A job, a job, my kingdom for a job.
Morning all,
So yea, I don't update here very often any more. Its not that I've stopped using LJ, indeed i still check it regularly to read about all of your exciting adventures :). But I haven’t updated more because I haven’t had a lot to say. I became unemployed at the end of November and have since been looking for work - and what a trial its been. I’ve been determined to get a job using my degree - a lot of graduates I know end up in jobs that don't use their degree's, and that’s no bad thing - the bills have to be paid somehow, but as my degree is so skill based (as in programming and so forth) I really didn’t want that to decay away while I worked some other job. Its been hard, very hard, finding a computer science job in Southampton - I have to say that while I expected it to some extent the scale of it has caught me completely by surprise - there really is just nothing there for computer scientists, you work for the uni or you work for IBM - that’s pretty much it, there are a small number of other companies but "very few" doesn’t even begin to describe it. The endless drudge of unemployment and not finding a job was really getting me depressed, I didn’t want to leave Southampton and indeed my housing contract would of made it very difficult to leave but at the same time my situation was destroying me financially and emotionally. From my experiences the Job Centre have earned themselves a place in my opinion as the worst public service ever, I've never in all my time encountered an organisation designed to help people so full of bullies, idiots, savagely archaic bureaucracy, and brutally retarded employee's as this, it never helped me find work in the slightest, I was offered zero advice, all it did was try its best to depress me as much as it could about the hopelessness of my situation and indeed hinder my job seeking through wasting my time in paper work and meetings in which I was sneered at for not having a job. However amongst all this some good has finally come, I finally got an interview and I've finally got a job. I am once again a Research assistant at our beloved ECS, I am working in the LTG group (although I believe they've changed their name now) on some web services for the EFSCE project. The job is only guaranteed until the end of June but has prospects to go beyond that, however all the same I will continue to look for work until I know if my contract has been extended beyond June including attending an interview with IBM on the 28th. This has been such a huge relief to me to be working again to counter the nasty black stain on my CV that has been this unemployment, to be using my degree and be programming again, and of course I'm relieved to not need to return to the vile cesspool that is the job centre.
Aside that piece of good news life continues much the same. The new and shiny Emanate is looking as excellent as I hoped it would and I'm very much looking forward to the next one (and at the same time keeping my fingers crossed they've fixed the speakers problem so it doesn't kill me :P).
Take care all
-C
So yea, I don't update here very often any more. Its not that I've stopped using LJ, indeed i still check it regularly to read about all of your exciting adventures :). But I haven’t updated more because I haven’t had a lot to say. I became unemployed at the end of November and have since been looking for work - and what a trial its been. I’ve been determined to get a job using my degree - a lot of graduates I know end up in jobs that don't use their degree's, and that’s no bad thing - the bills have to be paid somehow, but as my degree is so skill based (as in programming and so forth) I really didn’t want that to decay away while I worked some other job. Its been hard, very hard, finding a computer science job in Southampton - I have to say that while I expected it to some extent the scale of it has caught me completely by surprise - there really is just nothing there for computer scientists, you work for the uni or you work for IBM - that’s pretty much it, there are a small number of other companies but "very few" doesn’t even begin to describe it. The endless drudge of unemployment and not finding a job was really getting me depressed, I didn’t want to leave Southampton and indeed my housing contract would of made it very difficult to leave but at the same time my situation was destroying me financially and emotionally. From my experiences the Job Centre have earned themselves a place in my opinion as the worst public service ever, I've never in all my time encountered an organisation designed to help people so full of bullies, idiots, savagely archaic bureaucracy, and brutally retarded employee's as this, it never helped me find work in the slightest, I was offered zero advice, all it did was try its best to depress me as much as it could about the hopelessness of my situation and indeed hinder my job seeking through wasting my time in paper work and meetings in which I was sneered at for not having a job. However amongst all this some good has finally come, I finally got an interview and I've finally got a job. I am once again a Research assistant at our beloved ECS, I am working in the LTG group (although I believe they've changed their name now) on some web services for the EFSCE project. The job is only guaranteed until the end of June but has prospects to go beyond that, however all the same I will continue to look for work until I know if my contract has been extended beyond June including attending an interview with IBM on the 28th. This has been such a huge relief to me to be working again to counter the nasty black stain on my CV that has been this unemployment, to be using my degree and be programming again, and of course I'm relieved to not need to return to the vile cesspool that is the job centre.
Aside that piece of good news life continues much the same. The new and shiny Emanate is looking as excellent as I hoped it would and I'm very much looking forward to the next one (and at the same time keeping my fingers crossed they've fixed the speakers problem so it doesn't kill me :P).
Take care all
-C