Applying for Jobs and the feelings that come

It's like going on a blind date. you are showing what is most appealing of yourself and answering the list of requirements. age range, hair colour, must know Spanish, believe in Jesus, be able to kiss your elbow. The list is very long. You happen to find some lists that you fit and you start to respond, you write it all down, it seems long, you get tired of thinking of new description words that convey how you did it all by yourself and have sincerity not boastfulness and then you feel resentment that they want to be so prescriptive. Do I really have to drive or is a clean driving licence euphemism for wanting a suggestion of compliance of rules to the point of never having had a speeding infringement? I start to suspect their motives, I feel interrogated, challenged, you are not good enough and you will never meet my long exacting list. Then they want references and honestly by now I just want to give them my previous owners telephone numbers and say go on ring them, they'll tell you, why ask me? They won't be coy and they'll recall more because its not oppressive and tiring and almost offensive to them.

I'll wear a shorter skirt, make my intentions clear, I will prostrate myself, lie down at your mercy, consider me for this job? You won't regret it.

There is some, oh god why should I do this again. Every application wants your education and employment history in a different format, each list item is worded differently and each person reading it wants to see different things. I know I have all you need and yet getting you to see that, bother reading it, is all chance and after how many I've started and all the ones I've finished, and nothing to show for it, each word you write I wonder why I bother.

Having left a job and a workplace I was at for 15 years I feel that I am rusty, I am conditioned to the way we recruited there. Each word fine tooth come, considered and thorough. Don't suppose it yielded better results, but it felt fair.

So an interview at last. I feel some hope but this weight of effort and dissapointment must be thrown away first and how I wonder?