This is a work of fiction. Specific events described here may or may not have happened, and this is in general a combination of a lot of different experiences rather than a timeline. Moreover, this is a work of horror fiction: it isn’t necessarily representative of how I think about work now or how I talk about it. What this is is an accurate depiction of how I’ve experienced the job market and the workplace.
It starts when my contract with my last employer ends: I’ve worked with them for nine months, but despite me doing some truly first-rate engineering work for them, they decide not to keep me around. There are some reasons for this. I struggled to do my best work in what was a very rigid environment, and working in a public service environment was a constant strain that left me rapidly burning out. Still, this means that at the beginning of 2023, I find myself unemployed. But no matter: I’m highly skilled, I have lots of experience and good soft skills and, even with the disadvantages that come with being a trans woman in tech, I should be able to get a job without too much trouble. Right?
I open up my CV to update it, and immediately wonder whether I should disclose my deadname on the document, or even let people know that I have another name. A lot of my work was done under my deadname, so leaving it off makes my CV look rather weak. On the other hand, putting it in lets the hiring manager know that there’s something strange about me, and potentially frightens them off. In the end, I choose to put it in.
I jump on SEEK and start applying for jobs. I write cover letters, showcase my skills and do everything I’m told to. I get almost no response. I ask people for help improving my CV. The career advisors can’t see anything badly wrong with it. As for everyone else, I get inconsistent advice. One person tells me that it’s too long and I should shorten it. Another tells me that it’s not detailed enough and I should go into more depth. Another person tells me that I use the word “I” too much in my CV, and when I do this another person tells me that the English is wrong and that I should use proper sentences. One person even tells me to use Canva to make the CV look pretty: given the number of companies that use Applicant Tracking Systems that might break with a CV like that, I don’t do that one.
Every so often the stream of rejections lets up and I get a screening call. I pick up the phone and reply, only to immediately hear the confusion and disgust in the person’s voice. A male-sounding voice with an obviously female name is just too much for some people to comprehend, obviously. They try to pretend that it doesn’t bother them, usually not very well. They make small talk and ask some questions, which I do my best to reply to. Two days later I get an email telling me that they aren’t interested.
If I’m very lucky, I might get an actual interview. Once more, I see the interview panel being shocked, confused or downright disgusted at my appearance. I’m wearing perfectly interview-appropriate clothing. I ace all their technical questions. They say that they’re impressed, shuffling in their seats and refusing to look at me. They ask some behavioral questions: by this point, my answers are a little more stilted as I can tell they don’t like me. I ask them some questions, and they seem confused by why I’m asking. They let me go politely. I get a call saying that they decided to proceed with other candidates.
I work on my interview technique and go through everything with a fine comb. None of the career advisers can find anything wrong, and so far as they can tell I’m doing everything right. We try and practice some interview skills regardless, but it’s clear that their heart isn’t in it.
I get through to a final stage interview: by this point I’ve already been through two or three stages with the same company. The people I’ve spoken to so far liked me, but the new panel contains people from completely different parts of the company. They won’t look me in the eye, and are weirdly withdrawn, and when I present the work that I prepared for this interview, they don’t quite know what to make of me. They say nice things about my work, calling it clever and thorough, but ask questions because they say it wasn’t what they expected. I get a complimentary email the day after, then three days later my recruiter calls me and tells me that I was rejected.
I break down crying in the stairwell.
This continues for ten months, the pain and the mental strain growing worse each time. Each time I get a rejection I’m completely shattered for days afterwards, and the period grows longer each time. I start becoming unable to experience joy, and become increasingly erratic. Every month there’s more damage.
I’m told to network. I’m told that 70% of jobs aren’t advertised, and that people trust referrals from their network more than any actual evidence. My network is patchy at best: I lost a lot of it when I transitioned, and many of the people who stuck around had to deal with the mood disturbances, difficulties and mental health struggles that come with early transition (if you were one of these people, I sincerely apologise). Even with those people whom I can reach out to, I have very little idea how they’d react. My work networks are even worse: the corporate people will say that I’m brilliant, but they also think I’m difficult and weird, and they’ll attribute some strange bad traits to me. Often these don’t correspond to any actual reality. I try anyway, and get nowhere at all. I’m told to network harder.
I’m told to find a worse job to tide me over: clearly I’m not good enough for tech at the moment, so I have to try something else. I go out and try. I’m laughed out of interviews for fast food places and manual labour: it seems that I come across as too weird, that my vibes are wrong and that I don’t seem like I’d fit in at all. Sometimes I get told that I need qualifications to operate a cash register: I’m fairly sure that I can work that out with a Masters’ in Engineering, but apparently that just isn’t good enough. I try to apply for things the city over, only to find that without a qualification the bigotry is even worse. I’m told that I’m clearly not putting enough effort in.
I point these facts out. I’m told that I’m negative and that if my attitude’s going to be like that, then I clearly don’t want to be helped. I’m told to shut up and leave people alone if I keep on like that, and I lose another part of my support network. Meanwhile, out in the world, the patterns I pointed out get even worse.
I try to find support in other places. It quickly turns out that the only people willing to give me a fair hearing are other trans people and a very few other kind people. Everyone else seems to be doing their absolute best to deny that what’s obviously happening is real, trying to hold desperately on to the idea that this country and this world are fair and people get what they deserve. And goddess forbid I suggest that transphobia might have something to do with this. If I do that, people either become extremely ashamed of themselves (and thus useless), or extremely defensive. Apparently, no matter how much outside bias there might be, I’m to blame nobody but myself.
New Zealand First is now in government, and they ran on a platform that explicitly called for trans people to be segregated from the rest of society. Other parties were even worse. Somehow I’m expected to ignore this.
Eventually, I break. I stop being able to apply for work, and whenever I so much as look at SEEK or my CV, I panic and stop being able to move or do anything at all. Trying to network is just as bad, and I can’t seem to stop my anger spilling out whenever people are even a little bit ignorant. I become an angry, paranoid and unbearably inflexible woman.
The worst thing is that I can feel myself slipping. I can feel myself becoming less tolerant and patient each time I pass through the cycle, less willing to accept any work that isn’t perfect, less willing to be a good interviewee or a good candidate. I give less and less of a shit about communicating well with people who clearly don’t want a disgusting aberration of nature talking to them, let alone working with them. In short, while I’m not losing my edge or my technical skills, this constant stream of rejection and of shitty, humiliating hiring processes is making me a worse employee. This, of course, will only make things worse for me down the line.
Work and Income tells me that I have full-time work obligations. I’m unclear as to how I’m meant to meet these obligations given that nobody wants to hire me. Inflation and the related rises in living expenses, of course, continues unabated, and even with my unusually good cooking skills I struggle to both feed my household and pay my bills. I’ve gotten about all the support that Work and Income will give me, and have to rely on what help my friends can give me, which isn’t much. Life is bleak and the costs are punishing.
I’m at a complete loss. There is no escape, all my options seem to wrap around to each other, and nobody is ever going to acknowledge that this might not be entirely under my control, let alone that we’re dealing with a massive outbreak of transphobia that makes treating us like shit socially acceptable, or even to be lauded. I’m out of options. And so, I sit at my desk, open up a document, and begin to write.