Unemployed Anonymous

Hello my name is Lawrence… and I am a 23 year old Unemployed Graduate. 

I have practically being studying all my life since kinder Garden up until last year.  In South Africa almost everybody who does not have connections is bound to land where I am, unemployed, penniless and with a room filled with Wednesday and Sunday newspapers. 

It is the first time ever in my life where I reach a moment where I do not have anything to do but look for employment.  Straight from High School I enrolled at a University of Technology with the hope that I will get both the experience and education. Well that worked quiet well if I may highlight until I got screwed by my own employer at a particular Branding solutions company where I earned as little as R1800 + commission. My salary largely depended on a commission of 12% and the very same person who will receive the remaining 88% stole my client. Therefore I packed my bags and got off the sinking titanic. 

I went back to studying so I can graduate for my diploma and make it to the B.tech Class of 2011. Fortunately with qualifying marks of 48% and 51% I managed to make it to a 60% and 63% and graduated with dignity knowing that I made it to the B.tech Class. And a year later I find myself back at home, looking for employment with an intimidating Degree.

A particular book that a friend of mine is reading Sais; “when your life falls apart, it does not all happen in one stage. It is a process” It quiet got me wondering for three months whether if that’s practically true. You first lose your clothes bit by bit, and then you lose your scholarship, leading you to be in depth with the University, and then you lose your friends one by one. You do not realise that all this is happening until you get to that moment when your phone stopped ringing as much as it used to when you were employed.

How do you react to a situation when even the people you thought that you can count on have turned their backs on you or have forgotten all about you? I suddenly felt a chill and heard that small voice saying: You are now living the life of the temporally boke, plan less and no longer so interesting somebody, until you get employed again or if you go to school and rely on the monthly allowance again! And let me say, I am far from accepting defeat.

The more I kept digging for a employment, posting my resumes to organisation, logging onto the internet and going to government department to fill in the Z83 forms and going to hopeless interviews with the hope that I will at least get an answer, the more money had to come out from my pocket. It’s true what they say, “It is a job to get a job” and that is no laughing matter.

It’s been three months and I still sit with the hope that sometime sooner or later, a door will open. And somehow God will bless me more than I expect him to.  Thank you.