Do you want fries with that?
Reading the newspaper used to be a very therapeutic experience for me.
Waking up bright and early to find a brand new edition at my doorstep felt great. Dangling my slippers, sipping a hot drink, staining my fingertips as I flipped through the front section. Bliss.
My weekday couldn’t start until I reached the end of at least one edition.
The news may not have always been pleasant, but it was important and thought-provoking and I used the information as armour all through J-school.
But now, the only thing I feel after reading my daily paper is anxiety. Extreme anxiety. The news isn’t just unpleasant, it’s downright frightening.
I can’t crack a paper these days without reading how 20-somethings are being laid off and overlooked for jobs that used to be reserved for graduates.
Hundreds of inches have been devoted to the topic.
I feel like the newspaper, whom I once loved so dearly, is screaming at me. Instead of congratulating me for all my hard work through university, the paper is ridiculing me with its anorexic careers section and feature-length articles on lost dreams of the young and penniless.
The Guardian’s Kathryn Hopkins wrote a delightful piece this week about the graduate job crunch. According to the article, 50 per cent of employers are suspending recruitment due to the economic downturn. Young people are facing the worst unemployment crisis of any age group.
Fabulous.
Alright so I may not get my dream first-job or even an unpaid internship this year. Never fret - onto Plan B: Rejigging my CV so I come across as the perfect nanny or the best french fry fryer around.
“My career objectives are to win a Pulitzer Prize and learn the ingredients of your delicious secret sauce.”
That is, if my McDonald’s application will even be seen amongst the inevitable thousands they will receive from young and old alike this summer.
Why pity the graduate when this 46-year-old mother of three was just made redundant and needs to pay the bills? Both stories are unfortunate, but I bet my bottom dollar she’ll be beckoned towards the Golden Arches first.
I, meanwhile, will be beckoned towards the unemployment office. It won’t be so bad. It will be like a class reunion, but instead of waiting 25 years like most graduating classes before us, we get to have the party in six months. Hoorah! We’ll all look 20 years older thanks to the stress anyway.
I miss the days when all a recent graduate had to do was be seduced by Mrs. Robinson.
Last weekend the Saturday edition of the Toronto Star featured a massive article on young people across the GTA who instead of saving up for their dream homes or dream weddings are living in a nightmarish hell known as “my parent’s basement”.
Even if they were able to get that mortgage and move into the house of their dreams, they soon lost their job. Then their spouse was laid off. They go from planning a family to planning a budget tighter than a Lady Gaga jumpsuit. Not pretty.
So what’s the solution? A lot of my formerly optimistic mates are re-enrolling in school, hoping to weather the economic storm in the cosy and hopeful university halls who keep turning out graduates despite the dismal news.
‘Things will get better’ is the universal post-secondary slogan these days, isn’t it?
Before I resolve myself back to the classroom or to a lifetime of burger flipping, I’m frantically hunting for a silver lining.
Maybe I could start my own business? I’ll make the most delicious fortune cookies. Maybe I’ll win the lottery! But I can’t afford a ticket.
Well, if worse comes to worse, I personally find it comforting knowing those newspapers who once held my heart will undoubtedly hold the heat when I use them as blankets after I can no longer pay the bills.
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