As I sit here, armed with a whole bottle of some South African 2015 Shiraz, I finally feel like have the courage to talk about my personal issues relating to employment.
It has been more than a year since I've moved to Quebec, Canada and I'm still unemployed. Part of the reason was due to work visa delays, but holy hell do I feel discriminated.
It may be a first world problem, but I've never had an issue with unemployment. The most I've been without a job is like a month and a half. That was Australia though. Thing is, I wasn't picky. Retail sales? Hospitality? Okay. Not the best job in the world but I still got paid and I did my job right. $35,000AUD per annum. Not much, but no problems. (BTW for all you people who live in places who give tips, I didn't get any. 'Cause I did my job, got paid, and only got tips when clients felt my service was great. It is not expected!).
Now, it's not like I've been trying super hard lately, but I've put in about the same effort as I did when I was unemployed in Australia. BUT GODDAMN SON. QUEBEC.
I feel like 95% of the jobs listed requires you to be bilingual. Oi, I'm multilingual, but unfortunately one of them ain't French. Yes, I was naive. When my partner told me we were moving to Canada, I had this image of English, English everywhere and that finding a job as a waitress or sales assistant wouldn't be too hard. Like, I wasn't aiming for a high-end office position or anything. Boy, am I wrong AF.
Do you know how depressing it already is, to apply for jobs in your native language and get denied? Lack of qualifications or experience? Yeah, well add "I can't speak this other language" on as well and see what you get.
Do you know how depressing it is, to be broke and have people ask you if you have "learned French" and how the job search is going?
"Oh, all you need is to learn French!", they say.
First of all, French is NOT by any means, an easy language to learn. The pronunciation and grammar is all over the place (fuck, I mean even native Francophone fails French) and you EXPECT me to be fluent in French, in a professional work environment?!
Dude, let me tell you that when I did Spanish in high school for two years and even with a more phonetic language, I could write like a broken, simple essay. Could I work with that? HELLA NO!
Like, you guys aren't idiots. You know how hard it is to get a job. Hell, I even applied for a Social Media and Travel Consultant intern-like position at Hopper (Apple's "2015 Best Travel App"), and even with my experience as a travel consultant, I wasn't good enough. A rejection within an hour. Even I was impressed at the rejection turn-around response.
So, I was like "Fine, fuck it. Obviously not good enough for them". Looked at other job prospective and it just became more, and more, depressed.
Fine, I get that businesses have the right to hire people who have relevant experience but to really single out that you have to be bilingual?!
Okay, let me just explain. French is hard, and some people can learn it, but I just simply cannot pronounce certain words. I've tried like responding to people to where I used to live before "Contrecoeur" and people just look at me as if I'm retarded. I'll repeat the word several times but to no avail BUT as soon as my bilingual partner says it, BAM! THEY FUCKING UNDERSTAND. That doesn't boost my confidence in trying AT ALL.
Why don't you take a French class to help? Uh, well. guess for immigrants in my current situation, it's not supported until my "permanent residency comes through". If not, maybe classes. But as with most classes/courses, they require payment. I'm not working and already being carried through life for the past year on a single income and without any health insurance. Do you really think we can afford French classes? And, the vicious cycle continues.
You know what? So much for the immigrant social integration thing 'cause they (Quebec) fucked it up big time. Why can't you let immigrants like myself, who's awaiting permanent residency to take French classes? We're fucking sitting ducks, if not maybe some of us are already taking shitty ass menial jobs which will want us to slit our wrists with a blunt-ass butter knife, take language classes already? I mean, whilst sitting ducks, at least let us do something productive with our time. Like a full-time, free fucking French classes? It's already one of the highest paying province in Canada!
Yes, I may sound like a first-world entitled bitch, but some of us, can't actually learn another language at a later age easily.
END STORY: I JUST WANT A FUCKIN' JOB WHERE MY EXPERIENCES MATTER AND MY LANGUAGE SKILLS DOESN'T MATTER.
STOP LANGUAGE DISCRIMINATION. THANK YOU.