I’ve been unemployed for four years. But I do have an important job – to act as a warning to others | Antimony Deor

Every Friday I write a little essay about how great I am and send it off to a stranger. Sometimes I receive a generic rejection two or 12 weeks later, but usually they never reply.

I used to apply for jobs more often, but after a few hundred applications and increasingly worse mental health, I found I got exactly the same response whether I sent a thoroughly researched and edited cover letter or a picture of my cat, so I gave up trying so hard. I used to obsess about what was wrong with me. Everyone told me that it was them, not me; that it was business, not personal; that doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different outcome was extremely sane. But still, every rejection fed the little worm in my brain that said I was useless. I don’t think the worm is entirely in the wrong. I think it’s normal to feel like a reject after being repeatedly rejected, to feel worthless when your bank balance is zero, to feel lost after losing.

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It strikes me that my life is very different to most people my age, and the rickety rope bridge spanning that chasm is only getting more frayed. I live a “student lifestyle” at twice the age of a typical student (I just turned 40). I shop exclusively at discount grocers and secondhand shops – except when I don’t, and feel incredibly guilty. I don’t have a car, and public transport is stressful because I’m always looking out for inspectors, so I ride an old bike. Unless my parents die right now or I become CEO of Incredible Profits Industries tomorrow, I’ll never own a house, and won’t be able to build enough superannuation to retire comfortably. When I imagine the future, I can only imagine being in the same precarious position I’m in now, but fatter, wrinklier and even more fed up with my old, cold share house.

Unemployment gives you the time to ask all sizes of existential questions, without the resources to answer any. “What is a good life?” is on the same level as “How am I going to afford to take Mum out for her birthday in October?”

“How do I live life as a failed person?” I think to myself in the shower. “Is it actually cool and anti-capitalist that I’m incomprehensible to HR managers and don’t fit in to neoliberal society?” I wonder while buttering my toast. “If I get my act together, maybe I could start a thriving micro-business selling sarcastic animal key chains at small country markets,” I fantasise during my jog. “I love animals; could I do a Tafe course in vet nursing? No, I hate people yelling at me,” I think while peering at birds for signs of imminent ecological collapse. Variations of these thoughts kaleidoscope constantly, but since I had the bad career judgment to do a PhD in the arts, I don’t trust myself to make any decisions.

Like a lot of other unemployed people I know, I have an interesting health history, but not interesting enough to be classed as disabled. My 20s were lost to depression, but after trying a dozen or so medications, gender transition and a few decades of talk therapy, I’m overjoyed to say that I’m now just an ordinary sad person. However, having a chronic disease takes time and money to manage, and means I have to be careful with stress. I think of it as a type of chronic pain; if there was a big pile of jobs 100 metres away, and everyone had to quickly run over and grab one, the people with bad knees would be left behind. I just have bad knees of the brain.

It’s true I’ve also had lots of advantages – supportive parents, a great education, and the accent and misplaced faith in institutions that come with a middle-class upbringing. I’m very lucky to have some lovely little writing jobs that pay about $500 a month, and I get $780 a fortnight from Centrelink. Life is not as hard for me as it is for other people on the dole.

I’ve been unemployed for about four years, since I graduated from my humanities PhD. When they gave me the scroll and silly hat I thought, “Thanks goodness that’s over. Now the hardest part of my life is done and everything will be much easier. I can look for a nice little research job that finishes at 5pm! Maybe four days a week! Maybe work from home!” After a few months of looking for this fictional job, I switched to applying for graduate programs. Then entry-level government roles. Last year I applied to be a cleaner, lollipop laddy and person who arranges the chairs at an event centre. This year I just gave up on traditional job applications.

I wrote this from my catsitting job in rural Victoria. I may enrol in a medical trial, do market research, be a mystery shopper or pick up a little graphic design work (sorry, real graphic designers). These, combined with my multiple freelance writing gigs and volunteering work, add up to about the same hours as a full-time job. For a long time I saw volunteering as like licking a bakery window – all of the work with none of the reward. But hearing “good job Antimony!” after years of “unfortunately on this occasion” almost brought me to tears.

Forgive me. I always find myself needing to explain to myself and others how I came to be this way. I’m performing my essential economic function as a warning to others.

I do have an important job. It’s to act as a cautionary tale. If you lose your job, terrible things could happen. You could end up unemployed like me.

Antimony Deor is a freelance writer, illustrator, graphic designer, garden volunteer, podcast presenter, community health volunteer and unemployed person from Naarm/Melbourne