Armed with just the temporary paper where it said I graduated - the actual diplomas will be handed at a ceremony next june - I went straight to the erc of the kombinat. I wasn't passed to any of the actual programming staff, got to speak with the director first, some Šanji Taličovski guy, who took some ten minutes to tell me what they are all about and how does that work, without asking me any questions, then forwarded me to some kind of a secretary, or maybe the guy was some commissar. Didn't know him in person, but knew the story. He's one of the twins who graduated law (and allegedly they each learned half the stuff and then passed the same exams twice, once in his own name, once in brother's) and became politicians. Guess this one was the HR referrent (i.e. in charge of), I know the other one was something in the komitet (ever since that ruckus of september 1973 when he was some bigwig in SSOJ).
While he didn't comment on my looks (the shoulder length hair, jeans, split beard), I guess he just couldn't imagine me working there, so he pointed out the current restrictions. The country was in some of a crisis at the time, as usual, and there was to be no employment of non-production staff unless there was an expansion - which meant maybe they'd hire if they bought more computers, which was under a different restriction of the same kind. But they may be able to prove the neccessity and then be allowed the purchase, at which time an ad would be published and then I'd be free to apply.
I think I also got to talk with the actual boss, who didn't really talk about my chances to get the job, but about what they were doing, don't know why.
Which was, altogether, a combination of a both gentle and hostile fuckoff. While I didn't expect a red carpet, I did expect some kind of opening in a, say, few months. Specially as I was one of kombinat's kids - both parents worked in it - and it was customary that such kids got jobs almost automatically. This was a bit of a cold shower.
In the following weeks I tried getting a job at other places, but it was generally a no go. At some point we even considered taking a teaching position in Žepče (in the not so mountainous part of Bosnia), but then I wouldn't be considered unemployed and would rank behind anyone else when a job popped up at home, and most of all I wouldn't even know if there was one.
5-II-2020 - 20-VIII-2025