I spent a very interesting couple of hours yesterday attending a job interview for an Australian owned company. This was never something I had envisioned doing at my age – interviewing that is, not applying to an Aussie corporate. There are no issues with working for antipodean employers, and I should know, I’ve done it before.
When I came out from the interview I was positively knackered. Being interviewed certainly doesn’t get any easier with age. One has experience enough to know what not to say, but no longer the stamina to keep up that kind of level of intensity for that long a time.
It would be nice to think I smashed it, scored the job. But the truth of the matter is that I just don’t know yet. I gave it my very best shot and we’ll have to see what happens.
The experience did get me to thinking though. I have never found it easy to find jobs, I don’t know why. It has on average taken me 2 years plus to land each one going through the whole process from looking for to being offered. Being north of 60 now makes me a very unappealing prospect for a potential employer I am sure, despite anti-ageist legislation. The question now is one of what will happen first, retirement or employment. I’ll have to let you know.
There have been several occasions in the past when I could have become my own boss but for one reason or another was never able to achieve this. Sometimes this was a matter of capital: I have none, what little I once had has been stripped away by circumstances.
And after the events of the last 18 months (not covid-related, but personal circumstances/tragedies) I am really not sure I would want the responsibility for someone else’s financial survival any longer. Aiming high is no answer, there are too many people, younger than me who have already hit this target, and there’s no room at the inn.
If i was more optimistic about it, I could approach this from the mathematical starting point of Georg Cantor, and expand the infinite set of of jobs – well infinitely.
Don’t ask. My son would have been the one to explain that, he graduated in Maths from Warwick university. He left me behind a long time ago, now physically as well as intellectually. I really need him now, he would have been able to give me some really practical advice even if it was only the “for god’s sake dad, just go forth and multiply” type of recommendation.
Nobody wants an old fart, either in the boardroom or on the payroll. I am a dinosaur in the world of work, waiting for my Chicxulub moment.
That moment won’t be anything like as dramatic as the asteroid though. More like a silent and feeble damp burst of galactic flatulence.
Politics, Shmolitics 