A bit of a long post so bear with me. Let me start off by saying I'm living in Sri Lanka. If you've seen the news recently you know the whole country has basically come to a standstill because we have no fuel, electricity, gas, food or medicine in the country. People have been staying in line for necessities for weeks on end, continuously. Inflation has skyrocketed – we are looking at 200% price increases in basic items/essentials.
I'm an artist and I work part time and freelance mostly, because I dabble in multiple projects and organisations at the same time. Thanks to the intense political and economic instability of the country, I decided to apply for a specialised job in a corporate (as a Financial Editor) because corporates are the only sort of industry that are keeping their heads above water in this time.
I was nervous about working at a corporate again (I've only worked in one during my Bachelor's but they were a start up with a global working culture so I had no problems there) but I'm just generally against capitalistic, hardcore working life because I take my time and value seriously (I'm aware I sound very privileged as I say this, but corporate had never been an option for me because of the nature of my work. Also working in corporates in Sri Lanka is very different – they are attuned to backward, traditional working values with very high resistance to change). However, I decided to bite the bullet and apply because I needed the stability and a sense of predictability.
I was headhunted for this role because very few people own Masters' in Editing in Sri Lanka, so after applying for it on the 2nd of May, I told the company during the interview that if this job doesn't work out for me I am looking at migration options (almost 200,000 people are leaving Sri Lanka monthly because of the situation). Even though it sounded desperate, I basically told them I put all my eggs in one basket. After the first round, I went to their office to do a 3 hour editing test. They took 3 weeks to get back to me. I had another interview with the head in an international branch. They then took 1 week to get back to me and then sent me another test which I did online. Since then, I've messaged them thrice asking for an update because it's been 3 weeks. They ghosted the first two times and finally on the third they said they'll get back to me EOD. It's been three days since then and still no word.
I'm aware that most job applications take months, especially if it's a large corporation, but what I'm frustrated about is the fact that I have no indication at this point which direction it's going in. It seems like a 50-50. I'm not picking up any freelance projects or continuing my migration plans because I might get this job, and they very much told me I won't have time for other work if I work with them. They asked me in detail during the interviews whether I'll be sticking around and basically grilled me, saying “corporate life isn't gonna be like the work you did before, are you ready for it?” And I seemed so confident and agreeable that even I didn't recognise myself. If they're so hellbent on efficiency and consistency why won't that show up in their own processes?