Student Jobs Or Lack Thereof...

Time for another gripe of mine. No surprises there. This time I target the whole idea of finding a job as a student. Now, I'm not talking about finding work after one has graduated of which we are assured by government after government that there will be plenty made for us. Praise Buddha for Tesco and McDonalds! Rather, I'm talking about the extremely thin chance of finding something to support yourself on over the summer so that you have money to piss up the wall come freshers week. Literally.

I  laboriously typed up a new and improved CV over a couple of hours as a brief respite of doing absolutely nothing with my life and decided to go on a quest to find work. Little did I know that epic journeys such as those of Odysseus would pale in comparison to trying to find a job at a bar or as a sales assistant. I understand that the managers of such grand institutions have got quotas and the like to fulfil in terms of how many employees they can have because of budgets, but what really pisses me off is the fact that, more often than not, I go into these places as a customer and the staff who they have so carefully employed are in fact complete and utter idiots. They barely know their arse from their elbow. Not to sound too snobbish, but I'm midway through a degree - I'm pretty damn confident that I can do better than those half-wits. And would probably do so for a lower hourly rate!

But then, I feel no real distaste towards the planks that work in these shops or bars, it's the requirements instead which really get to me. This is definitely more so in relation to waiting and bar staff, of which it is almost unanimously expected that you have 'previous experience in this type of environment'. Give me a fucking break. How am I meant to gain such experience when no company will employ me because of a 'lack of experience'. It really is just a cycle of despair. In my view, experience as a customer would be just as beneficial. I know what customers would want. It is hardly surprising that I regularly do dine out and that I more regularly frequent bars. I know what is good service most importantly. And surely this would help a company more than someone given experience by an elderly, senile distant relative who gave them a job cleaning toilets in a similar establishment out of unashamed sympathy for the knowledge-less prat that they inadvertently spawned. 

But then there are the cheap and quick methods of making small amounts of money on the side that come forward all to irregularly. I am currently on a list for medical testing, writing freelance religious articles (as this is my area of expertise), mystery-shopping and countless other ways of gaining a bit of pocket money. But this is hardly the way I want to spend my days at uni. I would much rather get out there and do some hard graft serving pretentious pricks or the like. Who knows why though? I struggle interacting tolerably with normal people as it is. Maybe the money would pull me through that cavern of darkness…