Cheap Clothing and Work Woes

So ive been looking for work the last couple days to no avail. Everyone here has been telling me that there is no work in their off season and I should have come at another time. its silly because I havent even gotten as far as a resume yet, even though I dont officially have a resume. I have politely been going into just about every store in the area and asking if they were hiring or even possibly looking for someone to do part time work. I have been looking on gumtree and seek.com.au and it has sadly been sparse. there are 5x the “looking for work” adds as there are “wanted” adds. The adds I have been lucky enough to find have all been for people in managerial positions or with 2-3 years experience only.

This doubled with the fact that I have no current work experience, any references or an actual resume (i would write one up if someone asked me to drop by with one) makes me feel super frusterated and pretty let down. I even tried the tactic of casually chatting with people for awhile about a relevant topic and then slipping in the “oh you wouldnt happen to be looking for anyone would you?”.

Feeling troubled and wanting to give myself more of a kickstart on the job front, Nate and I decided to go buy me some “australia” clothing. Fashion here is so incredibly different that im at a total loss as to how i can even fit in let alone be a step ahead. everyone here tends to dress like they walked off some catwalk in europe.  This just led to even more shock and dissapointment to discover that here in Australia my petite 120lb frame is a size 10. talk about a blow to the ego when all the clothing here for my agegroup is made for anorexic women with big knockers. after spending hours trying on clothing and feeling like a semi deflated pear (round bottom and shirts tailored for D cups+) we finally gave up at the nice fashion places and headed into the underground mall.

We discovered asian heaven below the Hard Rock Cafe. I cant help but feel like I was supporting child labour in some way as i delightfully sifted through racks of semi normal shaped clothing. I found a gorgeous ruffled cap sleeve sweater that tied in the front in a wonderful earthy camel colour for $2.99. no thats not off by a decimal place or two….$2.99. followed by a $9 shirt and 2 pairs  of $14 black skinny jeans that fit great. Like I said, I felt guilty as I walked out with my much needed work purchases I couldnt help but feel I was supporting child labour somewhere. But it went to find ME work and that had to count for something.

All in all im feeling pretty damn frusterated the last couple days; between finding out the hard way im going to have a helluva time finding any work, having a majour blow to my ego with my clothing size, not to mention being at a total loss with fashion here. I envy Nate and Geoff in some way because they will have a much easier job finding work being big guys. not only do they have all the jobs available to me open to them but they can also look into manual labour and more specific niche jobs to do with their training.

I have come to the decision when we get home, that I will have to take some classes to update my resume and make myself more relevant to the current world. whether I choose to work when we get back to canada or not, its downright humiliating being upstaged and having less to offer (on paper) than a 17 year old, 85lb girl.

Cait