Putting the jam into jammy dodgers…poking the holes out of Polos…being a taste-tester for Pedigree Chum…

You’re unemployed, it’s a year since you graduated, and the above jobs are starting to look worryingly appealing. Don’t despair! I’m in exactly the same boat so I’ve gone and written a cheery old blog-aroo to jolt you out of the fetid little grief-hole that is your unemployed bed!

Seeing as I’ve got a lot of time on my hands, I thought I should use it productively (not that watching ‘The Crystal Maze,’ and following recipes from http://www.pimpthatsnack.com/ isn’t productive). So, I decided to write this blog which is all about unemployment.

You can look forward to screamingly funny anecdotes about my life as an unemployed 23 year old, living back at home in the cultural and cosmopolitan idyll that is Haywards Heath. There’ll be helpful tips on how to get a job (obviously not from me, because I haven’t got one - haha!). Plus I’ll be exploring mad-cap techniques on how to make your CV stand out (most of these techniques will be origami based, so be sure to have a supply of scrap-paper to hand).

If that little lot tickles your fancy then why not share your own unemployment japes? Interview gaffs...demoralising working environments…whatever it is, post it here and we can all have a laugh at your ill-qualified expense!

Thanks awfully for reading my blog, and remember: whether you’re lying in bed watching ‘Jeremy Kyle’ or applying for a job as a “fluffer” in the adult film industry, it’s all part of the fun of being “gainfully unemployed”!

Huge love,
xxx







Photobooth Frolics.

Just when you thought I was a lazy, work-shy, ullage of a blogger, I put up yet another killingly funny post! 

So, here it is: a guest blog that was crafted entirely by Diana Patient. (Scroll down for a video of her cavorting in a bikini, which I agreed to post for its artistic merit alone, and certainly not to boost my dwindling viewing stats). 

Huge love, and no exploitation whatsoever, from Gainfully Unemployed. xxx


Hi I’m Diana and I work as a photographer!
OK, so technically I am not unemployed, which is what Laura’s hilarious blog is all about, but I am self-employed.
So, I have to kick my own arse into gear and most of the time I do work hard, promise. Yet I have my procrastination weaknesses like everyone else. The main one is preparing and eating food. You cannot deny yourself food can you? But that is not what I am going to talk about today. Another procrastination method I am highly addicted to, rather aptly for my career, is taking photographs on Photobooth. 
There are a lot of solitary editing hours as a photographer and so my Photobooth history tells me, a lot of photographs to accompany. The stupid, the posing, the downright hideous. And the videos. Oh, the videos...
So for your amusement I have decided to categorize (yes, categorize) and share them on Laura’s wonderful blog so that you can laugh at my year of procrastination as a freelance photographer in photographs...


THE POSING ONES...

So there are always going to be the ones where I am trying to look hot. It’s a great pick-me-up when you are demotivated, and on that day you have done jackall: you can say ‘Well at least I am ridiculously beautiful.’ 





THE ONES YOU TAKE WITH A MAN IN MIND...

So, what happens if you need to send a guy a photograph? (not just random guys obviously). I like to have back-up in case it is sprung upon me without any warning. Can’t say I really look my best working from home: no makeup, showered day before yesterday, bags under eyes from deadlines and piles of used plates and mad sketches all around me. Sexy. So yes I like to have a few carefully created natural ones just in case...




THE ONES WHERE YOU TRY ON ALL YOUR FUCKING CLOTHES...
OK so I can be excused sometimes as I do need to show clients options for shoots but other times, like before I went on holiday and did video after video of trying on every item of swimwear I owned making sure I acted out each scenario (even catching a ball. Oh Diana...), I really did just try on all my clothes...




THE ONES WHERE YOUR COUSIN COMES TO STAY AND WANTS TO PLAY...
Well, this is not really here but my cousin is adorable and you just have to see. I realised very early on that although she is 8 she is definitely cooler than me... I particularly love the video where she head moshes and I sit there looking like a lemon. Damn mirrors!






THE ONES WHERE YOU KISS...NOTHING...
So some of these could probably also fall under the category of ‘men in mind’. It’s a cliched little move we all love to do. Last video made me laugh - looks like I’ve just given up full-stop. RECESSION!








THE ONES WHERE I HAVE MOST PROBABLY GONE MAD...
Shame.








THE ONES WHERE YOU MAKE A RED RIDING HOOD CAPE WHILST SLIGHTLY TIPSY.......no? Just me then. 








THE ONES THAT JUST GO ON...
Those times you get a bit carried away and one photograph turns into a few and then you might even do *shock horror* a video...



     
THE ONES WHERE YOU MAKE SIGNS FOR FRIENDS...
Something has happened, something will happen, something might happen...there is a sign to be photographed for every occasion and a few more precious minutes of procrastination.






THE ONES RECORDING WEIRD SHIT...
You cannot wait to photograph these strange happenings before they disappear. Deadines can wait!
  1. A piece of glass covering a cabinet mysteriously cracks under the warmth of your hot water bottle.
  2. Finding a red streak in your hair.
  3. When you find yourself working in un-named person’s house, wearing un-named person’s jumper.
  4. The true nature of an ear plug. Clearly a performer...or a dick...











THE ARTY SHIT
Trying to be arty with all the Photobooth effects. Translating Rembrandt’s self-portraits to the modern day. Clearly.




THE ONES WHERE WE JUST GET BORED...
In my room, on my bed, on the phone....(sorry whoever that was ;)






So that is it, the procrastination part of my year in Photobooth photographs. Feels strange as I just completed a serious post for my photography blog called the First Year In Photos and it had quite a different feel, as you can see: 

Keep on trooping graduates, we will all run the world some day! 

PS If I do become famous this post must die.








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Copywronger


This is a guest blog by Hay Brunsdon who graduated from Royal Holloway last year with a degree in English and Drama. Not only is she a talented wordsmith, but also a skilled raconteur and all-round entertainer (probably why we get on so well, actually. Similar). Here she shares her interview experience at an ad agency, where she was going for the position of copywriter.

"It's not what you know, it's WHO you know."
Hay with Karl Kennedy off Neighbours. 
Definition of 'Interview':
n. A meeting of people face to face (he scarcely looked at me).
v. An oral examination of an applicant for a job (he asked no questions whatsoever).

Things started badly when I somehow managed to force my way in through the layman’s entrance.

The man that interviewed me had shoved his head so far up his own proverbial that he had lost all ability to make eye contact with other inhabitants of the universe. After flinging some copy-tests at me, he dashed out of the room and only returned an hour later to gleefully circle my spelling mistakes, and promptly force me to flick through his ‘award winning’ portfolio like a precocious child manically bragging in an extended game of Show and Tell. He did not take kindly when I pointed out that since his involvement in DIY Focus’s marketing campaign, they had in fact gone bust.

The décor consisted of gentleman club-esque easy chairs mixed with hot pink lampshades that would not look out of place in Oceana (albeit, not quite classy enough to furnish one of their VIP areas.) Gaudy purple chintz chairs, and tacky wallpaper depicting an old fashioned bookshelf, desperately tried to distract one’s eye from the chandelier that was stencilled onto the wall. All it needed was a chaise longue in order to be an exact replica of Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen’s boudoir (though, maybe without the luxury of a Changing Room’s budget.) Now, pair all this with the interviewer’s ‘fun’/garish golfing jumper and is it really a wonder that I became dizzy with a migraine 10 minutes in? … And thus mistakenly wrote 'advise' instead of 'advice.'

The office was a dizzying labyrinth of questionable colour schemes and even more baffling egocentric characters; how DID such losers get to be so arrogant?! Irrelevant ‘buzz words’ were scrawled angrily over the walls; ‘from humdrum to humdinger’ inspires about as much creativity as watching paint dry. Yeah, so, that was great to aid me with writing my copy test – a spam letter on behalf of Halifax. Not only was I given a contradictory brief, but WHO reads these letters anyway?! I could have typed out a limerick, complete with all the profanities, and the general public would be none the wiser (or want to bank with Halifax, for that matter). A total waste of time … and what the puck IS APR!?

The whole interview/ordeal made me realise that I am far better at gabbling away on the phone to people instead of trying to penetrate their disinterested force field through the medium of writing. (Do bear in mind that I was accidentally racist the last time I was required to speak to another human being in a corporate environment. Sorrrrrry!)
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