Desecration Smile

I didn't get the job. My agent phoned yesterday afternoon just before I left work. Apparently I am overqualified. The HR manager said it is clear I am looking for the opportunity to develop and advance, and that coupled with my experience and capabilities means that I would be bored, as the role is simple, straightforward PA position.

So on the way home, as I sunk into a pit of self-loathing and humiliation, I wondered to Shoes if I shouldn't just take accept the offer of going permanent in my current job. Cons: there is no room for growth and it would pretty much seal the deal that I'll be a PA for the rest of life. But pros: I'd have security, £500 a year more than I get now, holidays (they go overboard here - staff get 30 days annual leave), sick leave and of course, being able to stop this seemingly pointless and very unsuccessful job hunt. I was so down, so despairing, that for just a couple of minutes I made the decision to come in here today and tell them I'd take it.

I just got in right now, but I'd already changed my mind.

After the initial shock had worn off - I was 100% certain I'd get to the second round on this one - I got pissed off. What gets to me more than anything is that the HR manager made a choice that I feel should have been mine. I knew what the job entailed before I went for the interview. If I'm fine with doing it, and have shown enthusiasm and the required experience, who is she to tell me I would be bored? That should be my cross to bear. She acted like she was doing me a favour. I think it's just a cover; a cop out for whatever the real reason is that I didn't get it. I'm struggling to believe that's all there is to it.

When I got home, after burbling to Shoes for the whole journey, I decided against going to gym; when one is upset, exercise becomes entirely optional. Of course, I knew I could have pounded out my frustration on the treadmill, because that is a fool-proof way to release tension. However, I decided to take the time honoured woman's tradition in hand instead - comfort food. Shoes went to gym, I went straight to the chocolate cupboard. As my hand reached for the M&Ms, I saw my unopened box of garlic and herb crackers and remembered the sizable chunk of brie in the fridge. After giving myself a brief talking to ("You know exactly what you're about to do. If you do this, I forbid you from feeling guilty afterwards and thereby making the situation worse. If you open this box, you will enjoy every moment, especially the empty space where the guilt would have been were you not such a rational person."), I ripped open the packaging and devoured half the crackers and nearly all the brie in about 5 minutes flat. Felt a bit better. After that I finished my book, and then, since no-one was home, decided to play mournful songs on my guitar, as I could wail along in peace without my housemates shooting concerned looks at each other and making discreet calls to the men in white coats. I wailed away for a while (songs included Cigarettes by the Wreckers, which has the following lyrics: Someday maybe somebody will love me like I need / Someday I won't have to prove to somebody who'll see all my worth / But until then I'll do just fine on my own / With my cigarettes and this old dirt road - Oh yes, I can be quite melodramatic when it suits me, makes me wish I still smoked so I could suck deeply on a ciggy whilst staring moodily out the window), and then finally Eyes came home and I thought I'd spare him my abject misery, so I stopped.

I feel slightly better today; at least well enough to be driven by the rejection to increase my intensity in the job search. It still stings, and I don't get it, and I'm hard pressed to believe I'll ever get anywhere at this stage, but I haven't quite given up yet. I'm sort of hanging in between thinking they're just idiots, and a place where my self doubt in growing alarmingly by the minute; a place where I question whether I do in fact have anything to offer that anybody is actually ever going to want. I've only had two interviews, but I've been looking on and off for 6 months now, and of the 5 or so agencies I've joined and the 50 odd jobs I've applied for, all I have to show for it are 2 rejections in first round interviews. It's a shit track record, there's no getting around it, and while I'll keep looking and keep hoping because I simply don't have any other choice, it's not as easy to believe in myself as it was before I came to London.