Allow me to prefix this by saying I don’t hate work. I really don’t hate work. I live work. I love it more than I can express. And the past three years of semi-joblessness has me shattered.

My problem with jobs right now is that they don’t want me.

Now, I’m aware there are jobs out there. I am, with a toddler at home, pretty strapped with what I can do. If I get a job by tomorrow (and the only thing I know for sure is that there are three jobs which have rejected me), I get an additional 30 hours of childcare which would ultimately mean I can get some part time work in January. However, such is the state of things, if I get a job on Saturday, those additional hours don’t happen until April. Oh, and those hours are term time only, so that’s fun. Because the government wants us to work, but they want to make things as hard as possible. Who – WHO – is going to give a job to someone who can’t start for another four months?

And so the vicious cycle of life continues. The only work I would be able to do, given the circumstances, is either night work – which is possible if I’m capable of functioning on no sleep since I’ll have to look after the Freybster during the day – or work from home. And again, the jobs are available, they’re just not looking at me.

Now, I’ve been advised to tailor my CV to the job. That’s all well and good, but the only jobs I’m applying for are the ones I’ve previously held so realistically I don’t necessarily need to tailor a thing. I just don’t have the confidence right now to try for anything else.

I applied for a job at a company dealing with garden awnings, conservatories and general outdoor living. I’ve yet to hear back, but imagine my glee when the application required me to do a test focused on grammar and punctuation. And then, after completing that test, I checked out the website. Oh, a company has never needed me more than that one. Complimentary warranties (I presume this means you’ll receive five years of being told how smart, sexy and funny you are on a daily basis), double spacing, zero consistency. Will they take me on? I doubt it because let’s be honest, the last job I got was because my former colleague got it for me. The previous one was 10 years of “We really liked you, but someone else had more experience”.

The added woe is that my man’s uniform for his evening job is currently in the washing machine, and the machine is blocked. I tried to sort this out myself and be an interdependent woman, but alas, the filter is jammed. So then I found myself uttering the words I never thought I would hear myself utter: “I need a man!“

The excellent news is that there’s one en route, so that’s great. Apparently I need to get handy with tools, so that’s fine, but after draining as much as I could, I smell like wet, sweaty socks, and this does not please me at all.

On the other hand, the little one is really coming along with everything. I mean, OK, so she thinks a potty is something to play with, but her speech is coming along very well. She just tried to have a conversation with Santa Clause when her uncle sent her a personalised video from the North Pole, so that was worth a giggle.

Anyway, short and sweet – for me, at least. Now I’m going to get back to my fruitless job search and potentially rub some salt on that company’s wounds by deflecting their imminent rejection with a list of corrections. And that’s my Christmas sorted.

Live to you all. Hope your Christmas is merry and bright, that 2022 sucks a little less (ha ha, yeah, right!), and you all do the very best you can.