I think I lost my job for good and I have block.
 

Which sucks a lot.

There's no more work for me - the recession is actually real. It didn't affect me for ages and now it is.

I'm totally FUXOR3D.

I now have nothing to do except find new work. But that means waiting for people to get back to me all the time.
Last time I didn't have any work, it was ages til I got another job.

It's driving me fecking nuts not having anything to do.

I'm drawing with letters instead of writing ffs. I cannot think of any way to progress in the story I'm working on, so there's no money in that until it's complete.

I either need to find work or work on progressing on ideas that I've become slightly bored with because they require so much retracing steps - a bit like memorising a pack of cards in order, but the order is always the same so it get's dull.

I really hate getting stuck for ideas. I get really short tempered as it feels like the ideas and concepts are in there, but they haven't quite formed because they're slightly dammed in. Like a river that flows steady and then funnels into some white rapids.
If you've got a canoe, you're sorted. If you don't then you end up like me.

I'm sorry if I seem snappy or crass or anything at the moment.

Having block is bad enough, but having that and worry about earning money instead of just earning it... It's really, really annoying.

I don't mean to take it out on people - I spend more time on a computer most days than I don't. I probably speak to people here more than the friends I've known for years.
And I know that some of you spend loads of time here too, because people post and stuff!

Yeah, that's it. Misdirected Flamer anger stuff.

I was really snappy on the phone earlier and condescended to someone and now I just feel like a prize pr1ck. That's not like me normally.

Just tell me to shut the fu*k up if I get like that and I will - seriously, you'll be doing me a favour.

Thanks!
Pete

I there's anything I or anyone else can can do, just let us know. I'm so sorry to hear that's things are so difficult for you right now.

Also, seriously, no worries about what I think you might be referring to from earlier, truly, no worries :)

Thanks for the PM, Lulu.

I am going to give up doing maths for a bit (cos it's driving Pandaa nuts too - she hates maths) and use the time to take it easy and play some games.
Not chess. Maybe Go or something.

My background precludes me from certain professions, but I'm sure I will find some more work sometime.
It's not like I'm going to join the Marines or anything. Two too much, I think.

I'm going to give it a few months, do extra training and then think about it.

I've had this job for nearly four years and before that, I was in the unemployment hell as well.

If I wrote 50 letters, I only got one or two replies. E-mails were ignored completely so letters were my only alternative. Calling? Too expensive. While a letter costs like 50 cents to post, a phone call would mean getting connected to another department and another person, only to be told I needed to call back later.

Looking for work really used up more money than I had to spare which is why I started to give up after a year - without looking for a job, I could just about get by with the unemployment benefits. I was emotionally drained as well, since it's hard getting rejected so much.

I wish I could say stuff like "you'll find work soon!" but those are empty words. The truth is that looking for work is mostly luck. I got my job because a woman got pregnant where my father works and he told my current boss that I needed a job and so I ended up here. He was very happy with my work and actually fired someone else to keep me here so it confirmed what I believed: that I'm an asset to a company.

The trouble is getting your worth through to companies when you're unemployed and the truth is that there's only one way for this to happen: word of mouth from people they know. Nearly everyone who's hired here knows someone else in the company so the best course of action would be to talk to friends and family and see if they don't know some opening in a company they work in or whose owner they know.

Amen with what you say about job hunting: its excruciating and stressful, specially if you are somewhat introverted like me. Just going to the interview was hard for me, and rejections are just plain hurtful. I got a lot of that before starting working in IT. That doesn't mean I got accepted at all interviews, just that there wasn't any outright rejections, and that in the meanwhile, I got a job.

And I totally agree with you on the frustrating hell of writer's block. I'm a writer, also, and I had my share of blocks. Which are all the more frustrating when you are down, which is when you more need to get thing out of your chest, sublimating through your writing. What I had found in my years of writing workshops (what I think is an appropriate translation of the spanish expression "taller literario", where people joins to write, read, criticize each other writings and try different exercises), is that mechanic exercises help to unblock. Some examples:

1) Automatic writing. You simply take a sheet of paper and start pouring on it the first thing that come to your mind. Helps if you try to conform to a genre, but keeping the spontaneous nature of automatic writing. Works surprising well in poetry form, with free verse and no rhyme. Just write short "automatic poems" or whatever. Hopefully, after some tries you will find that your writings start taking form, you will start giving a structure, giving it a planned direction and such. By then, you will have given a significant step on unblocking you.

2) Some mechanical pointless writing. I don't know which other name it. It means start writing something on a dry manner, without a literary objective in mind. I mean something like take an item, examining for a couple of minutes, and start describing it in minute detail. It helps if you try to avoid naming the item in question. Or you could describe someone. Or (one of my favorites) try to describe the way to do an everyday action (like climb up some ladders). If you are lucky, soon you will find trying to give it a literary value by enriching it with metaphors and other nice things. Maybe even you will produce something worthwhile. And it will give you some practice with the use of adjectives (they are necessary, although not in excess) and with descriptions that, even if you don't like to waste too much words on a description, it will help to improve your overall writing

3) Exquisite corpse. It only works if you have somebody else with whom to try it. You could find it explained here, maybe. A variation is taking turn to write a story, but being capable of reading the other participants parts. That way it could be a coherent story and you could try to give other an interesting twist or just trying to complicate things for the other participants.

These are only some examples I could think now on top of my head. These exercises have helped me on numerous occasions and people I know. The idea is trying some of these exercises, a few each day (or whatever time you have to sit down and write) until feeling the block dissolving. It helps if you have a writing habit, like writing always around the same time of the day, or while listening to some particular music or whatever, although that could easily become a crutch. Just don't try to force you to write, do some exercise and you will feel when you are ready to try to advance your story.

Also, I find useful to write in a situations in which stimulus and interruptions are at a minimum (night is the prime time for this, in my case).

I hope this helps you.

I can feel your frustration - it's all too familiar.

I've lost my job in November last year due to [sarcasm]recession that does not exist in Australia[/sarcasm]. At the beginning I looked at it as a prolonged holiday - redundancy money was good and I had plenty of time to do things I liked without being tired all the time. But after a few months and many unanswered calls/emails/applications, or polite rejactions that are sometimes almost absurd (you are exactly kind of person that we need if only you had a bit more experiance - I can take a course in anything except in getting more experiance) it started to p!ss me off. Seriously. Even a couple of interview that I went to were complete waste of my time and money.

I'm a mechanical engineer specialized in HVAC (this sounds like the beginning of my cover letter ;) ) and unless people start building again seriously in Australia or I somehow manage to miraculously double up my experiance, I don't find my prospects of finding a new job in that branch good. My wife is working and she has a good salary, so it's not that things are really bad, but I'm sick of staying home all day, thinking three times before deciding to buy something and most of all checking adds, applying and waiting for the answer.

I'm currently overseas, but as soon as I get back, I'll try to find any job (well almost any). Hopefully I'll have more luck there and this crap that is going on cannot last forever.

So, yes, I understand the way you feel...

only my thoughts on the matter but -

if you are looking for a job I think it is better to realise straight away that there are 100's of people aplying for the same jobs and work at getting one acordingly

1. Apply for as many as you can even if you really want a specific one don't pin all your hopes on getting that one, it is easier to turn down a job offer than wait for a month for a single job only to phone up and be told it was filled weeks ago and nobody bothered contacting you

2. Chase people , be polite about it but if you don't hear back phone or write a polite letter asking if the position has been filled and politely asking for feedback on your interview etc as most people will be happy to let you know where you can improve.

3. As hard as it is chill out and use the spare time that you do have wisely either get in some good relaxing / family time or do some free courses . it is amazing how much you can regret having wasted the time when you do get a job and have no time for anything ! I spent a year unemployed a long time ago and still hate the fact that I wasted all that time that I could really do with now :(

4. From my POV you can post here any time u like as from my experience it can often be a lot easier talking to people on forums and anything that saves you from holding on to all that irritation is good :hairpull:

5. You might find it hard to do much without cash but do find time ocasionally to go grab a quiet coffee or wander round somewhere u apreciate, whatever u enjoy

Ehy that sucks, sad to hear that.
As student I can't give you many suggestions, but I wish you luck.

hah, welcome to the club, been out of a job since last december. got alot of work done at home atleast.

Stupid recession!

Anyway what is your expertese? i was surprise when i foudn how many companies are looking for people to work in/on drupal. and they offer telecommute (does that mean you can work at home from anywhere?!)

anyway plenty of ads out there, but even i when i treie to find a switch back in the good ol' days i couldn't get it, despite all my skills and working experience.

Looking for work is one of the most draining things you can experience - sadly enough, people who have work rarely appreciate that. They see someone who's unemployed and label him a lazy bum. They complain how those unemployed people are out of a job because they chose to be.

In reality, companies are just very picky. I mean, the IT and service industry has a huge employee market - fewer people want to work in factories and with automation increasing, there's no work there either anyway. So for every job as IT specialist or programmer or even just an accountant, there's dozens of people lining up to steal it away from you.

Most companies got oodles of resumes in the mail. I mean, the company I work for offered a 3 month internship due to pregnancy leave of one of my colleagues and there were 15 people willing to fill it. If people are jumping just to fill in a 3 month job with no chance of a full time contract, it really shows how desperate people are.

If you're looking for a job, this means you'll get turned down dozens of times and in many cases, you won't even get a reply at all. Heck, the industry is sexist, racist, etc. They'll ALWAYS pick a young girl over an experienced guy if they can get away with it, for example.

All you can do is persevere and try to get an edge over the others. Try to represent yourself in such a way that you make yourself irresisteble.

You can't be serious, especially if you're referring to the IT industry, it's the most male orientated group I've ever dealt with.

I really meant my own industry - the graphics design industry - and the non-IT service industry (accounting, secretary, etc.) .

There's a lot of sexism going on here. I was in a class with 14 girls, 3 guys. Me and the other guy were the best of the class by far, having already used the software for years on a hobby basis. The third guy was starting from scratch but he wasn't bad at all. The 14 girls ALL started from scratch and some were a real disaster. I ended up helping out half the class and the other guy the other half. When the course was over, 11 of the 14 girls had a job within two months. None of the three guys was offered any job. After a year, 13 of the 14 girls had a job. None of the three guys had one. The last girl was a Hispanic immigrant who could barely speak Dutch so no surprise there. You can say a lot, but this is not coincidence. Everywhere where I applied for work, they ended up picking a girl/woman.

You know what I have seen about designers? That companies tend to only hire women, ESPECIALLY in a company where the majority are men. I have listened to HR people saying that they were hiring women to "beautify the work enviroment". How much sexist than that could you get? Thing like that really make me nauseous...

It's always guys who hire these young women, that's for sure. I think it's so secure their own position as well. Why hire a talented designer who could replace you if you can hire an inexperienced one?

Men tend to be far more interested in designing on a personal level as well - they'll design things as a hobby as well. There's 5 women here in my department, and three guys and those three guys (me included) all use Photoshop etc. at home as well. Only one girl dabbles with them at home and only then to make greeting cards.