Sunday, February 1, 2009

Everyday is Like Sunday, Except for Blue Monday and Ruby Tuesday, and...Well, Friday I'm in Love: Weekly Mix #51




It's been at least four months since I received my Masters's Degree and I'm still unemployed. Despite the fact I've sent out A LOT of resumés and cover letters. Including to places I don't even really want to work at. I suppose it's the common plight of an overeducated, underexperienced job-seeker, but I would have thought that the fact I've held a few jobs, including a couple at universities, and the fact I have a "practical" Creative Communications diploma from a vocational college would have made me a little more viable than the average holder of a BA or MA. One of the biggest things that irks me is that I haven't even got one call for an interview. I suppose trying to find a career during a worldwide recession can be a bit of ill timing, but I'm starting to feel pariah-like.

The one thing that does keep me from cracking up completely is the fact I do $200/month freelance work and volunteer work for the Children's Museum, so technically, I'm not utterly idle. I guess I feel a little squirrely because I've never been out of work for this long since I started working eight years ago. The feeling probably also stems from the work ethic of someone whose family was never terribly well-off and whose youth was filled with the family's precarious finances. As for going back to retail (where I worked for five years - four of those years while at university), you can take those jobs and put them where the monkey put the nuts, so to speak. And I'm not brave nor artistically talented enough to go the starving artist route. All I can hope is that persistence will eventually pay off and that I'll get a career that will help me pay back student loans. Then I can complain about having to go to work.

However, the constant unemployment of New Zealand's fourth most popular digi-folk duo does cheer me up, especially the latest episode of the second series in which Jemaine decides to return to the world's oldest profession and be a male prostitute (see above video). This incident then inspires a Roxanne-type ska number called You Don't Have to Be a Prostitute. So, this week's mix is about both employed and unemployed frustration and malaise, and the trappings of a capitalistic modern life. And the Queen song, which doesn't quite fit, is self-explanatory. This one's called Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now.

We Are All Prostitutes - The Pop Group

Take This Job and Shove It - Dead Kennedys

Seventeen (I'm a Lazy Sod) - Sex Pistols

Working For the Yankee Dollar - The Skids

Work, Work, Work (Pub, Club, Sleep) - The Rakes

Model Worker - Magazine

Welcome to the Working Week - Elvis Costello and The Attractions

Bright Future in Sales - Fountains of Wayne

Town Called Malice - The Jam

Career Opportunities - The Clash (Sandinista! version)

Frankly, Mr. Shankly - The Smiths

We Are All Bourgeois Now - McCarthy

Step Into My Office, Baby - Belle & Sebastian

I'm Going Slightly Mad - Queen

Businessman - Snog

Slave to the Wage - Placebo

Careful in Career - Simple Minds

I'm Not Working - Manic Street Preachers

Shangri-La - The Kinks

Ernold Same - Blur

2 comments:

dugg said...

Excellent- I've been wanting to hear "We are All Prostitutes" again for a long time- thanks for putting a kick into my day!
all the best,
dugg

Unknown said...

Hang On In There Baby.

The right job will find you eventually. Honestly.