Pret a Manger provides comfortable seats, ample plug sockets and an environment of white noise. At this Pret in Victoria, I'm starting to recognise the people around me. A teacher to my left, who comes to Pret to mark his papers in his free lesson periods. The server who knows what coffee I want in the morning (although the real coffee I want here is 'None Pret, your coffee tastes like grit') and the two girls who have more work coffee breaks than I'm sure their company allows.
It's nowhere near as sociable and friendly as a real workplace, but at least JobHungryGrad doesn't feel isolated and stuck at home.
I think isolation is the most danger that an unemployed graduate looking for work can put themselves in. There is a feeling that its totally possible to disappear from society and that nobody would notice. You, locked alone in your house, in a London suburb, could very easily disappear from the network and no-one would know. Of course, it's not true, but full days of having to converse with your mind, your fingers, and whoever might email you during the working day can leave you with a sense of solitude to the extent that you start to feel as though you might be auditioning for the leading role in Gabriel Garcia Marquez' seminal tome.
If you're one of these filthy job-hunting scroungers, get to a coffee shop, zone into your work for the week and get on it. Hint number two: dress up. I'm wearing formal clothes because it makes me feel as though I'm 'really' working. Wear a hoody and gym leggings and chances are people won't take you quite as seriously.
Plus, good things come from working in coffee shops looking nice:
- On friday I got asked out on a date by a hot Danish guy
- I've been given business cards from people after we've got chatting and they've heard my sad and desperate JobHungrySadGrad situation
- I got free coffee in Pret last week. I KNOW.
Plus be courteous with your table/laptop space, or if you want to annoy telegraph readers, go crazy:
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