Unemployable

If I was to apply for my old job today in the state I was nine years ago, my old employer would not hire me. Why should I expect that anybody else would take a chance?

I have mental health problems. Maybe you are not supposed to discriminate based on mental health problems but nobody wants a problem employee. Worse, the difference in my demeanor when I am suffering acute depression or anxiety is dramatically different from my usual demeanor. Then everybody gets scared, because they don't know when Mr. Hyde will show his face again. It isn't good enough for me to be Jekyll 95% of the time or even 99% of the time.

I don't want to work, but I don't want to be destitute. I wish I could take some time off without becoming yet more unemployable.

I am willing to contribute positive energy to an organization, but that is not good enough. I am supposed to play this game where I pretend I have fallen in love with the organization in question, and that I am desperate/enthusiastic about working there. But if this organization did not have a job posting, I would be feigning enthusiasm for somebody else.

I don't have a five year plan. I don't have a one year plan. I don't have long term dreams or goals.

I am emotionally fragile and a little heartbroken. I showed a fair amount of loyalty to my last employer, and I do not have much to show for it now. If anything, showing loyalty to an organization has hurt my career. I am not emotionally ready to commit to another organization, but I do not want to be left behind.

I am not a positive person. I tend towards cynicism and criticism. I am deeply critical of institutional corruption. I am almost as critical of capitalism.

I am a night owl in a world of day robins. I do not handle mornings well. But all these jobs want me in at 9am and out at 5pm (or preferably 9pm, or maybe 2am if it is a startup).

I am not prompt for things.

I don't dress well or fashionably. My hygiene is borderline acceptable but I have to work at it. People mistake me for a homeless person.

I do not like technology. I should never have been in IT. I am always on the trailing edge of things because I do not trust technology, and I only use technology when it is obvious that I have a problem that needs to be solved. I don't like changing technology for the sake of changing technology.

Similarly, I rarely learn pre-emptively. I learn things when I need to learn them, unless they happen to be of great personal interest. I learn by doing, and a work-related project provides the opportunities for me to learn.

I would like to have a life. Even though my last job was supposedly part time it was exhausting, and I did not get to have a life. And that was an easy job!

I am driven by gut feelings and hunches, not by data and logic.

I am a slow worker. I can't keep up with the pace that these tech companies want. As I age my ability to keep up diminishes.

I am fundamentally lazy. I have bad time management. I procrastinate and procrastinate. Keeping myself focused for seven or eight hours a day seems out of reach.

I am not a superstar or a rockstar or a ninja. I kind of hate the bluster of the tech sector, and I hate its competitive spirit. That competitive spirit drives companies to grow and succeed, but I find it toxic. In my sexist way I classify this culture as "very male", and it suits me poorly. I prefer atmospheres where people are friendly and collaborative, but I do not know whether those cultures exist.

I understand that capitalism gives me cheap stuff and therefore is inherently good, but so many of the companies in town seem either frivolous or evil. How can I keep a job when I oppose the surveillance economy? Why would I want to work for a company that disempowers consumers by pretending that simple things are too much work for busy First World lives?

Is there an ethical way to work in the world and make enough money for retirement? I have not found many options so far. Everybody wants analytics and surveillance. I guess these must be good and not evil, but my morals have been poisoned.

I don't know right from wrong. I do not know what it even means to be ethical in the world. I would like to help build a world that I want to live in, but I do not even know what that looks like.

I eat compulsively. I do not deal well with food waste. I hate it when "free food" is available, and so many of these companies do catered meals (and where do the leftovers go? the garbage?).

I don't particularly want to work five days a week. But nobody wants to hire somebody part time for the kind of work I do. (Everybody wants you on call 24/7 though.)

I dislike NDAs and other forms of corporate control. Needing a badge to sign into work is gross. Being under constant corporate surveillance is gross.

I hate phoniness. I value trust, and phoniness is not condusive to trust. I would prefer that we could be open about salaries, about our job histories, about our strengths and weaknesses, but we cannot because game theory sucks.

As is apparent by this blog post, I have little interest and less aptitude in being "corporately correct". You are supposed to have lots of social media profiles but only post upbeat, non-offensive things. You are supposed to be part of the right kinds of social activities (exercise, restaurant consumption, politically-correct video games) and not participate in the wrong kinds (union organizing?).

I don't have a smartphone or a Facebook account. I don't drink alcohol, and do not like being in pubs or bars. I don't get into cars. I don't like travel. I am not very libertarian. I do not like spending money on eating out.

The future of technology scares me. There are all these great inventions that are amazing, and their business models depend upon psychological profiling and manipulation.

I wish I could contribute something useful. I wish I could be content. I wish I could have enough money to retire. All of these things are unreasonable to wish for.

I am a deeply broken human being. I feel I have something to contribute to someone, but I am not your ideal candidate. At best I am high risk, high reward. I am pretty sure I would not hire me, so how can I expect anybody else to?

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