The Slough of Despond; Or, flat and job hunting in London

You currently find me in a somewhat depressed mood; as I have, through extraordinary poor planning on my part, put myself in the position of simultaneously job-hunting and flat-hunting. Each of these preoccupations is a monumental hassle individually, put together it is little short of total disaster.

Frequently, you are paralysed by geographical indecision, which, as a long-time freelancer flitting from company to company, I have never really experienced before. If you take that flat in Ladbroke Grove, will your job end up being in Wapping? If you get that job in Tooting, will you end up living in Dollis Hill? And so on. Then, all stands still when you believe you may have finally pinned either job or flat down, only to be thrown into disarray when said job or flat falls through. Meanwhile, you have an increasingly unsympathetic and irate flatmate shouting to just make your damn mind up about where to live, get a job in Holborn like everyone else and deal with it. But as someone who commuted from West Hampstead to White City every day for three months once, I am keen to try and make a sensible, non-District-or-Northern-Line-reliant decision.

Meanwhile, you also have to balance other considerations. Sure, if you get that job, you can afford this flat. Then again, if you rent that flat, it will be okay if you get this job, but is it worth it to have mice in your living room?

It wasn't supposed to be this way. As far as I was concerned, we had ground to an expensive, slightly squalid halt in our current hovel. When we came there a couple of years ago, our area was wedged between two flash bits of North London, all the scummy individuals who once haunted the back alleys of Camden et al had been coralled into a few streets. The rent was reasonable, the transportation good and the flat actually a liveable size. Unfortunately, the braver of the professionals have put on their rubber gloves, got their jabs and have joined us. And brought their massive wage packets and keenness for daylight robbery with them, so our landlord has hiked the rent. I thought we were going to buckle up and take our medicine like good children, but Monkey has decided that damn it, if we are getting fleeced then we will get fleeced somewhere nicer.

So follows a disspiriting trek around the hopelessly overpriced tenement slums where the young professional classes of London shiver, while trying to get a job in various industries, all of which I keep being told are "competitive". A friend of ours from uni jacked in his job at a corporate law firm to become a plumber. He says its easier to get jobs and you earn a ton of money. "Plus enjoying the well-earned slumber of manual labour," he added, gleefully. But I am no good with my hands. Meanwhile, everywhere I look I'm required to take a massive paycut because I haven't any experience in the field. I thought this was the day and age you could career-change, a notion of total bullshit as far as I can tell.

In the interim, I have been forced to move back in with my mother. I hate it, almost as much as she does. I love London, it is my hometown. Sometimes I get so frustrated, as yet another flat goes, or yet another job is filled before even the application deadline. You begin to get irrational. I was born here - it seems injust that I cannot afford to live here, and can't find work here, that despite having worked hard at my education and at my career I am back living at home. I know how absurd that is, but it actually gets quite emotional, almost personal. Being born in London, I realise, gives me no entitlement whatsoever, but as it stands I simply can't see a way of staying here longterm. It's simply too expensive to have a comfortable quality of life.

But now we have a Conservative Mayor, I'm sure it'll be all better. Oh, wait...Conservative....no, no, it's just going to get worse. Edinburgh it is!