Did it have to be me?

Have you ever been discriminated against?
Have you ever been hated and frustrated by people who should be caring for you and who should be there to protect you?
Have you ever felt so down and wished that you were never born?
… Me, I have. I know the pain; the disappointment and the emotional torture that a person in such situation goes through as one tries to cope with the situation at hand.

My story

My name is Annabel Becker. I went to college and graduated with a degree in Urban Planning. After my graduation I had not enough finances to further my education as much as I desired hence, I had to find a job and then would save for my further education.

The job market in my country wasn’t that good then and therefore it became hard securing one. Given that my field of study wasn’t that general, the most promising place to find a job was with our local municipal council. I wrote several applications to them and sent several resumes wherever they were employing. But none of them got through.

Two years in this job such, I was starting to get frustrated. Nothing seemed to be working for me. I had a boyfriend who really tried helping me, though most of the time I felt that I was over-burdening him with my bills. I was still living with my parent.

Then the municipal council began employing again. I applied for a clerical position and luckily, it went through. I was called for an interview and through God’s grace, everything went fine. I was instructed to wait for my appointment letter.

Getting a Job

After about two weeks of waiting, I got a call from their office and they needed further clarification. I was instructed to meet the recruiting officer in a hotel room within town that day in the afternoon. At first, I found this very odd. But since I desperately needed the job, I had no reason to object. I wanted to talk to my bf about this but figured out that it won’t go down well. I’d rather find out why I was meeting someone in the hotel and if there are any demands rather than my expectations then I would reject them.

I went there and met him. He was categorical that I do him a favor if at all I wanted the job. I refused and told him to keep the job. I got angry and hurriedly left. I didn’t talk to my bf about this. The following morning, a mail was dropped instructing me to report to work at the municipal offices the next Monday.

Drama at the office

It had happened that I had successfully passed the interview and the recruiting officer had no sole mandate to revoke it. He was intimidating me to have sex with him because he realized that the appointment letter was on its way and thus wanted to trick me before I realized what happened.

When I started working, it was all hell. Every mistake was blamed on me. I was discriminated, made to work on tough jobs and for longer hours and my attempts to fight back didn’t yield a lot. Six months down, I couldn’t take it anymore.

Luckily, I had applied for a scholarship to study for my Masters and it went through. Finding the workplace inhabitable and the oppression harsher, I quit work and decided to concentrate on my studies.