What Steph Likes

I have not been happy in my job for quite a while and I really don’t know who to talk to. I have exhausted my means by talking to HR, to my HOD, to my supervisor and I feel nothing has improved. I also feel stagnant.

So I started job hunting because I was facing typical burn out symptoms like insomnia, anxiety, irritation, unable to focus, fatigue, depression. I felt like I haven’t been happy in a while and that I have been forcing myself to be happy and optimistic. I just felt tired.

I understand that this year the job market is bad but I have some personal life event going on this year where I can’t afford to take a pay cut. Nevertheless I pushed on, spamming out 10-20 resumes a week to various companies. I was desperate to get a job and finish probation before my wedding and honeymoon.

Anyway, I went for a few interviews and I felt I should let them know I’m getting married and going for my honeymoon because I was worried that if I don’t disclose this, I join them and they don’t grant my leave, my airfare and everything for my honeymoon will go to waste or in the waste case scenario, I may lose my new job.

What I didn’t expect was the discrimination I faced when I disclosed this during my interviews. Company A: “I have a very personal question to ask you, since you are getting married, how soon are you planning to have children?” Company B: “Congrats on your upcoming nuptials, but are you sure you are able to work late and on weekends especially when your life event is coming up?”

Funny how I don’t hear shit like these asked to men. Isn’t it my basic human right to get married? Isn’t it my basic human right to have children as and when I feel like? Not at your bloody convenience? Seriously, I am appalled men dare to ask me these questions. Mind you, I am not being entitled, it’s more of I hope these men remember that they came out of a vagina and they do not have to spend 9 months carrying a living parasite in their womb and then having these parasite grow up to being discriminatory douchebags like them instead of contributing to society.

But then, I can’t blame the men either. Women themselves encouraged it. I was appalled when someone within my work place complained to me about a new employee who is a Mother who took urgent leave to care for her child. Basically she felt it was weird that she just joined and she took urgent leave. Wow, women judging other women and this one is a Mother as well. No wonder my country has failing birth and marriage rates. These are happy occasions but these people, well. I applaud them for being such hypocrites.

I for one, am very, very tired and sick of these shit but life has to go on hence I will press on in looking for a new job. Screw gender discrimination really, I just hope that for all the shit I am facing now, it’s gonna escalate into something better. And for all these people, I hope karma will get them. :)