliver nothing. I really didn't mind the job though. It was not particularly challenging but the people I worked with in the Lab were awesome and will remain lifelong friends due simply to all the crap we had to survive through together. I worked at this job for 15 months. It made me somewhat rich again but at the expense of every other aspect of my life. In short I didn't have any personal life. None. I was stuck at this mine for months on end and got to come home about 4 times over that 15 month period. SO after a series of management mishaps and just plain bad management the mine ran out of money and promptly closed. 95% of the people working there lost their jobs with virtually no notice. I found out on one of my days off, a Friday, and I was packed and GONE by Sunday. That was November 20th 2015.

I have now been unemployed again for another 6 months. I have found that I am now approaching being totally "unemployable". I am not suitable or over qualified for every job I apply for and in the preceding 6 months I have again not had a single positive outcome from any application I have made for a job. This is the norm. This is what being highly skilled and/or educated means in this day and age when you lose your job. It is extremely difficult to get another one and I wouldn't wish this on anyone. It seems though that I have to constantly face this prospect of ridiculously long unemployment and financial hardship. It's just what my life has turned into.