Nice Work!

For various reasons, I didn’t do much active job seeking during my first few months in Berlin.  We did register early on at the Job Center but that proved a completely futile exercise. 

I spent a lot of that time working on various writing projects that up until then I’d not really had much opportunity to develop.  And, to be perfectly honest, I was enjoying a break from what had been quite an exhausting job.

After twelve years in education, eight of which I’d spent teaching in the highly demanding environment of a prison for young male offenders, I was ready for a departure from that particular line of work.  I’d arrived here feeling pretty burnt out and adamant that I didn’t want another job with that level of pressure or responsibility.  I also thought that Berlin was probably already awash with English speakers offering their services as teachers.  My attitude at the time was that if staying in the city meant stacking shelves in Lidl or serving drinks in a bar (even though I’ve never done either of those things), then that’s what I would do.

I began an intensive German course in order to improve my prospects.  I completed the first level, as far as A2, but I ran out of cash for further lessons.  I’d really enjoyed the course too, and would have loved to carry on.

In April, with my batteries recharged, I began to revise my opinions about teaching.  I think that being back in a learning environment, albeit as a student rather than a teacher, had rekindled my interest.  I’d also begun teaching the odd session at the language exchange we’d been going to since our move, so I decided to take an online TEFL course to equip myself with the requisite paperwork (one thing I did learn at the Job Center is that qualifications are paramount here, although I'm still not convinced an MA in women's political writing of the 1890s will be much help). 

In June, whilst I was still engaged on the course, I accepted work as a freelance copywriter for a start-up.  The job was basically to produce spam e-mails for online businesses to bombard their customers with.  My project was to write for a tacky ‘aspirational lifestyle’ company.  Right from the beginning things went wrong.  The templates I was to access had been uploaded as read-only.  Other things had also been incorrectly set up, so by the time I actually began writing I had wasted about four hours.  I finally got to submit my work but it wasn’t until about six o’clock the following evening that I heard back.  I was asked to revise everything I’d done and return it as soon as possible. 

As I’d committed myself to teaching at the language exchange that evening, I rushed back home afterwards without staying for the customary drinks, and worked on the revisions until about one in the morning.

Again, I waited in all the next day and again I received an e-mail in the evening demanding revisions.  I’d followed the advice I’d been given, checking out the company in order to get a feel for its ‘brand voice’, and looking at the campaigns produced by other copywriters, and I honestly couldn’t see how my work was deemed unsatisfactory in comparison.  I’d say in fact that it was better than some of the examples I looked at.

The company I was producing this spam for was spectacularly vulgar, basically a kind of online TK Maxx providing cut-price designer goods (i.e. unsold stock from previous seasons).  It aimed to offer what it termed an ‘elite’ lifestyle to aspirational types who epitomise the worst of the shallow, acquisitive, materialistic culture in which ‘status’ is based on what one owns rather than what one is or does.

The last straw was when I came to submit my pay claim.  I had devoted about twenty hours to this project but I was told that it was somehow ‘policy’ to pay for only three hours’ work per assignment.  When I pointed out the time I’d wasted because of the way things had been incorrectly set up, I was grudgingly awarded an extra hour.

I chalked the whole soul-dirtying exercise up to experience concentrated on completing my TEFL certificate.  It took me about ten weeks, and I eventually passed the exam with a Grade A, so I set about searching the internet for teaching jobs.

A couple of weeks ago I had a Skype interview with a teaching agency for a job as a freelance teacher of business English and was told that I would be called on for a face-to-face interview.  However, they later e-mailed to tell me that they wouldn’t be proceeding with my application.  The reason given was that they’d reviewed my experience and background and decided that I didn’t meet the profile.  Strangely, the reason I was interviewed in the first place was that my CV indicated that I satisfied all of their criteria so I can only assume that they didn’t like the look of me in the Skype interview!

It’s not all been frustration and rejection though.  Friends have helped, giving us phone numbers, e-mail addresses and links for places where work might be found.  I have a list of schools and teaching agencies to approach, and a few weeks ago I was given the number of a research institute which is conducting a sociological study on behalf of a German university.  The study is Europe-wide so there was a need for English speakers.  I rang the following afternoon and was asked to go down more or less straight away.  I found myself alongside five other interviewees.  We were given a presentation and a practice session, and finally taken to the call centre to try our skills at approaching potential respondents.  I signed up to work four afternoons a week and am now in my third week.  A bonus is that it’s in Weissensee and I can walk there in just over half an hour and explore the backstreets on my way home.  I have had more challenging and more prestigious jobs, and it’s obviously going to be of a finite duration, but for me it’s something just to be earning again. 

It’s not easy finding work in the city, especially if your German isn’t fantastic.  Berlin is poor in comparison with other German cities and unemployment is relatively high.  I meet a lot of people here who seem to have very vaguely defined occupations too.  When I ask what they do for a living, the answer is often ‘working for a start-up’ or, mystifyingly, ‘freelance’.  I’ve encountered playwrights and poets trying to find a market for their talents; I've met entrepreneurs and outright chancers.  But what we all have in common is the desire to make lives for ourselves in the city we love.

So I’m trawling daily through sites such as Craigslist. On Friday, I’m going on an ‘orientation day’ for a teaching agency and I’ve heard that there are more surveys in the pipeline at the research institute.  I’ve come to realise that finding permanent work is going to be tough, and I’m going to need sharp elbows, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed and thumbs pressed (and any other body-part metaphors that might be called on)!