When Procrastination Turns Into Laziness

Originally posted on www.huffingtonpost.co.uk

Procrastination is something that I have become a master of over the last few years, which began in sixth form when certain tasks become a priority over my coursework for my A Levels. However at the time I was unaware that this was the development of my status as the procrastination king.

As I went to University I began perfecting this art. As many University students will know, when it comes to gathering a pile of books to find information and quotes to help develop a 2,000 word essay, menial tasks suddenly become the most important things that ever existed. You tend to find yourself taking your clothes to the washing machines knowing that in an hour they will need to be put in the tumble dryer, this means that for the next few hours you can't actually start your essay as you will need to go to the tumble dryer and move your clothes and then ultimately have to bring them back and put them away.

This is only one of a number of tasks I found myself doing during the first two years of my University life, one time I found myself on my hands and knees cleaning my bedroom skirting boards, as they looked a little too dusty. The fact that I had a deadline in a few days time obviously had nothing to do with my sudden need for a spring clean, well that's what I told myself.

I know a whole host of people from my time at University who also found they succumbed to the need to complete pointless tasks in order to delay thinking too much about their essays. However luckily for me by the third year I had grown out of this phase, as I wanted to get my work done and attain a good grade, since this was the main reason I went to University in the first place. I also know that a number of my fellow students grew out of this as the workload got heavier and more important.

This was a good thing as the constant work made sure I couldn't get too distracted, obviously now and again updating my Facebook status became much more important. But overall this art of procrastination was beginning to go as I prepared myself for the workload I would endure when I was finally finished with my studies, and entered the world of full time work.

However for me, like many other graduates things didn't manifest as I'd hoped and I found myself sitting at home applying for copious amounts of jobs praying for the day I'd start work. This therefore brings me to a key point, when does this art of procrastination stop being procrastination and become laziness and more importantly does having nothing to do breed laziness?

I say this because when I was at University procrastination may have distracted me from my studies but it also meant that tasks such as the washing the dishes or doing the laundry got done, and in the end so did my assignments. But now that I am out of University with no assignments I don't find myself becoming distracted by the washing, therefore it doesn't get done as much as it used to.

Now I find myself sat on the sofa, drinking tea, applying for jobs and watching the TV, in a state that many people would call laziness. Its not that I am lazy, in fact I love being busy as I'm sure many other people do, it's just that I have nothing to do, so by having nothing to do these menial tasks become the only thing I have to do and once they are done they are done, leaving me with extra hours to sit around and do nothing.

The way it feels is that whilst the job market is in such a bad state, meaning that many graduates and people in general can't get jobs, leaving them at home with nothing to do after they've done their tedious tasks and applied for all the jobs there are to apply for, which isn't many, they find themselves slipping into a state of being bored where doing nothing is the only thing to do.

With more and more people being out of work for much longer periods of time, and by having nothing to do its looks as though the inability to get many people into work is breeding a generation of experienced laziness as their main skill, not because they are lazy but because it's the only thing they now know how to do.

The Application Complication

Originally published on www.instant-impact.com

For those who are trying to break into the creative industries whether its in journalism, marketing, fashion, advertising or PR it can feel as though it’s easier to get through immigration or break into a bank vault, wearing a very fetching yet itchy balaclava, than kicking down that otherwise heavily padlocked door.

It’s an annoyance that will come to all of us who are trying to make it in a very difficult industry where unpaid internships, extremely long hours and a second job are the norm. But aside from the fact that for many, the majority of these jobs are located in London thus making it hard to afford the move from wherever you’re currently located, the biggest annoyance when it comes to trying to crack the creative industries is the dreaded application form.

We’ve all endured it and we’ve sighed a nauseating sigh of disbelief once we’ve downloaded the seemingly never ending questions on the application form that wants to know everything about you, the fact there isn’t a question regarding your inside leg measurement is actually surprising.

The first thing they make you want to do is scream, run away and hide under your duvet at the sheer thought of filling out this form. It’s a generally tedious task that asks you everything that is already on your CV, so after spending a large chunk of time copy and pasting your previous experience and education into some boxes that clearly haven’t been formatted properly by a company that demands excellent Microsoft Word skills in their job description, you can almost feel the laziness pour over you.

However this isn’t the end as you then have to make yourself sound like the best candidate for the job in the relevant experience section, which is just asking you to tell them how you match up to the criteria in the person spec, which isn’t only a monotonous task that can take hours but also makes you feel vastly pretentious as it makes it sound as though the sun shines out of your behind. If that isn’t bad enough the section after this asks for more information about you that you may not have covered in the previous section, so you find yourself mentioning rubbish like you once mowed your grandmothers grass and that you were a top student in primary school because you have run out of self promotion in the last section and quite simply can’t think of anything else they would want to know. Maybe you drop your inside leg measurement in as a thought.

Alas the application form isn’t the only annoying thing about applying for jobs within the creative industries. If they aren’t asking for a 500-page application form to be submitted then they’re asking for a CV, cover letter and in my case examples of previously published work. Now for many people who have to work as well as apply for these jobs they don’t have the time to have written much for other companies, because they’re either searching though umpteen pages of search results on job sites to find jobs that in then takes 3 hours to apply for, there simply aren’t enough hours in the day.

Usually after sending this they usually then ask you for a written piece that they assign to you, if they haven’t already asked for this in the first instance. The worst part is after spending hours doing this you rarely hear back or get a rejection email that can’t give feedback due to the high volume of applicants, it just makes you think “why do I even bother?”

I find myself asking what’s wrong with a simple application process of your CV and a brief hello in the email because surely they will find out if you’re right for the job at the interview? That’s if you even make it to the interview. But apparently this would make it far too easy for you and the people reviewing the applications may have to do some serious interviewing, when clearly they’d rather interview a small handful.

It’s a sad state of affairs that so many creative people are failing at cracking the industry because they just can’t get their big break due to excessive job searching and application forms, which can restrict the time to be creative and create published work, or simply because the vast size of the application form is just emphasising a wave of laziness that has already been brought on by months of daytime TV and unsatisfying menial work.

Is Unpaid Work Building a Wall Around the Creative Industries?

Originally posted on www.huffingtonpost.co.uk

Its been a hot topic for some time now, how the creative industries are taking advantage of new graduates who are looking to get their foot on the career ladder. Many of us would have heard the debate about the fashion industry and how it was exploiting workers by offering them unpaid internships to help them gain experience.

However many of these interns have spoken out about how they were treated badly and made to work nearly every hour that was available, and all this for no pay. Many have spoken out about how this is wrong, but it isn't just the fashion industry that's doing it, many others are too.

For those who want to work in television, radio, PR or as journalists, they all have to undergo the same routine. For many recent graduates out there wanting to forge a career in their chosen industry doing this type of unpaid work, in some cases for up to 12 months, just isn't practical as it's just not financially viable.

To start most of the jobs in the creative industries are located in London, and as we all know the cost of living in London is pretty much unaffordable to most. Many taking part in these internship are also working part time jobs in call centres, restaurants and bars just to get a bit of money behind them, but this type of part time work isn't enough to allow you to live in the capital.

Therefore many young people who are fully qualified to do these types of roles just aren't getting their foot in the door as they either don't live in a commutable area to get to London, or their parents can't afford to foot the bill for them to work unpaid for 12 months. This is therefore preventing many people from entering work that they are qualified for, resulting in them having to take menial jobs. That's if they can get those jobs as many employers are worried that they'll leave as soon as something better comes along, which I wrote about in a previous article.

It's not just the fact that most of these jobs are unpaid, there are even websites offering freelance work that is unpaid with the hope of giving someone experience. But when you apply for any of these types of freelance work or internships the process you have to go through is very long and gruelling, and for the most part you end up with a rejection at the end.

Take freelance writing, many times I have had to undergo the sending of the application form, CV and cover letter, followed by sending some work, which then leads to an interview and a test article and in some cases even a second article, only to be told you didn't get the job as you didn't have enough experience, even though it was an unpaid entry level job. Many people endure this on a daily basis.

I've seen many job adverts from companies that say they cannot yet afford to pay people and this is why there is the offer of unpaid work. Although this looks like a way of hiring a number of people to do all the hard work in order to avoid paying someone by saying it's an internship. Now not all places are like this but you'd be surprised how many job adverts actually say this.

It only seems to be the creative industries that are getting away with this too, because lets face it, someone who has just qualified as a nurse wouldn't be asked to rush around a hospital and help save lives for no pay for 12 months, all in the name of experience. I know that student nurses train throughout the three years they are at University, but so do those who aspire to work in the creative industries, otherwise what is the point of spending the best part of £20,000 to earn a degree for that specific job?

As this issue is rife within the creative industries, and many people have already weighed in on the issue surrounding the fashion world it looks as though it's about time the remainder of the creative industries were looked at; before a generation of graduates fall to the sides as they just didn't live close enough, or have parents able to pay for them to get their foot in the door.

Inexperienced and Overqualified: A Catch 22 for Graduates

Originally posted on www.huffingtonpost.co.uk

After a regular visit to the job centre where I had to convince the person sat behind the desk that I had been looking for work on a daily basis, it got me thinking about why I was still in this predicament.

Six months after losing my job I still go to my fortnightly appointment and explain the fact that employers are still not employing me. The woman who deals with my claim told me I looked a bit fed up and maybe this was coming across at interviews. The comment annoyed me slightly as I'm not a stupid person, despite what some may say given the predicaments I've gotten myself into in the past, I'm educated to degree level and work extremely hard to try and get where I won't to be, yet I just seem to fall flat at the final hurdle.

It's not just me either; youth unemployment is extremely high these days given the current economic crisis. You only have to read BBC news and you will most likely find a story at some point during the week detailing these issues.

At the age of 22 I feel that a vast amount of people my age are caught in a catch 22 situation. That situation being; we are both under-experienced and overqualified.

From a young age we've been told we can be whatever we want to be whether it's a doctor, a teacher, a writer or even an Olympian. We have been told that education is the key. We were told to get our GCSE's and then when those were done we were told to get A-Levels, as GCSE's weren't quite good enough. Finally after a two-year slog to get those A-Levels completed we were told we needed to go to University to complete our education and secure ourselves a job.

However they never prepared us for the lack of job prospects when we left, or what to do if a situation like this should arise. I mean we can't blame our teachers for the economic crisis, but when you're told from around the age of seven that you can be whatever you want to be and this is how you do it, you never think of the negative outcomes of not quite reaching your goal.

So by this point after completing a degree you can safely say that you're qualified enough. But when it comes to applying for jobs you then have to compete against thousands of other applicants who were told the same thing as you, and some are lucky enough to get the job and others aren't.

As the clock ticks on more students finish University every year creating a new batch of competitors as you seemingly get left behind and re-join the queue at the job centre time and time again, as employers tell you; "you don't have enough experience."

Now a sensible thing to do whilst hunting for your dream job is to find something that will help you get by and live. Many go and work in bars or call centres or work as waiters, but this is where the overqualified situation raises its ugly head.

I myself had to deal with a situation like this a few weeks back when I attended an interview for a cleaning position. I've worked as cleaner before for two different companies, which were both on my CV. However the woman conducting the interview seemed more concerned with how overqualified I was than my previous experience, but as I said to a friend when you're poor and need money you'll do any job you can. Needless to say I didn't get the position.

It may have been because I was overqualified or not, and if it was I can understand where they are coming from as I may up and leave the job in six weeks time.

The simple fact is when you have friends, family, the job centre, the media and the government telling you to get off the sofa, stop watching Jeremy Kyle and go and get a job it can make you feel worthless because even though you are trying it's just not that easy and you're stuck in this catch 22 situation. As some people think you don't know enough to do one job and others think you know too much to do another. Sometimes there's just no winning but a lot of losing.

Media Graduates

So after finishing University I was under the impression that finding a job wouldn’t be as hard as it has turned out to be, call it pre-uni naivety but I honestly didn’t think it would be as hard as it is.

Now like most graduates I’ve applied for nearly every job I’ve seen, as I check the job website’s on a daily basis. Now the responses that I’ve received from the places that I’ve applied for pretty much all say the same thing, and that is you aren’t experienced enough.

Now here is where it gets annoying, as a media graduate the only way I can get a job is by having experience and the only way I can gain experience is by having a job, so basically like most media graduates I’m stuck in a catch 22 situation. However there is interning.

Now interning all sounds good because it looks good on your CV and you get to gain experience, but just think about it, if you take part in a one year internship which will most likely be unpaid because the majority of them are, then you helping the company that you're interning at for free, so they get away with not having to employ an extra person.

Now I don’t seem to think this is fair, because people seem to think it is fine to make people intern for free in the media or fashion worlds, but you wouldn’t expect a nursing graduate to work unpaid for a whole year so that they can gain the experience would you?

Now I know students who study nursing take part in placements whilst at University, but I also took part in a work placement, and I’ve done other work placements outside of University, and all the assignments that I did must count for something right?

It just seems really unfair, especially when about 80% of internships are in London. So that would mean working in London unpaid and holding down another job in order to stay alive, so basically unless you already live in London or your parents have money then you are screwed.

Now I’m aware this just sounds like a huge rant but it is something that genuinely frustrates me, how people want you to work for free to help you gain experience, when in actual fact it is just so they can get around actually paying someone to do the same job, therefore saving themselves money!

How wonderful :/