May 19
Got a call. They pay low and the location is inconvenient. But in this job market an opportunity is an opportunity, and it's a multinational at least. I will be interviewed on Monday.

May 24
Well, I had my interview. It's another one down the drain, maybe? Because I was actually overqualified for the job. They were kind of just needing a data entry clerk and weren't looking for a true degree-holding analyst. I offered to maybe do a better job and help with data validation and analytics, and the manager said he would be appreciative but he didn't sound super convincing, like he wasn't really interested in paying more for that. Kind of sucks, but I did know the pay was low and was mostly aiming to get the interview practice.

May 25
As stressing as it is for my mental health, one of the things that has contributed to my life successes in the past is the ability to self-reflect critically: that is, even if the circumstances are largely catalyzed by external factors, you can still try to take the opportunity to reflect and try to do better. For example, if you're on a sports team and your team members are repeatedly missing the ball and causing losses, you can still ignore your team members and try to find a smaller mistake you might have made in those games, instead of putting all the blame on them.

So, work. Maybe my manager isn't lying, maybe the company lacks adequate headcount for me. Or maybe they hate my guts and think I can't perform. Who knows? But I can always improve.

I talked to my father today for a few minutes (my folks are the perfect people to go to regarding this because they are highly critical of me, too) and he gave me several pointers to think about:

• I don't invest enough time into my work in the early stages of the project
• My planning is poor because it does not adequately take into account contingency for emergency factors
• I accept too much upscaling/scope increase in my work, leading to failure. If I accept too much workload and then fail to deliver, management will only remember the failure and ignore all of: my other successes.

When I think about it, I do think there was a timeliness issue in my work as a trainee. Granted, trainees do not have performance objectives and I do not think that should have affected my chances of a full-time contract with this company (and have no idea if it did or didn't). But that is something I should really improve upon as an actual worker - and contract or not, that is what I am now.