Bukola

“I’m an actor. I’m currently studying at university, drama and performance. In my last job, I felt more confident in speaking up and saying things because of acting.

My first-ever job was in a restaurant. It was shit. After that I wanted something different, maybe retail or business, but it was so hard to get a job from there.

I spent probably the whole summer searching and applying for jobs. It was always like, ‘You have no experience, you’re not right for this job’. I think I applied for about 200 jobs. I got one or two interviews but it didn’t go further. A lot of places didn’t get back to me at all.

It got to a point where I was applying constantly and not one company even wants to give a phone call and so I started to think, ‘Does my CV screams ‘too much’?’ I thought maybe it was my name, so I shortened my surname. I used to put, ‘African/British’ on it. I think that’s kind of to do with me wanting to be an actor, that I always want to be showing myself, what makes me different from the crowd and why you should pick me for this role. But I took it off too. I thought too much of my personality was on there when maybe they just want someone to do a job.

I got the job at Tesco that I interviewed for, but it was so draining for myself as a person, I felt like I lost myself a lot. That was the one time I changed everything: I just wanted another job, I didn’t care if I had to turn to societal norms, I just wanted a job.”