
Stopgapping - noun 1. the act of sitting waiting for time to tick by. 2. The process by which a person’s soul is slowly eroded.
I originally started this page as somewhere to rant about the horror of being stuck in a stopgap job, somewhere I could vent the frustrations of the world in which I am essentially stuck and hopefully prevent it all coming out in the office. Putting the page up was the first step towards inner peace but since then I’ve largely used the page to whine and moan about the inconsequential elements of my life, I’ve been largely apathetic about my current predicament, until today.
I graduated in 2006 and was full of the naive hope of youth, I had been lead to believe that the shiny new degree recently bestowed upon me would open doors I could never have before imagined, yet alone walked confidently through. Around about 6 days after that I was forced by economic reality to take a job in an office doing something I’m still yet to fully understand. The intention was for this to be a stopgap on my path to the dream job I’d been told I deserved, however (you know what’s coming next as well as I do) I have now been “stuck” here for nearly 2 years.
The time I’ve spent here has of course had ups as well as the inevitable downs, I’ve been promoted twice (if into equally non-distinct positions), I’ve been disciplined three times, met a girl, moved house twice, owned more than my share of crap cars and spent almost every penny I’ve earned on distracting myself from the matter at hand.
Since starting at my present job a total of 721 days have passed, of which 499 have been working day. I have taken just 5 sick days, have so far spent 42 days on leave, I have visited the doctor twice and the dentist once (3 hours) which means that, by the end of the working day today, I will have spent 3161 hours (189,660 minutes or 11,379,600 seconds) stopgapping!
Back to today I can conclude that this colossal waste of time has cost me more than that naivety I mentioned earlier, it has cost me the chance to engage with an active and growing job market. I, like most people, have broadly ignored all the talk of a recession until it walked up and metaphorically smacked me in the face. Over the past few weeks I have stepped up my laborious offensive on the jobs market and applied for three (yes 3) jobs which have all come to nothing, all three positions have been “withdrawn”. I’m unsure as to why this has happened, it is probably one of the many unfortunate consequences of dealing with recruitment consultants, but it does worry me somewhat.
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