Wearing a Mustache to Work, Post-Unemployment Reflections

I am now a Community Development Worker with the Diversity Education and Resource Services Program in the Multicultural and Immigrant Services Department of Abbotsford Community Services. What do I do?

I cut comics out of newspapers. Not only do I get to read the newspaper for work (we call it media analysis), I get to plan and facilitate diversity workshops for schools and other professionals. I work on interfaith bridging events with community members from different faith groups. I compose and edit documents. My co-workers and I meet with a youth committee and empower them to plan events where they and their peers can respond to discrimination. These are just the highlights.

I have spent the last few weeks becoming acquainted with this new position, and I love everything about it. I feel like I am in college without being graded (which is one of the best things I could possibly imagine)! I work with a team of three others who love their work and are incredibly affirming and encouraging. I am learning new things every day about people in different faith groups, marginalized populations, Canadian immigration, population demographics, non-profit organizations, and how to foster inclusive community. I have received so much positive feedback from my co-workers that all I want to do is invest more in our community.

Unemployment seems so distant. Not long ago, I was trapped in job searching defeat and focus-less existence. Post-unemployment, especially satisfactory post-unemployment, is a stage I had only dreamed of reaching last June. My journey to this new position has been quite interesting. Upon graduation, I travelled for a month. I returned to full time unemployment. To my delight, I was hired mid-summer as a car detailer. To my dismay I was fired a week later. But a local grocery store took pity on me, hired me to work in their kitchen and helped me restore a smidgen of hope. There I made wonderful new friends. Out of the blue, I was called for an interview and offered a career. Now I have a desk by a window, an email signature with three different logos and a confidentiality clause and my absolute favourite… business cards.

The transition from unemployment hopelessness and loathing my degree to job satisfaction and using my degree is shocking me still. I was convinced that my degree was useless in the secular world but I have been proved wrong…

A friend mentioned to me the other week that he hoped this job would be redeeming. Not that it would justify what I have lived but that it would be restorative. That in this position I would be able to bring my thoughts and experiences to the table and use them constructively rather than be brought down by them. I truly hope that this will be so.