1987.
Economy still dipping.
I still remember the year clearly, because it was the year I learned exactly how far a piece of paper can take you and exactly where it stops.
I went for an interview for a trading assistant role. The kind where you write share prices on a board at the stock market. Old school stuff. No computers flashing numbers, just a board, a marker, and a lot of pressure to get it right fast.
The room was packed. Everyone nervous. Everyone wearing the smartest outfit they owned. You could feel the whole room holding its breath together, everyone doing the math on rent and bus fare and how many more of these interviews they could afford to lose.
There were like 10 interviewers for a 1k pay job. 9 of them were kinda mmm, “ok we can explore”.
But 1 mastermind shook his head a few times and said, “Totally irrelevant….an engineering degree?”
Just like that. End of story.
Off I went….took a bus back to my rented room and slammed the door as hard as I could.
Sat there for a while. Angry. A little ashamed too. The kind of quiet anger that sits in your chest and doesn’t say much, just makes you replay the same five seconds over and over.
Next day went out again looking for jobs….🤓
Because what else was there to do? The economy doesn’t wait around for people who want to sulk.
Fast forward to today. The economy isn’t that different. Cost of living is up, the job market is competitive, and a lot of people feel like their qualifications are “not relevant” too, for the role they’re trying to break into. Different decade, same knot in the stomach.
The difference now is we have more options than 1987. We can reskill, we can pivot, we can start something on the side while waiting for the right door to open.
Rejection is just one “no” from one person, on one day. What matters is that tomorrow, we keep moving forward.
When the economy is down, our options go down with it. But our feet still have to keep walking.
For anyone job hunting today, a rejection usually says more about that one interviewer, on that one day, than it says about you. It stings either way.
But the ones who eventually find their footing are usually just the ones who went out again the next morning.
Almost four decades on, that “irrelevant” line still pops up in my head sometimes, not as a wound anymore, more like a reminder of how much a single sentence from a stranger can weigh, and how little it actually deserves that weight.
Anyone here ever been rejected for being “irrelevant”?
The Poolside Writer (afendiothman9@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
The User Content (as defined on Newswav Terms of Use) above including the views expressed and media (pictures, videos, citations etc) were submitted & posted by the author. Newswav is solely an aggregation platform that hosts the User Content. If you have any questions about the content, copyright or other issues of the work, please contact creator@newswav.com.
