>>55323004I feel very lucky to be in this position- (I also love the Italian winemaker anon, I want to visit Italy again, Bologna is my fav, I miss my nonna's cooking but my late dad and aunt both inherited her recipes and they live on)
and getting here took a lot, and I mean a lot of patience and endurance, and maybe dumb luck so I'll greentext it if that's okay:
> be me> tough upbringing but go to university for art degree/animation degree, finish secondary and sixth form with really high grades in english literature, arts and media, and good grades in maths and science, volunteer at library back home from age 15-18 before moving to uni town, really enjoy it, want to help people in libraries someday but also persue art> graduate uni and want to live by myself in uni town, have to go to job centre> absolutely gruelling process with patronizing woman who essentially insists that I'm overqualified and I need to work in retail to get basic experience (she's partially right but it sucks)> spend 4 years in customer service job in workplace so bad we get through five managers, lose dad in process to cancer, struggle but need to pay for roof above head, barely any time to function, draw, and had to properly justify going home to see my dying father, ended up actually not making it and he died the night before I reached him> we won't go into the trauma of this but this made retail 10x worse> apply as school librarian in local boarding school, amazing interview, head of library phones me and says he wanted me to get it so badly but that I should get library experience in a smaller library and not to give up, this was just after my dad's funeral, feel really determined> apply for job at library I really like that's local, feel really good about it, I don't get the job, but the manager calls me and says don't give up and that they never hire the first time, I'd later find out the truth of this> continue to be determined> 2018 a job opens up at my local coffee shop and I have customer service under my belt by this point> get hired and it pays more money and is marginally better but still hard work, keep eye on library jobs, start to have more time to also freelance again and draw, find love in it again> on a trip with friends in Japan we'd saved for, another job opens up in the same local library, this time with blessed hours that work out to give me £500 more a month than barista job, but only three days a week not counting overtime> holy shit second time lucky> apply again while abroad, enjoy the Japan trip> get interviewed, convince self I flubbed up because I infodumped about onions milk in a random question> "we'll contact you in the next week anon!" handshakes firm> with friend for lunch in shop after, three hours later get call> you've got the job> lay on floor of homeware shop and have to contain excitement> "t-thank you! I'll see you soon" > this was summer 2019> enough time and rest that I can be librarian AND freelance artist but some future stuff soon big but can't say, excited thoughI've worked my way up within this service since then and I've never been happier, and it took a lot of failures to get here and the things I was overqualified in in the job center's eyes ended up making me a strong candidate, they remembered me from my first application and apparently I did really well the second time too. Honestly so grateful
TLDR: Don't give up, study hard, customer service sucks but is a worthwhile skill even in libraries when you're in a big public one that's local, stay hydrated and stay determined!
