I am a young, vibrant and intelligent South African woman who got good grades and went to university to study medicine on a four-year scholarship. After four years, due to severe financial constraints and the lack of financial assistance for non-affirmative-action candidates, I had to make a choice. I left medicine, but wisely switched to BSc (Medicine) in my fifth year so that I did not leave empty-handed. I chose microbiology as my major, given that infectious disease remains our biggest killer in Southern Africa.
In fact, most of my career choices have been in the interest of being marketable in this, my home country. South Africa raised and educated me, and I want to invest my skills and talents in South Africa in return. Today, thirty-four years of age, I sit again behind my personal computer, desperately seeking employment.
My CV is no advert for loyalty given it superficially illustrates a versatile, yet masterful job-hopper. Sadly, though, this has mainly been due to circumstances beyond my control, in a waning job climate accompanied by poor timing and geography. I aspire towards the contrary – given that success does not usually go with spreading one’s self thin; and steadfastness is my very nature. This is not to say I still don’t have a lot to learn – but a focus and a vision embraced in an eminent environment means that learning has purpose and permeates.
Those that know me are perplexed at my circumstances – describing me as intelligent, capable, accomplished and versatile. I scraped pennies for a career counsellor, only to be told that the world is my oyster. I have been rejected for interviews, reasons ranging from being overqualified to not being black, etc. I have offered my services for an initial period for free so that a prospective company can assess me with no financial risk, knowing full-well that I will blow their socks off – but to no avail. I have offered my services gratis in areas of passion such as infection control training, and even completed a copy test for an ad agency brainstorming a synergistic advertising campaign for three products, but even in those cases, no one has bothered to get back to me while walking off with and possibly using my submitted ‘intellectual property’. I have corresponded to my alumni in the hopes that they can place me, or guide me appropriately – and not even the decency of a reply was bestowed upon me here. And all the while, I stick it out, with ‘patience is a virtue’ as my mantra.
I have settled for low-income jobs, and unchallenging vocations – wholly prepared to work my way up, and all with a smile. I have done things I never imagined I could do, and have fulfilled roles I neither trained nor studied for. I thought that hard work paid off; that if you impressed your boss you’d be up for promotion; that if you do your best, the best finds you. But hundreds of applications later, I am nowhere near where I wanted to be at this stage of my life. I can’t even think of settling down or having children because I am not sure if I can even afford to take care of myself from day to day. Yet – I stubbornly resist the advice from others to go overseas. I can but I don’t really want to. This is where I want to be – it’s home. Listening to the TV the other night while 'important' men in grey suits discussed Africa’s brain drain and how we need to get skills back into South Africa only added insult to my injury. I am a great brain - here, ready and waiting. How come no one has work for me?
And then I read a quote by Ashleigh Brilliant this morning: "Maybe I'm lucky to be going so slowly, because I may be going in the wrong direction."
Perhaps that is just it...
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