\u201cThere are many jobs in Berlin. The supermarkets are always looking for people, for example, Netto, or Lidl.\u201d Frau Trilbou gestured towards the large window of her sixth-floor office, with its queenly view of the scarred city built of grey concrete, decorated with sheets of ice and a sprinkling of snow, pissed on in many patches, I imagine, by some of the city\u2019s 365,160 currently unemployed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYes, I know, I am desperate. The situation is very bad right now for people who work in communications. All the work has gone because of AI.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut there are still jobs. In Lidl, and Netto\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why is she banging on about Lidl? I have a degree from a top university. 8 years of experience. B2 German. Grade 8 saxophone. A clean driving licence. I\u2019ve written two books. Surely I\u2019m Bio Company material?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOkay, I will broaden my search.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYes. This was the initial meeting, where I can gauge your prospects, and we discuss the next steps.\u201d Frau Trilbou hands me a printed out sheet with Jobcenter Neuk\u00f6lln: Steps to employment plan\u201d with four steps climbing diagonally up: 1. Jobcenter meeting 2. search for jobs 3. Apply to jobs 4. Get a job, then an empty corner of white space, the Jobcenter\u2019s vision of heaven. I had already received this piece of paper, twice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the meeting, I went to the public library at Potsdamer Platz, which, over the past year or so, seemed to have developed into Berlin\u2019s biggest daycare centre for the city\u2019s unemployed. Four library staff members sit in the little glass box at the barrier. They give the library goers a good look up and down, inspecting their outfits, that they don\u2019t have food, do have laptops, don\u2019t have visible or audible mental health issues, that they are a certain acceptable breed of the unemployed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today, when I was preparing for the barrier crossing, I noticed the lad napping by the windows resurfacing from underneath his blanket, to explain something to an imaginary friend\/ invisible foe. He\u2019s back then. Recently he\u2019d been kicked out, for marching about, yelling things about Germany being Rassistisch, Fasict<\/em>, and just generally Schei\u00dfe. He\u2019s as regular as The Smell. The Smell that roams the lobby, that strong ass smell of struggle and rot that has wandered far off from its owner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When I\u2019m in, I open my laptop, check my emails. Frau Trilbou has kindly sent me the 3-step programme sheet as a PDF, and someone has sent me a message on LinkedIn. Alright, LinkedIn, what crimes against my sanity are you going to commit today? I am at the point in the hunt where any messages I receive on LinkedIn arouse my suspicion. Bots, data scraping scammers, sad men with the top two shirt buttons popped, trying to pick up. The message is from a middle-aged man with frameless glasses called Heinrich Ukermann, who is not one of my 57 contacts. He is wishing me a happy birthday for yesterday and hoping to connect. What do you want from me Heinrich? What the hell could you possibly want from me?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like other social networking platforms, the people who are big into LinkedIn are trying their hardest to get attention. But instead of bikini pics in Bali like on Instagram, on LinkedIn, people are trying to get more eyes on themselves by writing ranty essay-long posts in a confessional tone that tries to give the impression it\u2019s a bold and controversial opinion, that amongst the professional headshots and #pinchmemoments they are keeping things real. Today, on my feed, the founders amongst us seem to be taking a break from shareholder meetings to let it all out. One \u2018femtech founder and proud mum\u2019 is writing paragraphs about how she feels #empowered by home office, she loves to have baby Tom strapped to her as she types, which conjures an image of Samuel Pepys scribbling away as the Great Fire of London\u2019s flames lick his parchment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pretty soon after I stepped back into this circle of purgatory, and the initial batch of job applications I sent out were not getting any responses, my friend gave me a LinkedIn makeover, swapping out my profile picture of the real me, a nice dreamy double exposure with pink flowers over my face, to something a little more tidy. We did a photoshoot in the park, where I wore her smart trench coat and she caught me mid-fake laughter. She wrote some new \u201cskills and achievements\u201d that, just like #empowered, if you looked at from a distance, the words appeared very big and grand, but if you actually try to take them in properly for a second, they make no fucking sense. So, since I re-entered this blue and white arena in a disguise, meaning serious business this time, I have been fighting the urge to write an attention-grabbing post myself: \u201cDo the people of LinkedIn have sex? Do you know that we\u2019re all gonna fuckin die?\u201d I\u2019m saving this for my dramatic exit, the day I sign that sweet new job contract and do a nice little waving bye bye emoji, \u201cAdios Motherfuckers\u201d, happily forget my LinkedIn password and let that fake smiling bot girl in the borrowed black trench coat rot out of my sight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have a growing suspicion that the people spending time on LinkedIn commenting \u2018couldn\u2019t have put it better myself!\u2019 and getting trigger-happy with the fire emojis, have too much time on their hands. Time and growing desperation. Perhaps some of them, hunched in their home office, are also spending a good half hour making an executive decision about whether or not to add the #opentowork banner on their profile picture, a tossup between signalling to people to offer them jobs, or signalling they are useless, undesirable, desperate, a sorry sack of all the negative feelings unemployment brings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s a desperate wasteland. And what happens in desperate wastelands? Cowboys roam. After all these months, I now know how to spot them, crouched down behind different piles of bullshit. There are the startups firing out tonnes of \u2018ghost jobs\u2019, created to show investors that a company is expanding and has a chance of being profitable, even though it sells mail-order luxury dog food and is propped up by a dead frugal great aunt called Mildred. Paws Doors is never going to employ a Global Head of Marketing, an SEO Manager, a Social Media Manager, and a Product Marketing Strategist to sell premium dog food to lazy yuppies that have no life outside that new labradoodle puppy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are also the fake jobs created to harvest your data. I realised this when I sent out a few \u2018easy apply\u2019 applications, and started getting a load of spam emails automatically translated from Albanian. This upped to messages on Telegram from unknown numbers, \u2018Hi I have the perfect job offer for you. Just click this link to find out more\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rather than those ascending steps to employment heaven, as outlined by Frau Trilbou, I am in purgatory\u2019s state of cyclical feelings \u2013 a bit hopeful, gullible mug, sweating with paranoia. Last week, I fell into the absolute desperate mug phase again, when I made the age-old mistake of chasing rainbows in Facebook groups. A friendly, wholesome-looking young woman with a lovely copper-coloured dog posted in Brits in Berlin that she\u2019s recruiting people. I sent her an enthusiastic message. There was something quite off about her reply. \u201cWe\u2019ll set up a call for me to get to know you better, sounds clich\u00e9 but that\u2019s how it is.\u201d She\u2019s running three webinars a day, telling you how you can make money in travel. The phrase \u201chow you can make money\u201d followed by her harassing stream of unanswered \u2018check-ins\u2019 to setup a call. PYRAMID SCHEME. \u2018Scam! scam! scam!\u2019 the alarm, finally, went off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first interview I got, I felt excited. The job was pretty random, pretty pointless and potentially soul-destroying in the long run, but I was trying to be very #open. At least it inspired me to get the iron out and change out of what had become my unemployment uniform. Light blue jeans and red polo neck top, which I wore pretty much every day, maybe because I had grown beyond my wardrobe but couldn\u2019t afford to update it, maybe because I was in a mode of stuck, like Marge Simpson in her pearls on pause while God\/ the viewer nips out for a wee or a chocolate biscuit, and she waits there, waiting til she is allowed to move on, and catch up with the world around her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the interview, I bring the black trench coat bot to life, operating her mouth in front of my computer\u2019s camera, giving the interviewers the illusion that she is very much alive and well. She quickly starts to dysfunction, slipping into honest answers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhy do you want this job?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI just love being part of a team.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHow will you adapt from all the things you have done in the arts, charities, journalism, to B2B?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWell there is nothing to believe in anymore, so I can believe in 5* hotel developments, at least.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She made it through two more tests and another final interview in this \u2018process\u2019. Then, nothing. I kept checking my emails for a week. Those people who complain that they have an overwhelming inbox, I am not one of them. I sometimes wonder if my email address is somehow broken, it’s easier to think that than ask yourself if you are broken. I told Mum I thought I had probably been too honest in the interview when asked what my personal challenges are. She replied, \u2018Well, you don\u2019t need to tell them that you are terrible at time management and lose things all the time.\u2019 Okay\u2026 wanna tell me I dress shabbily as well? So I did another flurry of job applications, even stopped selecting \u2018prefer not to say\u2019 and started to disclose my sexual orientation and other deeply personal and irrelevant facts about my identity, in case that was the trick to transform my absolutely parched inbox, which has been surviving on a trickle of piss, a small stream of \u2018After careful consideration, we have decided not to move forward with your application, other candidates were blablabla\u2026\u2019 into a cascade of interview invitations. I did receive a response from a 1-year limited contract communications officer job; they had almost 500 applications for the role. Oh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Berlin\u2019s current unemployment rate is 10.2%, the highest it\u2019s been for years, and you feel it all around you; the stress, the identity crisis. Some people must be sinking into depressions, forgetting to eat, brush their teeth. Others are putting on a great front. Bragging about all the Netflix series they produced, wearing designer clothes from Vinted and buying bouquets of followers to look like a born winner, a success inside LinkedIn and out. But at some point, maybe after months of knowing this person, the confession comes over a glass of Lidl wine. They are not just \u201cin between contracts right now,\u201d or \u201cfocusing on learning German\u201d, they are as desperate as you are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unlike other economic downturns, where there is a sense that things are really shit now, but the economy will recover and I\u2019ll get a job again, in this current moment, the sense of hopelessness feels more epic, because the jobs we have been trained to do will probably never materialise again. So are we, the skilled workers in the funemployment club, going to put our heads together and launch a 21st-century out-of-workers revolt? An edgy-designed website and accompanying newsletter to distribute our manifesto and Musk-hating memes? But really, what the hell are we going to do about this situation? Germany won\u2019t let us rot on its unemployment forever. Re-train, as what? What jobs are safe? \u201cThink laterally, think about asking your cousin for a job in her marketing team at Spotify.\u201d When has asking a cousin for a job in a corporate marketing team ever been thinking laterally, Dad? \u201cOnly a small percentage of people actually do a job to do with something they care about.\u201d Fine, Mum. I can do a job about something I don’t care about, because the things I used to care about, I lost the energy to believe in anymore. Then, when I told her I didn’t get the hotel construction work job, she hit me with the most annoying question, \u201cWell, how do you explain the gap in your CV in those interviews you\u2019ve had?\u201d I was writing a book, paid to do it. Why is doing something I love a big chunk of nothing to you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The original AI boffins, the background Gods, apparently envisioned that AI would release us from boring tasks, giving us time for higher-order thinking and pursuing our noncomputational dreams. But when you are in a capitalist system, the big dream is not some floaty notion of creating something brilliant with your own fine mind, that you can grab onto to carry you out of LinkedIn\u2019s blue and white lined cage. In a capitalist system, you are not promised a release from the cage if you dream hard enough, but if you work hard enough. The dreamers are those who can afford to dream because they exploit people, or they inherited money from great Aunt Mildred, who exploited people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eventually, they\u2019ll replace most of the workers with machines to reduce their labour costs. So where are all of the out-of-worker bees going to go? Sting some prick on a summer\u2019s day in a panicked frenzy and die? Store that frustration in a cool dark place, so over time it will ferment into fascism? Go back to unskilled work? Get on your back? Rather than progress, will we find ourselves going back to the good old days, forcing us into traditional roles, traditional dreams? Marry a rich guy, pop a couple of kids, find value in the small things, like growing tomatoes that taste of something, picking up warm dogshit in a special plastic bag for dogshits, and spotting squirrels in your immaculate garden that\u2019s been groomed by someone else with a dusty degree. Stop entertaining fantasies of being something brilliant, something beyond what the bots can do, doing something you enjoy that other people will both enjoy and want to pay you for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n *<\/p>\n\n\n\n You think your self-esteem has dropped pretty low, and then you attend the first aid session at your minijob at a venue, where you are being taught how to save a disabled person in the case of a fire. Then you see it is possible for your self-esteem to slide down 4 flights below, strapped to a metal \u201cchair\u201d contraption. It just didn\u2019t come naturally to me, not the lifting of the chair with my colleague holding on for dear life, not the slidy motion. The biggest problem though, was that the stairwell was very tight, and it was hard to get the angles. I kept bashing the chair into the concrete wall. My frameless glasses-wearing colleague running the session didn\u2019t trust me, so he was gripping the metal chair at the same time as I was, which didn’t bring confidence to the situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDo I need to speak English for you?\u201d \u201cDo you have a driving license?\u201d What does my driving licence have to do with removing a fake disabled person from the fourth floor of a building?<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the three painful training hours, when I was cycling home, I realised I didn\u2019t even know where the special rescue chair was kept.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Recently, the venue was rented out to a conference put on by the government\u2019s finance department. The conference was supposedly for young people, to teach them how to save money. Pretty much everyone attending the conference was middle-aged, and most of the jackets I hung were expensive. The crux of their narrative was the same I bump into over and over again in Germany \u2013 it\u2019s their fault.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Me, being so #open, and \u2018thinking laterally\u2019, have started trying to change careers. Unlike communications professionals, where you kick a rock in Berlin and 20 crawl out, educators are in big demand. I had an interview at an international school, it went well, but first I need Senate recognition of my degree. I accidentally called a related, but wrong, department. \u201cNein nein nein nein nein!\u201d The woman\u2019s words come out like constipated little bullet stools. The only way to contact the responsible department is to call on a Thursday between 12-2. I wait for Thursday to come around. I am told I have to get my degree certificate and transcripts from the UK, pay to get them officially translated into German, and post them in for assessment. Meanwhile, I stay stuck at the Jobcenter, unable to contribute something to this crumbling economy. They slash arts funding, they blame foreigners for their problems, run conferences to tell young people they are perpetually broke because they don’t know how to save money properly, and they spend way more money than they can ever hope to get back on harassing freelancers to repay the corona grant money, 4 years later. Germany is not #open to change, #open to criticism, #open to improving their slow and broken systems. This is a big part of the reason why their economy is going down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n *<\/p>\n\n\n\n As I continue to mill about in purgatory, my desperation is starting to stink like a cheap perfume. A couple of people have now proposed prostitution to me. \u201cIt\u2019s like, going on a duff date, but getting paid for it. I\u2019m an escort for this old guy who sends me money when I\u2019m on a night out, to get rounds of drinks for me and the girls. It\u2019s great because he\u2019s not even there with us. And now I can afford Beyonce tickets and just like, nice stuff.\u201d Another person tried to sell me the idea of uploading pictures of my vagina to Only Fans for random men to wank over. A tonne of people in their queer community do it, apparently. Not only is it easy money, they also find it \u201cempowering\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What does it mean to be empowered? To have power in this society, you need money, rights, choices. All three are very much dwindling right now. For me personally, prostitution would be a desperate choice, not empowering. So, rather than get on my back, I have gone right back to the start of my employment journey: babysitting. As one does to get through, I put a spin on it. I tell myself it’s helping me to figure out if I want kids. I\u2019m not just totally broke and feeling slightly ashamed to be doing the job I did at 14.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat did you do today?\u201d One of the eight-year-olds I look after asks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWell\u2026I went for a coffee with a friend in the morning\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSo you had a weekend day today?\u201d They looked at me all confused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWell, no, not all day. I went to the library.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat is your job?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI do\u2026 well, I suppose I\u2019m a writer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut aren’t you a babysitter?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As if they sensed something in me that they needed to respond to, they wrote me a note. It\u2019s a picture of a woman with a messy bun and a small smile, contained in a glass with love hearts and a straw. It\u2019s titled \u201cFionnuala Smoothie\u201d. Underneath, they have written a few lines in bubble writing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fionnuala is cool<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fionnuala your phantastic<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fionnuala your brave<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fionnuala dont be shay<\/p>\n\n\n\n Always be open!<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cThere are many jobs in Berlin. The supermarkets are always looking for people, for example, Netto, or Lidl.\u201d Frau Trilbou gestured towards the large window of her sixth-floor office, with its queenly view of the scarred city built of grey concrete, decorated with sheets of ice and a sprinkling of snow, pissed on in many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":24933,"template":"","categories":[64,10],"class_list":["post-24824","stsp_text","type-stsp_text","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-issue-33","category-prosa"],"yoast_head":"\n