Day 140: Job Searching and Salvaging What’s Left of a Social Life
Day 140: August 13, 2020
Global Cases: 21, 058, 148; Deaths: 756, 719
Egypt Cases: 96, 108; Deaths: 5, 107
Salma Ahmed
Multimedia Journalism Alumna
August, our final taste of summer before we are back to the cold winter nights and the stormy weather that got us into this mess of a year to start with. Except, none of us really got a summer or a year, we’ve all been stuck at home, just recently getting a taste of the outside world we’ve been deprived off for months.
I’ve been inside almost all summer, hunched over my laptop typing away with some alternative album playing in the background. Between maintaining a high demanding freelance job at a daily newspaper to applying to any job I find appealing, despite being qualified for it or not, my back and fingers have been aching all summer.
Nevertheless, finally being able to work on my assigned articles with no distractions has led me to excel and hear a few words of encouragement that I was desperately needing to hear. It also led me to finally make enough to support myself, which is something I never expected myself to say as a journalist in Egypt.
I also got to interview some interesting figures and was threatened with jail time over something I wrote, so it has been anything but boring. But waking up everyday at 10am just in case I get asked to work on a piece to be submitted in an hour, then staying alert, glued to my phone all day just in case I get a text from my employer for an urgent piece about developments in the Renaissance Dam negotiations, gets pretty tiring.
And the numerous applications sent came with a couple of interviews, which, although failed, were very exciting. I got to wear my formal interview pants that I have been saving for my first ever job interview. The interviews were unlike anything I had imagined, I was in a facial mask, speaking louder than needed to ensure I come off confident and to ensure the interviewers are able to hear me.
Most of them were not very punctual and when they finally showed up, they proceeded to constantly bring up the fact that I am a “baby fresh grad”. They lacked any sense of professionalism. One HR man answered a phone call mid interview; I was very glad I didn’t end up working with him.
Amid my constant search for purpose and a fulfilling job I was able to finally see some of my friends, after months of virtual communication. Initially, I felt immense guilt whenever I left the house without proper reasoning, but eventually it faded away at the sight of people attending parties, concerts and weddings throwing all precautionary measures to the wind.
COVID-19 has put a strain on many of my relationships and the upcoming period will require a lot of mending. From comforting physical touches to parties and road trips, a lot of the pillars of my relationships were destroyed and I will need to exert an immense amount of effort to have them return to the way they were.
For The Caravan‘s previous diary entries in Arabic and English go to our COVID-19 Special Coverage page.
Although with my daily notification from Egyptian news outlets announcing a decreased number of new COVID-19 cases, I am extremely hopeful that I will finally be able to save my friendships on the edge of collapsing and attend job interviews without a major obstacle standing in the way of my potential future employer and myself.
Perhaps we’ll eventually return to how things used to be and perhaps we’ve overgrown how things once were and we will embrace the change and maybe even seek a more drastic one.
