If you're unemployed, you are not alone even if it feels like it 99% of the time.

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Maybe this will come as a bit of a shock to you but I am an unemployed bum. Why don't you have a job oh great tbd[1] I hear you ask. Well, basically it's because I have no idea what job I should do. I don't have a degree or A-Levels. I have passes in the three "essential" subjects from High School - English, Maths and Science - plus passes in Music and Business Information Systems[2].

It's not like I've never had a job. I've done my time at both Burger King and McDonalds, been a bar person and even done a stint for a worldwide insurance company. I even quite enjoyed most of them but I've never thought "Wow, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life".

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I literally have no idea what I would be good at though. My last job was the most boring of them all. I was a costs draftsman for a law firm. I won't bore you with the details of the job which may have actually been quite interesting if the office environment had not been so unbearable. My days were spent sitting in an office which was without fail twice as hot as outside, with one other person, actively encouraged to sit with our ipods on, not even a phone to answer. It was awful.

When I was young I wanted to be a singer or a teaching assistant. My Dad put a kibosh on that by refusing to let my Mum pay for dance, drama or music lessons saying it was a waste of time and even if I did get famous I'd probably end up killing myself with drugs and alcohol[3]. He wanted me to be an accountant - good steady work where I could find myself a man who would look after me. As you might imagine that didn't go down too well.

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So here I am, thirty five years old, married to an excessively clever man[4], childless and jobless. You now need a degree or at least a childcare course under your belt to even have half a chance that your resume will be looked at for teaching assistant jobs. They are also badly paid with shitty hours. I'd go for it if I could afford to but just my basic living costs - rent, council tax, power, water and a meal a day - would eat up 75% of my monthly salary leaving me with 25% to get to work, eat more and potentially save even a little for a holiday. My singing aspirations were bullied out of me through years of torment from my peers. I've been left with no confidence at all.

Steemit is helping. Having somewhere to write things like this helps even if only five people look at it. I also really appreciate the great feedback I've received from the community. I never really thought I could forge a career in writing but here I am trying it.

Thanks for reading this slightly random rant. Got questions or comments? Write em below and I will answer. Why not tell me what your job is and why you love or hate it. Or maybe you have a suggestion of a job that I could do, I am totally clueless in that respect. TTFN. x

[1] Hopefully it's clear that tbd is an acronym for my internet persona ...

[2] This is essentially computers. It was the 90's and computers had only recently made their way into schools and no one really knew how best to teach them to us.

[3] I've heard this story from my Mum multiple times but I don't know how true it is. For the first few years after they split up they were constantly telling me how the other was preventing me from doing what I wanted.

[4] I mention this as he is also unemployed but this is only because most companies are scared of what he could do to their computer systems.