The time my hope went into outer space

Speculative CVs, tailor written covering letters, hours spent shoehorning experience into boxes on application forms.

Applications, disappointments, recruitment consultants. Hopes get raised, dropped, you put the feelers out among contacts, scour the websites and start again. First interviews that go badly, second interviews that go well, and e-mails that leave you feeling a bit crushed; contract jobs start, temporary jobs end, both are followed by weeks of unemployment before the next wave arrives and you go back to work.

Welcome to the tedium of my working life for the last few years. 

A couple of weeks ago, the process started again. Fearing my contract ending in time for Christmas expense, I wrote a bangin' covering letter for a job I'd seen, attached some writing examples and sent it all off. 

My hopes were raised when I got an email a few days later, inviting me for an interview. The hope did somersaults round the block when they called me back for a second one later that week. The hope proceeded to go on an all expenses paid trip to the Moon when the interview went well, and I tentatively told the first few friends that I'd been looking at a pretty cool job.

Then yesterday, the day they were due to let me know, came and went. The familiar feeling of disappointment and doubt crept back in, just like it always does. Luckily, a back-up plan surfaced; my current job contract got extended a few more weeks, so everything pinged into place. This one wasn't meant to be, but at least I wouldn't be a jobless hobo over Christmas.

"Don't assume the worst case! We all think you're good at what you do. It will be their loss anyway" read the text message from my mum, as I chugged my way through a large glass of horrendous white wine.

Then this morning, through the hangover fog - my phone rang.

The gist of the ensuing conversation being that as of January, at the ripe old age of 27, I'm going to be starting my first permanent role. 

New office, new colleagues.

New job.

So after years of disappointments, in this time of economic doom and gloom, there is just one thing left to say: