Why is it the demons of our minds only come out at night? I find myself this night unable to sleep simply because my mind won’t rest. Thoughts keep spinning around and around in my mind which is forcing me to pick up my computer to write out what they are. As with most nights my thoughts circle around my unknown future. This is the first time in my life I don't know what is going to happen to me in the New Year. I've been job searching over two months now and still I have been unable to find any form of employment or at least in my previous career field. Even my attempt to find other drafting positions in other fields have proven fruitless, since either I don't have experience in those fields or lack the necessary knowledge or training to do them. I have no hesitation in saying the first time my life I don't know what to do.
My thoughts are filling with horrifying possibility that keeps me awake. The possibility of not finding another job or forced to take another job outside my field of study just I have some form of limited benefits. Even the idea that is impossibility to find a job in a different field is impossibility and I may force to go on welfare or to rely my parents the rest of my life for a place to live and to take care me as if I'm still a child. Even the possibility of being forced out on the street has at one time or another has entered my mind. These are the demons that I am facing right now, demons of unknown possibility and an unknown future. Never before have I been so unsure of my future but then again never before have I been put in such a position where I have to consider my future such broad context.
When I first finished college I never thought about not being able to find a job as a drafter just how long till I found one. I'm so relieved when I found a job even before completing my program and in just a few days after the last final I began my career at my first real job. A job that I originally thought I would stay at till I retired but as with many things in life that was not to be. After years of working there the company underwent a merger with another company which resulted in changing the corporate culture that I originally introduce too. No longer was I working a job where I was encouraged to learn and further develop myself into designer but forced into a simple AutoCAD technician role. A roll that is nothing more than a tracer, simply copying what the engineers draws on paper, reproducing them in CAD and never questioning or asking why they designed it the way they did. That wasn't the reason I spend three years in the diploma program just to become a simple tracer. I had a need to learn more and to do more with my life.
That's the original reason I started to search for a new job and seek employment elsewhere, employment that I hope and thought would lead into a designer role and finally earning me my Certified Engineering Technologist designation that I so wanted. As it so happens taking a new job, one that originally found me instead of me seeking it out, led to present position now, one of unemployment and confusion. I took on a role but I knew that I didn't have all the qualifications for but promised training and mentorship to aid in my development into that role. The training I received was miserably delivered and simply comprised of a training manual that was poorly put together and difficult to find the necessary information, one class at NAIT (which I had to sign up for myself) and a few training courses that were forcefully given to me because they were required by the human resources for all staff members. I never received a mentorship that I was promised, the style of training I expected or all the safety training or gear that was needed to do the job, instead of providing what was promised I simply let go because I wasn't “fitting in.”
Now my career has been set back more than five years and to a point where my previous education isn't worth much anymore. The five years I did at my previous job doesn't qualify me as a designer or much of an AutoCAD operator. I may have five years’ experience of using AutoCAD and Autodesk like platforms but that experience is just using them on their most basic level which is nowhere near the expertise that is wanted. I may part of a bachelor under my belt but that only makes me overqualified for job I'm applying for. Now I have to consider position pay me far less than I left my first job at which was below the average for my industry. Because of that I am considering a career shift onto a different career path or once my EI runs out returning to school full-time to complete my present bachelor's. I am even considering entering a new program whether it is the degree program for another diploma program after completing my first bachelors just to make myself more employable.
I'm attending workshop that I hope will improve my resume and cover letters writing as well as my interviewing skill as an attempt to stay on my present career path. Whether this will work or not is yet to be seen. So far the only workshop I attended a showing that and to drastically revise my resume and how I've been doing my cover letters. Something I plan to undertake during the so called “Christmas holidays.” I hope after the holidays I'll have a presentable resume and cover letters to match that may be picked up by the human resources algorithms. I have some hopes that I may fine new employment early in the New Year but somehow I think that is doubtful. Already I'm thinking of possible alternatives I can follow if I fail in my job search.
Thinking about these alternatives may be one reason I’m up so late, one of the many demons that is haunting my mind. What alternatives are there for me? Is anything else I can do with my life? At the age of 30s is there anything else I can follow that I could possibly hope to succeed in? No wonder I can't sleep. So many fears and so many thoughts spinning in my head with no end in sight. All I can do is keep at what I've been doing. Keep improving my resume, keep looking for new jobs, applying for what jobs I find and try to keep busy so these thoughts won’t haunt me at night. For now what else is there for me to do? I don’t know that answer to that question but I hope it comes to me soon so I can sleep soundly again.
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