25. You're only 25 for God's sake. You don't need a boyfriend.

It's hard to term 8 weeks of unemployment as action packed. But somehow I've managed to while away the days. Taking on board Kosta's advice to "fill your days", I honest to God don't know how I managed to hold down a full time job as well as flirt with the ridiculous as often and as wantonly as I do.
Highlights have included a brief hospitalisation, an interview in a Kripsy Kreme donut shop and a brief dalliance with a session musician with a penchant for surgical gloves.........
Aside from aforementioned high-jinx, I also turned 25. For someone whose emotional and indeed social development stalled at 17, this was something of a landmark and not one I was keen to embrace. "Ay me," I lamented on the eve of my anniversaire, "25 and no job - how depressing." A well-meaning, yet misguided friend tried to be reassuring, "Don't worry about not having a job - you don't have a house, a car or a boyfriend either." A brief message to Kosta, waxing lyrical on the parlous state of my life inexplicably ended up being sent to my entire inbox, and I spent the early hours of my 25th birthday fielding calls from concerned friends who were convinced I was about to do myself a mischief with a packet of Lemsip.
Attempts to reclaim my youth through the medium of a bouncy castle resulted only in a strained hip and a hangover that could have easily felled a small hippo. Initial thoughts of staging next years extravaganza at a Lazer Quest have been put on hold for now.
The job hunt was truly a low point. Realising you are essentially qualified for nothing in a recession is truly humbling experience. Lofty expectations quickly crumbled, which resulted in the interview in Krispy Kreme where a TERRIFYING woman who had obviously never been introduced to tweezers nor indeed the notion of top lip bleaching beseeched me to sell to her. "Sell me a wall mounting!" she cried. I also cried (inside).
However, I've managed to triumph over adversity and secure a new permanent position...... obviously I see no long term potential in it, given I have lied to the majority of my friends as I can't bear to admit I am entering back into an arena which so callously spat me out but 2 months ago...... alas, as Big Jim has always advised, "Pride won't pay the rent".

Victim of an Economic Crisis.

I knew it was bad when I got an e-mail inviting me to a brief chat in the boardroom before the eagerly anticipated strategy meeting. I looked through the list of other invitees............. Shit, better get shredding my paper trail of implication then.
It's undoubtedly for the best - there is no denying I was completely disinterested in all aspects of my job and had no desire to be there but, there's something horribly pedestrian about succumbing to the strains of an ailing economic climate. Better to exit stage right in a blaze of "gross misconduct" glory whilst shaking a fist that threatens a Tribunal claim than to scuttle out the back exit, a victim of redundancy. I read an article recently that one of the things you should do before you're 30 is to "quit a job you hate" and a large portion of my day was spent fantasising about how I would break the news.......
So here I am..... at the grand old age of 24 with a pocketful of dreams but no real direction, faced with the most glaringly ridiculous question one can anticipate when found in a similar situation...... "so, what are you going to do".
Well. I didn't know yesterday when I was gainfully employed, so how could I possibly know now?!
I've been sorely disappointed by the job boards as the opportunity to become a captain of industry is conspicuous in its absence and the thought of speaking to a recruitment consultant after the past 12 months of spreading lies and discontent amongst my own candidates is frankly too grim to contemplate.
I've thus made to bold move to return to education but doing applications is proving to be a draining endeavour.