It has been almost two weeks since I arrived in Toronto. I've signed up for countless job sites (Well, six. Six is quite a countable number, really.), walked for hours through the city and successfully signed up for a social insurance number, bank account and library card. Unfortunately, that's the easy stuff.
Week one was supposed to be job hunting madness. I arrived on Sunday, took Monday off (six weeks of travel is fun, but quite tiring) and completed a few key tasks on Tuesday. Unfortunately the best place to job hunt is the internet, which is full of shiny tools of distraction. I looked at dozens of "how to write a cover letter" and "improve your resume" stories, without actually changing my cover letter or resume a great deal. I browsed jobs without applying, saved searches that I haven't repeated and researched local news outlets. A lot of research, which generally meant hours of reading The Toronto Star or The Globe and Mail online, plus all the community papers that arrive here and whatever is available online. It was research, just not productive for job getting.
Add to that three days visiting family in Hamilton (which was great - a reminder of why I moved here) and you've written off seven full days. So now it's Thursday of week two and I have finally sent out resumes and portfolios to my top pick daily papers. Tomorrow I'll do community papers and next week some comms jobs.
That written off week didn't even cover my red-tape wrestling, which has mostly seen me hog-tied and sent home, occasionally almost in tears.
It's the same old story of the circles of bureaucracy. Kafka could have set his stories in the Ontario Services office as people try to sign up for an OHIP card, or in the Driver's Licensing office where I tried to trade in my New Zealand licence for an Ontario one. It's been written before, endlessly, but how do I get proof of address when everyone who would mail me something requires proof of address?
I'm lucky to be staying with a close family friend, and it's been wonderful to have an oasis to return to, plus a sympathetic ear. I've never been good at being unemployed, I get bored too quickly, so I'm gaining momentum on that front. As for the bureaucrats... they're safe for now. I'll focus on them when I have my energy back from my last encounter.
Week one was supposed to be job hunting madness. I arrived on Sunday, took Monday off (six weeks of travel is fun, but quite tiring) and completed a few key tasks on Tuesday. Unfortunately the best place to job hunt is the internet, which is full of shiny tools of distraction. I looked at dozens of "how to write a cover letter" and "improve your resume" stories, without actually changing my cover letter or resume a great deal. I browsed jobs without applying, saved searches that I haven't repeated and researched local news outlets. A lot of research, which generally meant hours of reading The Toronto Star or The Globe and Mail online, plus all the community papers that arrive here and whatever is available online. It was research, just not productive for job getting.
Add to that three days visiting family in Hamilton (which was great - a reminder of why I moved here) and you've written off seven full days. So now it's Thursday of week two and I have finally sent out resumes and portfolios to my top pick daily papers. Tomorrow I'll do community papers and next week some comms jobs.
That written off week didn't even cover my red-tape wrestling, which has mostly seen me hog-tied and sent home, occasionally almost in tears.
It's the same old story of the circles of bureaucracy. Kafka could have set his stories in the Ontario Services office as people try to sign up for an OHIP card, or in the Driver's Licensing office where I tried to trade in my New Zealand licence for an Ontario one. It's been written before, endlessly, but how do I get proof of address when everyone who would mail me something requires proof of address?
I'm lucky to be staying with a close family friend, and it's been wonderful to have an oasis to return to, plus a sympathetic ear. I've never been good at being unemployed, I get bored too quickly, so I'm gaining momentum on that front. As for the bureaucrats... they're safe for now. I'll focus on them when I have my energy back from my last encounter.
If you managed to get a bank account then you should be able to walk in and ask for something that says you live where you live.
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