Unemployment Pains

Seeing as the title of this blog is called the 'Inner Dialogue and Ramblings of an Irish Immigrant', I feel it is time to discuss the pains of actually being an immigrant. I may touch on this later, in fact I can tell you about culture clashes, home sickness, learning that Matalan does NOT sell beds, among other things. But I think I may begin with the biggy.

And that is, of course, employment.

This is something that I still lack. It's a big reason for the mass immigration of Irish citizens within the past few years, and has reached high numbers that haven't been seen since the last recession of the 1980's. I've applied to numerous jobs within Liverpool, even going across the water in search of jobs on the Wirral and I've still had no luck whatsoever. I mean, I have a little bit of experience, I now know my general surroundings and understand the trains. I'm not calling that my experience by the way, I know how to take messages and I can do hands-on work. So its a bit of a bummer that the moment I'm finally settled to work, no one will take me on. The Christmas Rush has been and gone people! I need money! Don't you need people for the New Years Sales?!

This college student is in desperate need of funds! I may not drink it all! I may actually want to get a plane home for the holidays or buy a new pair of boots because I've fucked up my Doc Martins (which I still can't figure out how I did that).  Better yet, maybe I actually want to be able to buy people presents, in YOUR shop, where I want to work! I'll take Part Time, or one day a week if that's all that I can get! I'll take anything at this stage!

When I was a kid I thought : I'm gonna grow up, get one of those fur coats like the cool girls, get a job, do exams, live in my own flat, make friends and so on. I actually thought that I'd move to Waterford city and share my flat with some girls I'd grown up with.

Now I'm grown up, forced to immigrate to England, and on my own, I have no umbrella, just broken boots. I'm not one of the cool girls, barely passed exams, unemployed and I live with my best mates family. In fact all I did was make friends. I'm not complaining, in fact it's nice having friends to complain to.

With these stories from home emerging about these water charges, it makes me want to get work even more.

They say that I don't have enough experience? Well how am I meant to get it unless you give me a chance and hire me?

At this stage, I'm looking into volunteer work, so at least that way I can say that I am trained on a cash register, and it would look good on a University Application, so in a way I'm killing two birds with one stone. So far I've gotten some part time experience at a charity shop for Meals on Wheels, which not only makes me feel like a silent protester, or invisible Samaritan, but will benefit all those involved. The women there are lovely, all older than me, but lovely all the same.

This year I will be entering into my twenties, and I hope to do so with an actual job. Hopefully entry into University and employment. It's why I immigrated after all.

I recently went back to Ireland over Christmas and saw that while parts of the country was healing, other problems have just been growing worse. While I was in Dublin trying to get to the airport, I saw a lot of homeless people outside on the footpaths in the cold.
I may write an article on this in the future, but for now it will just be an idea in my head.
I may even do a countdown of the biggest trends in 2014.

Thank you for reading this, comments are welcome below! I'd love to hear from people in the same situation