Fuck.

[feuervogel]

So, according to a comment on someone else's f-locked post, the age I'm going to be in 10 years, once we have few or no cats and a smaller principle on our mortgage, that is, 45, is considered "too old" to get a job in Germany, really really.

Fuck my life, fuck me, and fuck that bullshit.

I'm never going to get to move to Berlin if neither Ben (who will ALSO be 45, and a 20-year-experienced software engineer) nor I will be able to get jobs to support ourselves.

I was happy until about 10 minutes ago when I read that comment notification. Now I want to curl up and cry a lot.

Comments

[feuervogel]

I was just reading through my Berlin tag, and I found this unanswered comment. I'm still curious ;)

[kriski]

oops, i completely forgot about that. sorry. thanks for the nudge ;-)

right now the economy is down and 45 IS a stumbling block on the way to new/other employment. if you're not applying from a current job, that is. for some reason, the german job market is very unforgiving to people who are currently (and no matter for how long!) out of work. it's a lot easier to get another job if you have a current one on your resume.

however, software enginieers, especially experienced ones, are sought after. we recently changed the way our university degrees work and the industry is not responding kindly to the newfangled bachelors of sciences, they want the old school dipl-ing. or lots of experience. so, for your partner the lookout is not so bad.

as for yourself, the good thing about berlin is, it's cosmopolitan and needs people with other languages than german to cater to a variety of customers/demands. your english will most likely be the "selling" point that lands you a job. and the fact that you know german as well ;-) i doubt you'd be able to work as fully accredited pharmacist, not without jumping though lots of hoops to get your degree validated. but i gather from your recent posts you're not set onto that particular carreer path.

hope this is a tiny silver lining ;-)

[feuervogel]

I'd forgotten, too, actually! I was just reading through tags, and I said, oh right, there's this comment...

I wonder, would freelance translation work count as a current job? (I'm trying to figure out jobs I could do with a PhD in Germanistik that don't involve moving, and academia isn't one of them... I mean, moving to somewhere in the US only to move again a few years later when Berlin happens? No thanks :S Moving sucks.)

zombieallomorph suggested on facebook that it would be hard to get a job in academia over there, since there's no lack of Germanistik majors. (He suggested DAAD or the Goethe Institut.) But translation, or, hell, teaching English (or German) at a VHS or IDK. Something. (And since I'm a writer, I have a selling point for fiction translation, because I can make stylistic choices.) I wouldn't mind teaching at a GI, but I don't know how often they hire or what the criteria are. There are a few in the US, but not here; the closest are in DC or Atlanta.

Gah I don't know what I want to do with my life. It is a silver lining, though, because Ben's got a master's in computer science and (currently) 12.5 years experience coding 3D modeling software. He's presumably staying at this job for a good long time.