Zero Hour (Mark II)

So here we are again. A week ago I posted about what was going to be the beginning of what I hoped would be the final nail in my job hunting coffin. Basically, I hoped I'd either have one of the 'big three' jobs I applied for, or I'd be on the lookout for something else because I didn't get any of them.

I would give you links to the last five days of posts where I did, for once, what this blog suggests, and wrote a diary about my unemployment, but they're literally just the last five posts I've written, so you can probably navigate your way there yourself. Anyway, if you've read those already, you may notice a common theme. Last week wasn't 'zero week' as I succinctly termed it. Last week was a continuation of 'wait around and get frustrated' week, which is where I've been really since August.

Nice.

Things did, however, change. Friday evening I got an email telling me I hadn't got one of the 'big three'. At first glance this may sound disappointing, but I was relieved more than anything: the 'big three' are now the 'big two' and that's one less thing to worry about. Now I have my plan of campaign in place, I don't want to have to wait some more before I implement it.

The reason I issued myself witht the 'zero week' (now 'zero fortnight') ultimatum was because I felt like I was really getting somewhere with a job and then it disappeared into the atmosphere, never to be heard of again. Regular readers may remember my petite rant. In view of this I thought that enoguh was enough - I needed to start taking some drastic action and get something because even the jobs you feel like you're going to get might not pull through.

Hence the situation we're in now.

Then I got an email. It was this afternoon - not a working day and certainly not a 'zero' day: it was my old friends who didn't call me. The gentleman kindly explained as to why  was never called - apparently (and this is the case at the moment everywhere) there are so many people applying for jobs that are in theory beneath them, that people like me don't stand a chance. It was nice to know that under normal circumstances I would have stood a good chance, it was just the jobs market that wasn't willing.

Anyway he asked me to apply for another position at the company instead. He told me it was coming up and I needn't worry about sending anything else in the way of an application. I had to admit that I was quite excited about it and, when I went out in the car but ten minutes later, I had a celebratory Red Hot Chili Peppers sing-along.

This was good news indeed. The job is by no means mine, but it will probably be the closest I've got so far. It puts my new plans into slight jeopardy, but I will wait for the 'big two' and apply for whatever else in the meantime.

So as the second part of zero fortnight is about to start, some progress has been made, let's just hope I can go on as I meant to start...