I mentioned in my last post that I'm still looking for a job, and I felt like I just really needed to get some things about it out of my head because it's been really dragging me down.  Now, while I have known for a while that getting a job wasn't going to be easy, no one tells you that the constant rejection/being ignored really takes a toll on you.  Part of me thought that by now I'd be getting some results but still, nada!  I went into nursing believing that, since it's never off the news about the NHS needing nurses, that I would be able to get a job with out too much heartache.  But it's really not the case.
 The struggle to get a job has opened my eyes to how much the UK health service is under the Governments thumb and how the NHS is being wrongly guided by politicians who don't actually have a clue what it needs.  Now it is common knowledge that we need more nurses, but we aren't getting them, in my opinion due to poorly managed funding.  With the country in recession the cut backs in the NHS have been awful.  And the main cut backs are with staff.  This to me makes the least sense of all, because the little staff that clinical areas do have are run ragged and aren't physically or mentally able to do their best because of time and staff constraints. And they've upped the student intakes all over the country, because it's cheaper to fill a ward with students than Registered staff.   On one of my placements, I was told by staff that they used to only have two students in the ward at a time, but when I was there, there were six...SIX.  Maybe you don't know what that means, but really it means that you're all there to pick up the jobs that the registered staff don't have time for, but you can do at the varying stages of your education; and you miss out on a lot of learning opportunities, because it's not really fair on a patient to squeeze six students in behind a curtain to see a procedure they've never seen before.

In my region of Greater Glasgow and Clyde, there are THREE universities that do nursing degrees.  My university alone has had over 300 graduates - and that's not even counting the mental health and child nurses!  So add in the other universities and that's about 500 newly qualified nurses, all trying to get jobs in one region - so no wonder my applications get lost in a sea of paper and emails.  People I went to uni with are getting jobs too, or even just interviews, which I'm seeing all over facebook and it's making me wonder what I'm doing wrong - not because I think I deserve it any more than these people, because we all worked really hard to get our degrees, but I feel like there must be something I'm missing putting on my application that's making them not choose me.  And any way out of the people I know that have got a job only two of them have managed to get an elusive post in Glasgow - everyone else is moving all up and down the country to get jobs, and I just don't have the capacity to do that.  Having spent hours upon hours on applications, trying to jazz up personal statements is completely soul destroying when you know your application is going to be one of hundreds.  It's hard not to have a "what's the point" view point, when you've not even had an interview yet.  I've applied for around 15 jobs, over a couple month stretch, and I'm just not getting anywhere.  It's making me so highly strung, and stressed out about EVERYTHING.  I feel like people are thinking badly of me because now I'm not a student any more I'm "unemployed", which is a word that makes me feel sick.  I've never been one not to be doing something, whether that's working, or studying at uni, or both.  I feel like I'm stuck being a bad statistic even though I'd do anything not to be.  It is incredibly frustrating, if I thought I wouldn't be locked up I'd be sitting in a hospital reception right now with a sign saying "will work for work", that's where I'd be.

And then the other night I had to go and damage all the ligaments in my left foot, which I feel like is just another set back.  I seriously just need to catch break!  Every time I try to talk about it with anyone it's a quick "don't worry, you'll get something - now back to talking about me or something that probably isn't very important", I hate that.  I've always been the one that's there for everyone and strong for everyone, the cliche shoulder to cry on if you will, so I always feel like if I have something going on I get "fake" support.  No one knows what to say to me because, if I'm showing that I'm having a hard time the world must be coming to an end.  Rebekah doesn't have a hard time ever, she stands up and grabs life by the balls and shows it who's boss - usually I would but there is literally nothing I can do right now and that's the part I'm finding hardest.  I need to have something to work for otherwise, I'm sitting in myself with my brain turning over about a million miles a minute and everything just expands and get's worse and worse.  Someone tells me to stop worrying and that I'll get something soon, and all I can think about is the qualified nurse I met that hadn't managed to get a job for over a year.  It's scary, especially when I didn't just do a nursing degree to just get a degree, it's something I really truly care about and I want to get my teeth into it and build myself a career.  Sometimes I think it would just be easier to give up and get a job anywhere, but it's not what I want.  It isn't going to make me happy.  So I'm stuck in limbo right now, I can continue as I am trying to get a job that I'll love while I'm unhappy; or I could pack in everything I worked for and get a job anywhere and never really be happy or excited about my job.  Reading that sentence it seems like a no brainer - but it's difficult when you just want to be happy now.

Rebekah
xx