Too many qualified individuals are left stranded by the bureaucratic systems of two or more countries after decades of struggle and closed doors.
My life is not my own, it´s a social support matter at this point, and serious closed communication. I have too many diplomas at hand, and I know way too many programs to be unseen, yet I´m invisible to the recruiters and ghosted constantly. There is no formation possible for me, as I´m overqualified; therefore, there´s no support whatsoever for those who have studied all their life like me, yet the constant experience I have is xenophobic reactions at each job or when approaching an institution. I could say that until inclusion planning is applied for people like me, we are out of the system, and it´s a system of discrimination that can be contemplated when checking my CV.
A lot of talking about women in technology, but the sad reality is that I saw only 2 women across all the offices, including external workers, in the company that recruited me. As always, in such a job, I was selected for speaking 3 main European languages, therefore to sustain at least 3 markets. I was employed as an external contractor and sent to a company that was about to utilize my services, time, and especially my knowledge, in another town. The company I was directly working for, which sustained its online fashion business, hired me to cover User Account Support and Ticketing incidents in three languages. However, I was informed that the preferred working manner was to respond to each client in their preferred language, whenever possible. For good reasons, instead of training me, the company started asking me to handle incidents from all over the world. Among these incidents, there were a few from Romania and Moldova, and some more from Romanian-speaking shop owners. Their requests were handled in all possible languages, with a preference for French, Italian, English, Spanish, and Russian, but not Romanian.
I was a Romanian recruited to sustain businesses all over the world, and to show respect to the clients I´m interacting with, in their own language, except for my native language speakers, and this has kept happening in the last 10 years.
Who hired me told me that I was actually replacing another Romanian, French speaker, who was fired in a very bad way, after working for years for the company. In a few days, I had heard different versions of the story. Apparently, the woman I was substituting was accused of robbery and disappeared at once, without saying goodbye. Her colleagues had different versions of the items she might have stolen; some said a dress, others a tablet.
I´ve trembled. This situation was not new for me. Whilst I was working in England, in a warehouse, a Romanian was accused of stealing a 3 pounds memory stick, and for this we all received less work. The agencies that contracted us were only programming 3 days of work per week, or we used to have the week full, 7 days from 7, with extra shifts. The lack of dedicated work, as a group punishment method, affected the level of what you would gain from paying rent and utilities. I knew that replacing a Romanian accused of stealing was a delicate situation for me, even if I´m not attracted to material stuff, but in recent years, strange things have happened. I felt in danger.
On the first day, I was ignored, and since the job was far away, in a polygon that smelled like pig manure, the whole situation made it difficult for me to go back. I would have renounced at the moment, but accessing a job was difficult in the last months, and I didn´t have much choice, so I put myself through hell, as by now I had a cat to make happy, and myself I was already too slim and needed to eat properly, and take care of this small body.
It´s been more than 3 months, and only now can I write about what happened. I was in shock for a long time, disgusted, left without the energy to react.
