Here's Why You Should Stop Asking Why Someone Doesn't Have A Job

As someone who has left university, one thing I have noticed over the last few months since leaving is that everyone constantly demands to know what your employment status is. From the student loans company to family members, everyone just wants to know whether you have a job or not. But surely if you had a job, you'd tell them? That's something they don't seem able to get into their heads. All I want to do is turn up to a family gathering and not get constantly asked about whether I have a job yet and if not, why not. Oh, I don't know Uncle John, why don't YOU graduate from university during a pandemic where many people have lost their jobs and can't find another and then tell me how easy you find it to get a job. Honestly, I'm getting sick of it now.

I mean, it's not like I've been doing nothing during the last seven months, unlike how they're making out. I've been applying to jobs, became a freelance content writer and have a job as a live show host on a beauty app. But apparently, that's not enough. Sure, I'm not earning enough money from doing those things to earn a living, but I'm at least doing something with my time and having fun with it. And I believe happiness is the most important thing.

So many people seem to think that your worth is defined by your job title. There was an experiment done a while ago where a man dressed as different people (at one point he dressed as a homeless man, at another point he dressed as a businessman) and this was done to see how long it took members of the public to help him. You can watch the video for yourself here, but what the study found was that people are more willing to help someone dressed in a suit who looks important, than someone who society doesn't deem as important as the businessman (which is obviously a load of nonsense). But why is someone who wears a suit seen as more important than someone who, for whatever reason, is clearly struggling? I don't think it's fair we view each other in this way.

I've said this before, but all jobs are important. We seem to view some jobs as skilled and some jobs as unskilled (thanks, UK Government), but don't all jobs require a certain level of skill? I mean, every single job in the country is important in one way or another. We need all these jobs to keep the country ticking over. Without supermarket workers, none of us would be able to buy our groceries. Without nurses (how they were classed as unskilled, I'll never know), we wouldn't be able to get treated for our injuries. Everyone is important, regardless of whether they're employed or not and regardless of what their job title is.

I've never really been able to understand why people feel they are entitled to know about the ins and outs of someone's life and whether or not they've got a job and if they haven't got a job then why. I personally prefer to do stuff in silence and only share it when everything's set in stone and I feel able to talk about it. People will always think you're doing nothing when the reality is that you're doing something. Because at the end of the day, even if I did start shouting about everything I'm doing to get to where I want to be, they'd tell me I'm being stupid and that my dreams are impossible to achieve. But I think they're possible and that's all that really matters. It should never be about what anyone else thinks and should only be about what you think.

At the end of the day, if you're applying for jobs, you don't always have control over whether or not you get the job, or even an interview, so even if you apply for hundreds of jobs, that doesn't mean you're guaranteed any of them. Even if you're doing everything right, you won't necessarily get that job. But that's okay because you'll find something eventually. We all will.

From my perspective, it doesn't seem that many people who are already in a secure job and who have been for many years seem to remember what it was like to be fresh out of school/college/university and trying to navigate the 'real world' whilst trying to figure out what they want to do with their lives. No one ever tells you how tough this is and especially if you're someone who doesn't know exactly what they want to do, which I feel is quite a lot of people. And if you don't know what you want to do, people judge you and tell you to just figure it out. IT'S NOT THAT EASY!!!

I want to pursue my dreams and where I'm at right now, I'm confident that I'll be able to do so. I've been making moves towards this dream over the past few months and will continue to do so until it becomes a reality. Regardless of that, along the way I've found interests in things I never thought I would and the fact I'm happy and able to make some money from these things is still a sense of such wonderment to me. For the first time in my life, I feel a sense of happiness and calmness that I haven't felt before and I want that to continue.

If you're someone who feels the need to constantly ask someone whether or not they have a job yet, please don't. It's none of your business. I get some people are really unmotivated, but that can be for a variety of reasons and isn't always as simple as it may appear to you. I'm sure whoever you're constantly asking if they have a job will tell you when they do. And maybe, just maybe, they're trying to pursue something that they may not want to tell you about yet because it's all in the air but will tell you once they are ready.

To summarise, you don't owe anyone an explanation of why you do/don't have a job. Job hunting is hard and the constant feeling of waiting around for someone else to tell you whether or not they want to hire you isn't fun in the slighest. I hope to one day be fully self-employed, but that's not always that easy. But, I still have hope and at the end of the day, hope is all we need.

Love Beth xx