inter-view

There is a planet-wide recession gobbling up the market, people are clinging onto the roles that they have with dear life, taking on extra hours and responsibility just to keep the title in the company that they hope does not 'bust' under their feet.

I knew that finding a career would be hard.

I suffer a daily self-implosion as I wonder "do I suffer from delusions of grandeur that I can be amazing, and am really just a dull tide that washes predictably in, and out, like most others....?"

....or am I a total genius trying to cram himself in a box that I do not fit in to?

Whichever of those two afflicted states I become, I thought at the very least that when I did venture into a career in writing that they would outline an achieveable, if dull, model of a person they would like me to become. 

Enter 'Singapore Press Holdings', the self proclaimed "leading media group in Singapore".

I must say at this juncture that I have nothing against them as a group. I do not cast them as some evil empire, nor do I think they are the beginning ripple of some Orwellian dynasty.  They did make me speechless though. Observe a recent job posting that I viewed, and see if you can witness where the breath got sapped from my lungs:

 The Job Responsibilities

• Develop, edit and produce content for multi-media platforms

• Produce video reports

• Manage a section of your own within one of TNP's digital offerings

Requirements

• You are a highly enthusiastic self-starter

• Strong news sense with a good understanding of online and mobile readership and surfing patterns

• You feel like life has no meaning if you have no internet access

• Ideal if you have experience in reporting

Hold on, WHAT?

"You feel like life has no meaning if you have no internet access"???

 The audacity, irresponsibility, the lack of social conscience...

I am a firecracker of humour, I see the funny angle in even the bleakest of scenarios, but this? I scanned the rest of the posting and there was nothing else, not an ! mark to hint at a wicked sense of fun.

There it is. In black and white. The criteria for a job.

Anyone that approached the interviewer and confessed on their own accord such obsession with the internet should be referred to seek help, not be given a desk at one of the biggest companies in media.

My soul died a little when I read that posting. In fact, it died quite a lot.

My work ethics hark back to a day when you had to sweat, you grunted and ground out every day.

I used to think that going straight into working, and attaining life experience and, gulp, a personality, would stand me in good stead in front of the 'right' people.

I thought that having hobbies, engaging in team-work, sports, developing cognitive skills and such would show that I have a work-life balance, proved that I can be relied upon not to go off the rails, that I have something that does not chain me to the desk.

Avoiding this morphing into a mini-resume, my parents always taught me the value of hard work. Sick days? I don't have them. You get up, you go to work come rain or shine or flu or aches, because you have an obligation.

The above addiction is its own delusion, sweaty palms when your operator signal drops out, anxiety when your internet disconnects, and this is not a company wanting to cure the afflicition, they want to exploit it, and nurture it, and promote it.

I should have been re-enforcing my credentials by being glued to my phone and laptop screen and getting a tan from the glow of Google, not from the sun whilst playing basketball.

Frightening.

Just how 'old fashioned' am I? Am I naive to think that these employers respect me for turning off my phone for an interview? Maybe turning up in jeans is the new fad, and as I loop the tie around my neck I am also tying a noose around my first impression that I give too much of a damn about how I appear.

 "....life has no meaning..." has such a sad, sorrowful shadow following it, and what is more sad is that people feel that way. They identify with that.

It haunts me that a generation is vanishing into a screen, being sucked into a phone and tangled in a web of wasted time and wasted energy.

It haunts me that I thought I knew the enemy, and feel totally under-prepared.

Why tell an employer that you will work the skin off your fingertips for 9 hours a day, when some rival can promise 24-hour accessibility, promising the company that their mind will never be unreachable?

I used to think imagination, desire, the right attitude and loyalty were strong enough traits to be noticed, to get my foot in the right door.

Now I find that there are no doors.

Only Windows