coffee off the clock is a weekly column full of musings on life since i left my 9-5, and building a life around writing. join me for a coffee every week and follow my journey!

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mini golf, pancakes, lattes and middle eastern food – all in a friday celebration of 2 years of majd & i. and in between it all, i couldn’t find a moment to write the column. so reader, please forgive me for the late delivery but i think slow sundays are better for reading anyway.

this friday’s brunch was at a cosy little venue – medina’s coffee in shawlands. it was a lot smaller than i expected but i think that’s part of the charm. did i go for a hazelnut latte YET again? yes. did i go for pistachio pancakes YET again? aha…no! because there was none on the menu lol.

but if there was ailsa, you would’ve. and reader, you might well be right, but the fact remains – i did not partake in the pistachio pandemic for a singular week. i risked a new pancake flavour and it paid off. biscoff, white chocolate and strawberries.

say hi to majd behind me! yap score was a quaint 6/10. nothing to do with the coffee and a lot to do with caffeine just not hitting the spot with me lately. yapped about the hilarity of justin bieber’s coachella doomscroll. yapped about sabrina carpenter’s apparent disdain for zaghrouta. then dove a little deeper into the idea that rejections are redirections.

i was at the hairdressers this week, going for a bob refresh. there’s something that activates the inner joan of arc when you get a bob and i’ve not been the same person since i got the chop over three years ago. now, this is the perfect time to introduce the song of the week: big mouth strikes again by the smiths. now i know how joan of arc felt. i think i’ve been in their top 1% of listeners since 2019.

anyway, i love the chats that i have with my hairdresser. i’m not entirely sure if she’s aware, but she’d make an amaaazing journalist.

one minute we’re talking about our favourite netflix shows, then she’s asking me life’s big questions. one being: if i regret going to uni. and that came after talking about the years of job rejections i experienced when i began doubting my path as a writer.

i explained that the job rejections did make me question the five years i spent earning two degrees. and if degrees are even a valuable currency at all anymore.

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now i know how joan of arc felt

after my first 50 rejections, i thought there’s nothing wrong. after 150 rejections i thought there’s something wrong with me. then after 200+ rejections, i knewthere was something wrong with the system.

and that was confirmed to me when i sat in front of my work coach at the job centre and he could say nothing to me but ‘keep trying’. headlines across the country have also been confirming this:

“…in 2024, over 700,000 graduates were out of work and claiming benefits, with many facing intense competition, “ghost jobs,” and AI filtering in a challenging market. While degrees increase earning potential, high-risk fields like creative arts can see nearly 9% unemployment.” – the guardian.

it just makes me think: is there any wonder so many people are stuck in fields and jobs that are soul-destroying? i risked it all because i could. many people can’t. i had the backing. i had the privilege of a strong scaffolding of support from my family and partner, but just because i had it good, didn’t mean i had it easy.

for me, life feels too fragile and fleeting to be spending the rest of my days betraying myself for someone else’s idea of security and success. i’ll forgive you for thinking that i’m an idealist, or out of touch even. i had this privilege but i was never removed from reality. i wasn’t above the fury of life’s wrath.

i’ve experienced what i call ‘the pit’, the states that most of us fear: jobless, ‘on the brew’ and very close to houseless amongst many other collapses that aren’t so apparent or external. and even on my darkest days since leaving my job – it is still the most liberated i’ve ever felt. because i can cry on my own time.

i’m going to say something that is so laughably simplistic yet so strangely radical: it is a basic human right to do what you love for a living and to do so without guilt. i say this with a sad truth in my heart: we are no longer living. we are at best surviving and at worst, dying. even if only on the inside.

we’re a culture obsessed with suffering, excited to prove to one another the nobility in it. no i have suffered the most. no i have suffered more than you. it’s as if when we reach the pearly gates of heaven, god will open it only to those who had stayed late at work, who betrayed the pleas of their bodies, betrayed their vocational callings and those who denied themselves joy. it would be interesting if we stopped to question the term ‘earn a living’ and why it is so engrained in our vocab.

this is a life i lived. i was a shell behind a desk, staying after hours and pushing myself to unhealthy limits for no good reason. to prove to my manager that i was good. that i was willing to suffer for some trivial deadline or silly praise.

what did i tell you about the bob, reader? it does something. i fear the inner joan of arc is rising in me as i write so bear with me 🐻.

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i’ve got no right to take my place with the human race

all i know is that i want to write. but on this journey, i have come up against guilt, condescension, ridicule and even accusations of insanity (my personal fav💅), selfishness, naïvety and recklessness, all for choosing the path that felt most true to me. and at some points, my worst points, i’ve been the worst for partaking in it. self-doubt was my only companion on a very lonely road for a while.

but i’ve spent the last 2 years unwinding all of these tangled beliefs, like sore knots under my skin. the ones that kept me small, obedient and desperate to prove my value in this world. and when i left my insurance job, i was so worried about giving up that salary in search of something more honest.

but as i sit here today, tapping on my keys, and thinking of the many rejections and most importantly, the few jobs that i refused, i realised that i cannot be bought, not even in my most desperate moments. that doesn’t make me reckless and insane: it makes me human and honest. and that’s a very hard thing to be in a world that rewards lies, especially those ones you tell to yourself.

this isn’t a critique of individuals, it’s what i’ve been able to see clearly now of the system who creates that environment. that grinds their workers down so bad that it makes it terrifying and near impossible for people to leave or feel empowered enough to do what they love.

we call it courage to leave a toxic relationship, but call it irresponsibility to leave a toxic job. the former we believe is an act of self-worth, the latter we reject in the name of security. but at the risk of this becoming too think piecey (see, i’ve got a bit of self-awareness!) let’s do a little shimmy back to the question from my hairdresser. i think she’ll love to know she inspired this.

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big mouth strikes again

i don’t regret uni. my uni degrees are not purposeless, they just serve a different purpose now. i’ve accepted that they aren’t the currency that is going to get me into the job market. after all, i’ve realised that i don’t want to be on a market at all. their value depends on what you value. and for me, it’s no longer a corporate job. the very experience of uni has, in hindsight, mattered more.

i was never going to be same girl that entered those cinder block halls as the one who left them. the many, many bad decisions i made between them. the nights of no sleep and awful ready meals. there’s nothing romantic about those days for me and truthfully, nothing i miss. but i guess what’s different is i no longer reject them. they were just…necessary.

anyway reader, i can never predict where this column is going as i bring up the blank page each week. is it strange that i feel a little exposed after writing that? i feel quite literally like big mouth strikes again. i’m still getting used to my own voice. it’s one thing to arrive at a belief through experience and something else entirely to say it out loud.

if it reads like i’m living in my head, it’s because i’ve been living in my head. you can thank the bob for that 👩‍🦳. regardless, i wanted this column to be the most accurate representation of where i am on my journey. and right now, it’s true, i’m a little too in my head. more thoughts than feeling.

until next week reader, may all your coffees come with an answer to life’s big questions that satisfies your soul!

– ailsa x