A shadow of my former self?

Sincere apologies for the lack of commenting on here, I've been busy applying for jobs... with another application beckoning tonight!

For those of you not au fait with the idiosyncrasies of the teaching job application process, what normally happens is that no matter how outstanding you are, an NQT/their current trainee/former pupil always gets the job... and you can guarantee that that is exactly who you will be up against. Most of the time, in fact, the vacancy has already been filled before the interview day but apparently there is some sort of legal recruitment criteria that means they have to invite several people who have absolutely zero chance of getting the job, leading to it being a huge waste of everybody's time. And, unlike in the private sector, the candidates are expected to spend the day all together in a group, as if on some sort of fun, team-building seminar, apart from when they are teaching their sample lesson.

The other problem is that most new appointments are only made on temporary, one year contracts and if you want to stay for a further year, you literally need to apply for your own job again, facing several other external candidates for a full-on interview day, rather than just having your contract automatically renewed or changed to permanent.

Despite being told by my line managers that I'm 'a miracle worker', 'a legend', they 'wouldn't know what to do without me', they all 'love me' and that I have 'a telepathic ability' to know what they need, out of seventeen applications the school only interviewed five trainee teachers and therefore will have an NQT in September. I know these decisions are made by the headteacher and based on cost but I am still absolutely gobsmacked that they couldn't even spare me an hour of their time and at least pretend I had a chance...

Just as well my middle name is 'Resilience'!

Btw, I did a survey and everyone said no, I'm definitely not as fat as I look here!