Things fall into place

Image source: http://tinyurl.com/2353vye

Things today have felt a bit like they are falling into place.

I mentioned in a previous post about Marianne Cantwell's Escape Your Corporate Cage career course that I had enrolled on, after things failed to take off for me with the similar Screw Work, Let's Play programme.  This Tuesday will be the second teleclass of the program, and I have been working on my accompanying worksheets.

The first set had me start with imagining my dream life -- not so hard to do, it involved things like writing and living near the sea and working from home.  I came a little unstuck around having to come up with a kind of project the first week -- I just drew a blank.  Like with Screw Work, Let's Play and the book's "Play Wednesdays", it should be something that's fun to do and you enjoy and would ideally form a part of your ideal life.  It's pretty sad when you can't think of anything.

To try and make some progress, and because it comes highly recommended by Ms Cantwell and John Williams, I took the Wealth Dynamics test.  I voiced some reservations at first.  In some ways it isn't too dissimilar to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator -- that I took last year when I was out of work, and has no scientific validity its profiling.  While I wasn't assured of any kind of scientific validity to it, I was told that it would help with supporting me on the course if I did know what my WD profile is.

I wasn't exactly surprised when -- $100 later -- of the 8 personality profiles, I turned up the "creator".  I'd read that most people guess their profiles wrong before they take the test, but I would have been very surprised had mine turned up anything other than that.  Recently at work we were giving interviewees psychometric tests, to rate their scores in various aspects, such as creativity and organisation.  I scored off the chart for creativity.

Considering I score so highly for creativity, I was a little disheartened that my muse was absent when I wanted to think of something to do.  I could think of my plans and free range career options, just not some little thing I could do for a taste of it.

Fortunately, today that has all changed.  I have worked through my worksheets for week 2, and was required to outline 3 or 4 ideas for my free range career.  My ideas were as follows:

1. Writing childrens books, in particular books about a naughty zebra who won't do things like have a bath or get ready for bed.  Why a zebra?  I just like them, and while I like things like Bongos and Zedonks more, they are a little obscure for childrens books.

2. An adventure sport company that benefits local communities.  It's an idea I have written on here about before, and it's a fairly simple concept.

3. Feature writer.  Essentially, I write about what I am passionate about.  In this case, I plan to talk to passionate and inspiring people and write about them.

I was then required to eventually narrow down my ideas to just one I am going to pursue for now.  It was hard. It was extremely bloody hard.  I wasn't worried so much about choosing the wrong thing, but I didn't want to not pursue something I was excited about.  In the end, I have decided that my third option gives me all of the elements I want most for my free range lifestyle, and can work other parts into it.

Starting immediately I am going to make contact with people I want to interview for my features.  Since I promised this year I would contact Carol Ann Duffy and Simon Armitage, they can be the start -- and my meeting now will be less "Can we have tea?" but more "I'd like to talk to you about your work".

I am excited and enthused to be starting on this -- the Zebra books can wait a little while.  I'm so excited I am ignoring that I have to go to work tomorrow, because this is really what my life is about...

The nights draw in

In the end, The Screw Work, Let's Play eSchool and/or Programme that I wrote about last time didn't happen for me. We could probably see that was how it would be at the end of the post -- I wasn't suitable for the eSchool, and couldn't afford the bigger Programme.

I can't deny I'm disappointed, but the guys involved were -- and are -- so incredibly nice and helpful. It wasn't their fault I don't have a clear enough idea of what I want to do to join in the SWLP eSchool, and I felt they were genuinely sorry they couldn't help to make the programme more attainable for me. I wonder if I'm even the target market -- perhaps it is aimed more at older, successful people who have had enough of the corporate life and want to be their own boss. Rather than myself, while not exactly counting as a "young person" any more, but far from successful in any of my chosen careers to date. And still searching.

Speaking of searching, my recent meeting with the boss was surprisingly productive, and I think I may have previously underestimated her. It's silly, because obviously she has been running and growing a business for the last however-many years, even if the company does sometimes seem to be balancing on a knife edge.

Completely aside from anything to do with the business itself, I get the impression that she has actually listened to my thoughts and feelings in previous meetings, as well as things I have said unofficially -- and combined this with her own perceptions of me, and my preferred methods of work. The outcome is that I appear to be offered a job that has been almost tailored to me -- sure, it's not my dream job, but nothing is going to be until I work out what that is. Just the same, if I have to stay in the company, then it's not a bad start to be in a job with more of a focus on social media, that takes me out of telemarketing, and gives me the time to be creative.

I was asked if it was a job I would apply for if I saw it advertised elsewhere. That's a difficult question, because I have seen recently quite how negative things can turn if an employer finds out you are looking elsewhere -- and the jobs I do apply for elsewhere never lead to anything. As I say, it's a start -- but it's getting to that start right now that seems a struggle, since first we have to recruit more members for the sales team, then have them all settled and trained and performing, before I can leave.

Outside of work and wondering what the hell I'm doing generally... there's not a whole heap to report. I've been meaning to get back into the rock climbing -- I even found out when the next course was starting, how much it was, and convinced a colleague to join in. Then plans collapsed when we ended up with more work and no chance to take part.

I remembered recently that I said before I turn 30 I would write letters to Alexei Sayle, Carol Ann Duffy, and Simon Armitage and ask them if I can have tea with them. Since the big 3-0 is rapdily approaching in the new year, there's no time to waste -- but the letters haven't yet been written. Or started.

The clock's went back to GMT in England this morning, so winter is on its way and the nights aren't so much drawing in, as they are drawn. It's that time of year where it gets dark, wet, and cold -- we should probably invest in one of those light boxes to keep the 'natural' light levels up.

Lots of people online are talking once more about NaNoWriMo -- I've never joined in before. And won't be this time, even though there's that rumoured zombie novel I'm never actually writing. I skipped last month's "Kid, I Wrote Back" open mike poetry -- partly due to only the day before returned from warmer climes, but partly because I'd felt the session we had in the park in the summer had gone horribly for me. That's no excuse, since I'd performed at an open mike since then in London at The Poetry Cafe, and been received warmly and appreciatively for my humour, talk of space and wonders of the solar system, as well as my actual poetry. Just the same, I have nothing written for the next session and no real ideas.

I keep thinking I want to write something about Jupiter's volcanic moon Io, because I think it's fascinating...but that's quite a big call for someone of very limited talent.

Left a good job in the city, working for the man every night and day

Something is wrong with me.
Every day, people go to work.
Plumbers, police officers, and postal workers.
Dustmen, doctors, and dot net developers.
Museum curators, masseurs, and Michael Jackson impersonators.

and me.

I feel sure that of all the people I see each day, everyone else is quietly going about their days, doing their jobs, and not thinking at least once a day " I need to get out of the place, but I have no idea what I could do any more".
What is wrong with me that I am not happy just having a job?  And not just any old job, but one that rewards me handsomely if I meet targets each month and each quarter. A job so simple that all I have to do is sell stuff, and if I want to earn more, I just have to work harder.


I should be thrilled that nobody's life hangs in the balance with what I do.  I should be grateful that I have a job almost guaranteed for as long as I can live up to my key performance indicators.  I should be kissing someone's feet in thanks for never having to worry about my safety beyond if the water in the cooler is looking a little green.

But we all know the drill by now: I'm not.

Thankfully, last week I read about the "Paid to Play eSchool", from John Williams and Marianne Cantwell, and it sounded like just what I needed.  I'm a reader and Twitter follower of both Williams and Cantwell (as regular readers will have noticed in recent posts), and was convinced from just reading about the eSchool that the cost would be a good investment for me.  It might not get me out of this job right now, but in time it would pay off when I was getting paid to do what I love.  I signed up, I was excited and I was nervous.

I wouldn't say I was now happy to go to work, but I could stand it better knowing that it could pay for something like this -- something that would help me work out how to use my talents and passions to make my way in the world, rather than just working for the man every night and day.

The trouble came a few days later, when I started to doubt my own suitability for the sessions. I read and re-read the synopsis, and started to wonder if it wasn't perhaps more pitched at people who knew what they wanted to do, but needed some help to do it, rather than fuck ups like me who are still kicking ideas about in their head like half-deflated footballs.  While I know that surely whatever I do must involve writing, I get a bit lost beyond that.  Sure, I could go in to the eSchool and say "I want to run an adventure sports company where the profits all go into helping the local communities where the activities are run".  But when I think about it, what about that would I actually enjoy?  What do I know about running any kind of a business, anyway, and is that the part I would actually enjoy -- or would it just be the adventure sports?  That's hardly a way forward.

I fired off an email, mentioning my thoughts and concerns -- and I hoped they'd say "Don't be silly!  That's normal -- everyone will be in the same boat as you!".  But instead, they agreed with me -- it wasn't right for me.  Now I feel like I can't even do this right.  I'm immensely grateful the organisers don't just take the money and run, they care about actually helping people (this is their own "paid to play" careers, I guess), and so it's important to get me in at the level that's appropriate.  Unfortunately, the appropriate level for me is going to be a lot more money than I have spare -- it's a work in progress, I'm waiting to hear back if there is anything I can do to make up the shortfall in cost between one programme and the other.

In the meantime, the boss has asked me for a meeting this week to discuss the job that we previously started talking about, and which I believe they moved the goalposts on and probably will do again.  What's supposed to get me out of sales and into social media and copywriting of email newsletters could just turn out to be a carrot on a stick, luring me ever forwards to keep me there.

I walk past people every day getting off the train and going to work on a building site neighbouring my flat, and I wonder if they ever think about their jobs -- or if they just get on with it, and accept it as normal.

Innernetz, I need your help!

It's Thursday, and by all rights I should today return to the much-neglected and Gala Darling-inspired Things I Love Thursday posts.  Except it's hard for me today to list the things I love -- or at least make it interesting.

The last couple of days in London, it's seemed like it has barely got light -- the rain has been torrential, and almost constant.  We can't complain too much though -- it's a subtle reminder of how bad things are in other parts of the world, like Africa and Asia -- Pakistan in particular.

The cloud and the rain is also a useful metaphor for how I've felt this week, and increasingly over the last couple of weeks.  I've been saying it almost from the day I started in this job, but I really have to get out of here -- it has been particularly painful this week.  Naturally, there's been no more talk of the marketing position I was offered a few weeks back -- so there's no way of knowing if or when that will happen, or if it will even be a job worth taking.  Right now I am just feeling stranded in a job I hate, with no way of knowing what to do to get out or to change it.

So, innernetz, I am asking for your help.  I am sincerely hoping there are more people reading this than I think, otherwise it's to an audience of one.  If you're pushed for time, just scroll down to the parts in bold for the action items -- then come back for the rest later.  You know you'll want to.

I was struck yesterday by something someone said on Twitter.  Inspired Entrepreneur Nick Williams had a short, simple message that said "Your creative and spiritual gifts are a perfect match for someone else’s needs and wants".  While I have some doubts about any "spiritual" gifts I have to offer (due to my skepticism about the existence of any kind of "spirit"), I do truly believe that my creative gifts -- my skills -- would be a perfect match for someone.  I'm a talented guy.  I write well, I'm creative and imaginative, I am easy to get along with and undemanding.  I am also very passionate when something engages my interest.

And this is why I need your help, Innernetz.  Being good just isn't good enough today, especially not when there are far more people than there are jobs.  Ultimately, I want to come to the point where I can turn my unique ideas into something that will earn me a living -- but before I can get to that point, I need to keep working -- and I need to be working in a job that I don't feel is crushing me.

Traditional job hunting is getting me nowhere.  Applying for jobs advertised on the internet places me as one among hundreds of applicants, and I am lucky to get so much as a polite refusal.  Recruitment consultants are unwilling to return my phone calls.  One trusted recruiter, whom I have dealt with over several years, describes my experience to date as "choppy" -- which she feels combines with a lack of recent experience in a creative or media role to give me this current situation: languishing in sales.

We need to a different approach, and something needs to change.  We've heard about the guy who is advertising a promise of 10% of his first month's wages to someone who can get him a job.  We've heard of people walking the streets with a sandwich board requesting a job.  I even heard of one guy, who after being rejected from the same PR agency several times, resorted to erecting a billboard on their front lawn.  It had a childhood picture of himself, and the caption "When I grow up, I want to work for...".  Funny how I can't remember the agency's name any more.

I need a unique angle to demonstrate the skills I have that make me such an amazing employee.  The second prong of the attack is that I also need anyone who reads this to drop me a line with a suggestion of someone I can contract -- a friend, an ex-employer, even a current employer -- who would be able to help me with this job hunt.

I am reading a lot of career change/life coach information at the moment -- including John Williams' "Screw Work, Let's Play", Marianne Cantwell's "Free Range Humans", and Mark McGuinness' "Lateral Action".  The trouble is -- and maybe it's the job (what Mr McGuinness calls "the sensible job that pays the bills but corrodes your soul") -- but I come home every night feeling frustrated, resentful and depressed.  This doesn't fill me with energy and optimism for striking out on my own, if I even knew what I wanted to do or how I could do it.

To recap -- what do I need?  Firstly and obviously, the main thing is I need a new job.  In the absolute short term, I need a job where I can be useful and creative and use my talents.  It doesn't have to be what I am going to do with the rest of my life, but I can't get anywhere when I feel the way I currently do each day.

Secondly, I need your thoughts and your ideas and your help on what I can do to.  Traditional job hunting methods are dead -- I need something that's going to set me apart.

Thirdly, and this can tie in with the second, I need referrals and contacts.  People who will listen to what you say when you tell mention my name.

For the rest of it, I'm on my own.  It's going to be up to me to figure out how to eventually turn "work" into "play", to break free of my rusty cage, and to strike out on my own.  But before I can do any of that, someone get me out of this sales role.

Got the funk

I can't deny it, I am in a funk right now.  The trouble is, I don't know what to do to change it.

I take the right pills every day.  I also take multivitamins, cod liver oil and vitamin C supplements.  I make a conscious effort to take the stairs rather than use the lift nine times out of 10, and walk up escalators rather than ride to the top.

I can't say I don't have enough social interaction, either.  I am forced in my job to be calling people almost all day, every day, and went out to lunch with delegates twice in the same week.  I also went out and performed some of my poetry at the Poetry Cafe's "unplugged" night on Tuesday night, to a warm response.  One of the people there mentioned recognising me from Kid, I Wrote Back in Shoreditch and my recent performance at the festival in Shoreditch park.  Interestingly, after my performance in the park I have been considering giving up on writing and performing poetry since I am really just not that good.

So, then -- what's wrong?  Work continues to get me down, as ever.  Last week, apropos of nothing one day the MD asked me for 15 - 20 minutes.  We had a meeting, and she offered me the opportunity to take up a different role within the company -- to move out of sales and into marketing, because she thought I would be good at it and might enjoy it more.  I was pleased, I thought I would enjoy it more, and would be good at it -- putting the "social" into social media marketing, writing the email newsletters that go out to our community, and hopefully getting some specific time set aside to write the blog I set up for the company but never have the time or motivation to do anything with.

We said I'd take the week to think it over.  And the first thing I had to think about was, what was the salary going to be like in this position?  You would expect that this would be given with any kind of information about a role being offered, after all it would dramatically affect any decision you were to make.  But all this week the most I was able to establish was that it would be "very similar" to my current salary, which given it would be marketing instead of sales, didn't seem to make a whole heap of sense -- how similar could it be if there were no commissions from sales?

I got to have a meeting today, to discuss my thoughts.  And in this meeting today it seemed like in seven days the goalposts had been moved -- where last week I was told I would be starting this role in 2 - 3 months, if I took it, since they'd need to hire and train someone new for sales, today I was told it would be more like 4 - 6 months.  They want to bring in at least 3 new sales team members to ensure there is no dip in revenue.  I also found out that my salary will indeed be very similar in this new role, because I will be expected to be directly generating sales still!  Not through telemarketing, thankfully, but I will still be expected to work on commission and meet sales targets.

This time last week I was happy and excited about the possibility.  Today I feel a bit ripped off.  I have provisionally accepted the position for now, but can change my mind at any time, so will have to keep looking for something else.  And will have to magically find some motivation to look for jobs and apply for jobs and not get disheartened when nothing comes of it.

In her email newsletter today, Marianne Cantwell of Free Range Humans, explores how these days being employed -- rather than self-employed -- is the riskier option.  Her argument makes a lot of sense "With job security out the window for most people, employment is the equivalent to being self employed with only one client (your employer)".  I'd not thought of it like that before, but it makes a lot of sense.

What I disliked about being a freelance PR was the worry of not knowing when I would be working next, or how long I would be between positions.  I didn't enjoy the free time between roles or go anywhere like I planned to because I didn't know how long I had to last for.  Maybe I just wasn't a very good freelancer, one recruiter once told me that if I was any good I would have been offered a permanent role -- and I felt the same way, I longed for a secure, permanent position, somewhere I could stay and grow.  The world doesn't feel that way any more -- the threat of redundancy feels like it is going to be there, and you can expect to change careers, not just jobs, several times in your working lifetime.

With a little thanks due to Gala Darling, in a recent burst of inspiration my girl has started to put into practice her plans for world domination.  Determined not to spend the next 30 years working in an office for someone else, the girl is putting into action plans for her own business -- go to her blog and check it out, because not only is she someone special, but she has some excellent ideas and is really showing the rest of us how it's done when it comes to making plans to break free and go into business being yourself.  Embodying the ideas of Screw Work, Let's Play -- and now borrowing my copy of John Williams book -- the girl will soon be getting paid to play, or in her case be getting paid to be crafty.

It's far too simplistic to blame all my unhappiness right now on a job I can't stand most of the time.  But when you are there and feeling that way 9 hours a day, 7 days a week, I guess it has an effect.  Obviously, I have deeper seated issues I also need to address -- if I was a happier person, maybe I wouldn't let a job get me down.  But I'm just in a funk right now.

The Inspired Entrepreneur Club

"The problem with the French is that they have no word for entrepreneur."

As invented quotes attributed to George "Dubya" Bush goes, that is particularly unconvincing -- not least because I wouldn't have expected Bush Jnr. to be familiar with the word "entrepreneur".

A group of people who are familiar with it, however, are Nick Williams' Inspired Entrepreneur Club.  I had the great pleasure of attending a meeting of the club on Wednesday night, though I think of myself less in terms of entrepreneur and more in terms of artist. Or dreamer.

This is the kind of event you hope to find in London, a diverse collection of individuals meeting at the International Students House in Great Portland St -- which to my mind is a pretty inspired choice of location.  Perhaps it was entirely coincidental, but as you walk in to the building you pass groups of young people from all over the world, all speaking different languages, all living in this big crazy city, so far from home.  That is inspiration right there -- leaving behind the comfortable and the familiar to live in another country.

The meeting itself started with a few moments of quiet reflection.  That scores points in my book right away, a few minutes of quiet with just my thoughts is rare for me -- time before sleep doesn't really count, since it rapidly descends into the nonsensical and from there dreams.

Working in sales as I do, so much of my day has to be spent on the phone.  If I take too long to write notes between dialling numbers I am immediately picked up on, so the short times scheduled for admin in the day when I don't have to be actively calling don't give me time for my own thoughts.  Every phone call I make during the day is monitored for length, I consider myself fortunate they aren't "recorded for training purposes".

You don't expect time for quiet reflection at an "entrepreneur" evening, but it was a far cry from the familiar networking events of people awkwardly mingling and swapping business cards and looking for who can bring them business.

The meeting itself commenced after the time of reflection, but even the networking wasn't "Hello, what do you do?" but instead was focused on sharing something -- or things -- that had inspired us.  It can be a little alarming when your first thought is that you can't think of a single inspiring thing.  I used to write "Things I Love Thursday" posts, which strangely enough stopped almost entirely when I got a new job last year -- I'm thinking now I might perhaps write regular posts on things that inspire me.  Like the BBC TV programme "Wonders of the Solar System", mentioned in previous posts.  What inspired me this week was seeing the girl in her show choir perform last weekend -- it took tremendous courage and dedication for everyone involved.  Search on YouTube for Starling Arts "Summer in the City" event if you want to see videos from the performances.

It inspired me to want to sing.  I already love music and part of me likes being the centre of attention -- which is part of the motivation behind my poetry and spoken word performances.  I enjoy karaoke and a few months ago I was indulged shamelessly at a karaoke event with a real band, where I acted like a rock star and belted out versions of "Teenage Kicks" and "Are You Gonna Be My Girl".  The benefit of singing with a real band like that was that I couldn't hear what I sounded like, but I cringe a little with shame when I think how terrible it must have been for the audience, since I am incapable of singing in tune.  So the concert on Saturday has inspired me to make contact with the organisers and ask if singing lessons are possible and if it can be possible to be without help.

Naturally, with any entrepreneur evening there was also discussion of what we do for a living as well as our dreams and ambitions.  I spoke to someone and told them of my passion for writing, how I write almost compulsively (it's not like I write this blog for the acclaim or wide readership).  They asked me what made me want to start writing -- and the funny thing is I realised it's just something I have always done, always wanted to do, and always been quite good at.  At school -- not unlike now -- I was never happier than when I was allowed to just write, to just be creative.  I wasn't a very good journalist -- though I read professionals in newspapers who are far worse than I ever was -- but part of that was no doubt a certain lack of confidence and shyness about talking to people.  Not great quality in a news reporter.

Late in the evening, one lady spoke of her ambition to be able to help people with cancer -- by way of an alternative to chemotherapy.  There was some brief discussion of marketing, and it was suggested to her about setting up a blog.  Being of a different generation, she seemed a little intimidated by the idea of having to learn new computer skills despite how simple she was told it would be.  And I had a thought, there is another way.

I write here on occasion of a desire to work in web content, to combine my existing writing skills with web design skills.  I would have liked to have been able to say to this lady, "Don't worry, I can help, just tell me what you want to say".  Web designers come a dime by the dozen, and I am struggling to get started with learning design (Javascript may have been a dead end or a false start), but part of me thinks I could be happy doing something like that -- I can take what you want to say and make it more readable, I can take what you have and give you a way to present it.  It's a thought anyway.

I'm gonna break my rusty cage... and run

 

My moods are lately cycling between depression/despair, and a kind of almost euphoric optimism.  It's fun for the whole family, I can tell you.  I saw an ad in the morning paper to take part in a clinical trial looking at depression -- "Great," I thought "This is one clinical trial where they won't exclude you for having a history of depression."

As a sidenote, if it wasn't for the fact that I'm a bit of a screw-up and didn't exactly ace the first interview, I am reasonably sure that I would have been turned away from joining the RAF because of a history of depression.

Anyway, I was rejected for the study after all -- because I had psychotherapy last year when I was out of work and depressed.  It was early and I was tired and I should have called it by its proper name of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy, and it wasn't even what they were asking me about -- which was if I'd ever had Electro-Convulsive Therapy or the like.

But I was talking about moods.  The other morning, as I was walking to the station, I was thinking about the song Given To Fly, which ranks up there as one of my favourite songs ever.  I love the message of an ordinary person discovering unexpectedly an exraordinary ability, and as a child growing up I used to wish every birthday that I could fly.  Sometimes now when I am unable to sleep or just want a distracting daydream, I'll imagine being able to fly and sit up on quiet rooftops in the dark, unnoticed.  I was thinking about that song and how I want to be "given to fly" myself.  Not just literally, but metaphorically -- I want that brilliance, I want to feel that inspired.  I guess I have to be the change I want to see.  Wasn't that something Buddha said?  Either that or it was Henry Ford, and I get the impression those two gents were quite different people.

Where the video comes into all of this is that it's another message that I love and is becoming a mantra of mine -- I'm going to break my rusty cage, and run.  It says I am not going to be confined, I am not going to be caged, I am not going to be limited.  I am bigger than all of this.  I am going to break my rusty cage, and I am going to be free.

Also, for such an inspiring song the video is hilariously 90s.  I love that Absolute Radio have recently lauched their Absolute 90s station (and only wished it played more 90s alt rock), so it's very fitting -- but as I say, the whole thing is hilarious, with the crazy camera work and jumping all over with the guitars.  Thankfully Chris Cornell has got more quietly intense over the years.

Breaking out of my rusty cage at the moment means I have to do something.  Sure, my job sucks and I don't know what else to do -- but in the meantime, what I can do is write more, and if I want to one day do stuff with adventure sports then I need to put down the remote and actually get out there.  We'll see how I get on with it all.

Do anything you wanna do

"Tired of doing day jobs
With no thanks for what I do
I'm sure I must be someone
Now I'm gonna find out who"
Eddie & The Hot Rods "Do Anything You Wanna Do" (1977)

I've been here before, you know.  Wanting change, but not really knowing how to effect it -- dissatisfied with where I am, but not making any progress.  Except now, I am beginning to feel like I have some tools to work with.

In my last post, I mentioned John Williams' book Screw Work, Let's Play, and listed all the things I'd do if I could whatever I liked for a whole year.   The only trouble is, there's so many ideas and it's not necessarily possible to do all of them if you only have one year -- so instead you get to imagine that you have infinite opportunities, or for the sake of brevity in this case, seven.

 

This is my list of what careers I would follow over my now-various years of play.  There isn't actually seven of them in my case, but it might expand later -- I figure it can only help to add more as I think of them.

Year One: Adventure

Pro-surfer, snowboarder, rock climber -- you name the adventure, I'm on it.  As a side-note, my interest in adventure sports is pretty funny -- at school, I sucked at PE, and was the despair of many teachers who found that I didn't measure up to my athlete older brother.  It turns out since then that I don't hate sports at all, I just have to discover them in my own time -- and if lessons at school had involved more adventure and less ball games, perhaps things would have been different...

Year Two: Super Hero.

Save the animals. Help the people. Save the world.  I'd rescue sea turtles of central America and the beautiful Bongo Antelope in the mountains of Kenya.  I'd do aid work in disaster zones, build schools in developing countries.  I'd spend a season as a fire-lookout in a national forest, helping spot forest fires before they start.  I probably wouldn't actually have any super-powers though.

Year Three: Artist.

Poet, writer, sculptor, painter.  My days would be spent learning, doing, and expressing.

Year Four: Traveller.

Seeing the world, taking pictures, taking notes, dreaming. Always moving on.

Year Five: Buddhist.

Spend a year in a monastery -- studying zen, eating rice.

I feel like I am making just the tiniest, little bit of progress here.  It might not seem like it to an outsider -- it could seem I have a lot of dreams but no practical ideas on making any of them into how to get paid to do what I love.  But the first step is I have to work out what I enjoy, and what I would want to do.

In my current sales role, despite doing well against my own targets -- for the moment, at least --  there's not a moment's doubt that this isn't what I want to be doing, especially not here, and especially when they start kicking us for not meeting the weekly sales targets.  The sooner I figure out where to be, the better.

Year of play

"My father taught me to work; he did not teach me to love it. I never did like to work, and I don't deny it. I'd rather read, tell stories, crack jokes, talk, laugh -- anything but work."
--Abraham Lincoln

I've been reading a book recently called Screw Work, Let's Play on "how to do what you love and get paid for it". I'm only a few chapters in so far, but I find it inspiring.

My Dad, like countless Fathers before him, had an attitude to work that I am trying to shake off -- with the help of Mr Williams' book.  My Dad has always told me that you're not meant to enjoy your job or the work you do -- if you enjoyed it, they wouldn't pay you to turn up.  I am slowly starting to realise this doesn't have to be the case -- in fact, the most 'successful' people are ones who do enjoy what they do. They are successful at what they do, and successful in the wider sense that I strive to be -- happy with myself, and with where I am.

That's where this blog is coming from.  Unlike previous incarnations, I want this blog's purpose to not just log my life, to not simply record the day-to-day in a hopefully well-written way, but to show the journey to brightness.

One of the first exercises in "Screw Work, Let's Play" has you imagine you can take a year off.  What would you do with it?  "But I can't take a year off," you cry, or you do if you are anything like me, "I have bills to pay and rent to pay and..." -- and that's where you're cut off.  Imagine it differently, then.  You can take a year off work, and the author will pay you your normal salary, so you're no worse off.  Now, get to imagining.  You write down all the things you would do, if you could do anything.

Because it's my journey and my blog, my year of play filled with grand and impossible things is as follows:

Travel the world.  Especially the ancient civilisations of South America.
Write and blog.
Interview passionate people.
Perform and write poetry.
Have adventures!  Hiking, rock climbing, camping, surfing, snowboarding...  Also learn to do all these things.
Save the sea turtles.
Be a fire look-out in a National Forest.
Help people in need.
Study Zen.
Take pictures.
Enjoy music.
Help animals.

In my next post, I'll move on to the next stop.  What would I do with my life if I knew I could not fail...

Finding my way

Maybe I read too many comics when I was little.

I have a desire to help people with my life.  In my romantic moments, I try to convince myself and others that this is what I really do in my sales role -- I help people to get the training they need.  Just like when I used to work ordering replacement parts for broken-down buses: I told myself I was helping save the planet with public transport, and my role was vital to getting these vehicles back on the road.  I never really manage to convince myself of these things.

So what, really, is helping people?  It's just too vague. 

Are we talking about charity? Medicine?  Law enforcement?  Deworming orphans in Rwanda?  Someone a few years ago suggested I join the Peace Corps, but it's not open to non-US citizens, and even then what would someone like me do afterwards?  I have even tried to join the military at one point, even if that was less for noble "I want to help people" reasons and more for selfish ones.  But even wanting to help people is selfish, as I once wrote in a blog post called Why I Hate Superman, because it's about satisfying me.

When I was hiking the Inca trail in Peru I had an idea. 

I would set up an adventure sport company that was dedicated to improving the lives of people in countries where it operated.  I was inspired in the town of Agua Calientes which seemed so dishevelled and broken down, and contrasting so starkly with a grand, expensive hotel for the rich tourists who wanted to visit Machu Picchu.  I thought to myself why couldn't some of that money go to the community?  Who knows, maybe it did -- maybe large sums was funding education and medical care. 

But what I conceived was that there are amazing, beautiful places around the world that are also suited to activities like mountain biking, all-terrain boarding, snowboarding, paragliding -- but also situated in deprived places.  So what if people came and they had their fun and then their money didn't go into making anyone richer, but instead was invested into schools and hospitals and water systems.  Apparently it's all been done before, though, and it's just not that easy to make profit with these adventure sports.


So, back to the drawing board with that one.

Struggling

I can't pretend things aren't tough at the moment. 

The girl is struggling some days to keep everything from getting to her -- the combination of living with my parents, living up to an hour outside of London, not being happy with things at her work, and the uncertainty with my work all piles up and threatens to overwhelm her.

For me, too.  I'm worried that my work will fire me as I'm just not making the sales required of me -- they told me in a recent meeting that hitting 50% of my monthly sales target doesn't even cover my wages.  Naturally, I'm looking for other jobs but that too adds another layer -- applying, trying to craftily interview without my current work finding out, dealing with rejection. 

The girl and I have considered that maybe I need to give up on marketing and communications altogether -- but in favour of what is hard to know.  I took a test online about what careers would suit me, but it didn't have any great answers -- it told me things like writer, web editor, graphic designer.  Creative jobs I aspire to sometimes, where I can also be left alone to work in peace.  But highly skilled and competitive fields.  As it is my job history looks a little too fragmented, not because I don't want to hold down a job, but the jobs I enjoy for one reason or another don't last.  I'm torn between wanting to make this one last when I often can't stand it, just to show commitment, and wanting to get out as quickly as I can to something I do enjoy and am good at.


Some days the girl looks at places to rent in London that fit within our budget, albeit tightly -- but then she feels despondent that I haven't the security we can rely on, and so we can't look at them.  I promise to try harder, to do better in work, to do better in my job search, but I often feel like I'm a failure.  This whole post seems so very familiar, why have things not moved on?  It's clearly something in my behaviour patterns, but I don't know how to break them.  It's bad enough when it's just me affected, but upsetting the girl or adding to her worries is even worse.

How to whip up a frothy frog nest

Another week.  I apologise unreservedly for the lack of updates here recently and the lack of comments on sll my favourite must-reads -- I don't often get the chance to read or post from work, and by the end of the day I rarely want to spend more time at the computer.  Rest assured, I am still around and grabbing my reading while i can.

So, what's new?  Work continues to suck and blow in equal measure.  I am hitting somewhere around 50% of my sales targets currently, and while I have days of lucidity where it will occur to me that if I work really, really hard then there is almost no limit to my earning potential, I quickly get disillusioned and would rather do something I enjoy for a decent wage.  But hey, at least I have a job -- that's a step in the right direction.  I recently interviewed elsewhere for a marketing role, and though I got on famously with the interviewer who was very senior in the company, their client didn't want to meet me and that was the end of it.  I am choosing to think this was maybe a blessing in disguise, since the location was horrible.

Speaking of locations, the girl and I have been looking online for places to live in London.  Reluctantly, we are having to admit that Greenwich in all its bohemian and center-of-the-earth wonder isn't going to happen, and that we can get more bang for our buck elsewhere.  Somewhere with easy access to rock climbing as well as central London and road links to where my parents live are all top of the list -- and with reasonable property prices, it is Canary Wharf that is looking the most attractive.

I feel bad, though.  I'm not particularly great at my job, and so my earnings are still quite low, and in turn this is causing us problems in finding somewhere in London -- the girl doesn't make bad money, but my half isn't quite measuring up; so sometimes I feel like I'm holding us both back.  All isn't lost though.  It's a quiet period in business almost everywhere so I can reasonably expect things to pick up there, and to get better at my job -- I can only get better at my job, right?  Not least because we are being sent on a sales training course.

Sometimes in ym work I feel like I have a toolbox, filled with various useful things, and yet all I am using out of it most of the time is one screwdriver.

In other news, my beginner's climbing course is complete, so once I have taken an official safety test I will be free to climb without an instructor.  I joined a rock climbing group on Meetup.com, but it seems their preferred venues at the moment are London's biggest and most popular indoor climbing centres.  I might just try and find people to climb with at the wall where I've been going -- it's quieter, though obviously much smaller, but also open to the air.  In time, once I've got the practice and gradually bought some equipment, I'll start finding outdoor excursions -- but one step at a time.

Maybe that idea isn't so unlike work?

And on an entirely unrelated option, I was thinking to myself early Facebook needs a "hell no" option as a response.  "Do you want to be friends with this person?" Let's see, you never liked them when you were at school together and that was something like 15 years ago -- this isn't just a "yes" or "no" decision, it's a "hell no".  Do you want to join the group for a Big Brother Reunion in Australia?  Hell, no.  So let me ask you -- what options would you like to see?  Or maybe you would like to make the real world more like social networking, making it easier to hide or ignore people who annoy you, or just maybe you would like to live in the Ukraine with an adopted penguin, as I have been wondering this week?  I encourage everyone to read Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov, one of the most darkly brilliant books I have read in a while.

Tongue that's sharp like a thumbtack

When I told my boss recently I couldn't work late on Thursday nights because I was starting a rock climbing course, she stared at me blankly.  She stared at me and asked flatly if I was joking.  I was puzzled and told her, no, I really couldn't work late on Thursday nights.  Apparently I joke about things so often and so seriously when I'm serious it's hard to know if I'm being sarcastic -- she said it was like me saying I had a needlepoint class or something.

I take exception to this.  I don't know if the impression people get from me is that I am as unlikely to go rock climbing as I am to go to a needlepoint class, or if she really can't tell what is meant to be serious.  But to me, the two bear no comparison.  but sure, I'm a  funny guy -- if you take funny to mean "strange".

Anyway, this isn't another post about my stupid work.  Instead it's a post about teh awesome that is rock climbing, and how I might be tempted to make Swiss Cottage leisure centre my spiritual home.

Sure, I've climbed before now.  I'm kind of mad at myself for not getting into climbing when I lived in Utah, when it was such an ideal place to be doing it -- along with not getting into all-terrain boarding, and never really learning to snowboard properly.  But I guess it wasn't the right time.  As I say, I have climbed before but only in a couple of relatively brief one-off sessions.  It was enough to know I liked it, obviously, or I wouldn't be doing the course -- however, now after only one official lesson so far I feel confident enough to rank it up there alongside swimming in greatness.  I think if I had the time to do one or the other on alternating days I would be in a lot better shape than I am.  But I think what climbing has in common with other activities I enjoy is the quiet moments of almost zen-calm.

The climbing wall, despite being housed in a leisure centre, was open to the elements -- which last week meant it was cold enough to see your breath in the air, and the ropes were both cold and wet.  The condition of the rope wasn't much of an issue when you were climbing, only when you were holding the rope while someone else climbed -- then you noticed how quickly your hands got cold and numb.  It was also cold enough for my toes to get numb.  I'm going to be better prepared this week, even as I write this I am searching online for the right kind of gloves -- though I suspect serious climbers probably laugh at the idea of wearing gloves on a wall.

In many ways, the wall not being entirely indoors was a good thing -- it felt like I was actually doing something, instead of being somewhere hot and loud and probably smelly.  The real test will be if I continue climbing on my own after my introduction course has finished, though that may involve trying to convince people I know that they want to take up climbing, too.

It's important to fill non-work time -- days and weeks -- with things we enjoy, it gives us something to look forward to and motivation to get out of bed.  It might still be Ah crap when the alarm goes off, but if you then remember there's a great band playing in the evening or whatever then it can get you through. Last year I spent a lot of time going to the gym in the early mornings to get fit for Peru, but that was more of a threat -- if I didn't go to the gym then I would never make it Machu Picchu.  It also has to be said; having someone pretty neat like the girl to come home to always helps, as well -- so I'm very lucky there.

That's the thinking, anyway -- but there's a tightrope between this and wishing your days away.  Let's see how it works.  Until then, though, share with me your thoughts and ideas -- either on the things that you fill in to your days and weeks, or how you manage to not wish away your days while still looking forward to something coming up.  Our operators are waiting for your call.

You blame yourself for wanting more

Having been in my job now for something like 10 weeks, I am now due to have a "meeting" with my line manager.  I don't know if this marks my 3-month probation (which technically wouldn't be until February) or if they just feel like now is as good a time as any to talk to me.

My dilemma is what to say.  Obviously they want to know How I'm "settling in", discuss any issues I (or she) may have and any additional help I may need. 

My progress to date has been followed in almost minute detail in our all-too-frequent meetings, so I'm sure they would have mentioned if there was any concerns on the side of the business there.  I'm bitter that due to a mistake using a sum function in Excel I overcalculated my closed business in December.  I prematurely claimed to have exceeded my target, before discovering later when I used a calculator to add up the figures that I was instead a good £5k short of it.  I don't know if it's possible to ever know honestly what they expect us to achieve or what is acceptable -- logic would have it that they deliberately set our targets out of reach to make us work harder.  Being someone for whom nothing is ever good enough, this doesn't do me a whole lot of favours.

I'm also wonder what -- if any -- issues they may want to bring up.

But the main concern for me is how much truth I should give them.  How am I settling in?  Settled in fine, I get on well with my colleagues and enjoy working with my immediate colleagues, which is a big plus for me.  But the job bores the shit out of me, and I don't enjoy it.  How's that for an issue?  I feel there is nowhere for me to go in it, there is little to no creativity open to me, and few of the things I have enjoyed in previous jobs I've been lucky enough to hold.  I have actively been looking for other jobs.  Sometimes I resign myself to staying, with the idea that if I can stand it and if the worst it gets is boring then at least it's stable -- other times I say no to settling, say bollocks to the middle, and want more. I blame myself for what I can't ignore, I blame myself for wanting more.  There are probably literally thousands of places out there that would benefit from my passion and creativity when I am fully engaged.

That's not exactly the kind of thing you can bring up -- not and expect to escape being fired.  On the other hand, if fortune should smile on me and I do find something better in the near future, they might feel betrayed if I lied in the meeting and told them everything was sunshine and kittens when I was really looking around for something else.  On the third hand, it's not like if I tell them how I feel and what I want out of life they will magically pull it out of thin air.  The truth is I took this job knowing it wasn't what I wanted, but I was in no position to hold out for that magical elusive position and this gave me what I needed -- a job, good earning potential, and prospects, at the expense of creativity or enjoyment.

Most people don't like their jobs.  Many people hate their jobs.  Some have no job at all.  I'm lucky in so many ways.  But I still have no idea what I am going to say to them.

Enough flavour to last all 52 weeks

I don't really do New Year's resolutions, I've decided.

Over the years, I have made lists in January of things that I want to achieve over the coming year ahead, but whether I stick to them seems completely arbitrary -- I don't think the date has any measurable effect.  Either I resolve to do things over the year I planned to do anyway, or pick a bunch of things I think I should do or would like to do, and maybe I do them and maybe I don't.

There's things I want to do this year.  I want to move into London.  I want to learn to rock climb so that I can do it without supervision.  I want to finally learn to snowboard properly.  I want to get into shape (a shape that isn't round).  But none of those things depend on being new year resolutions -- I will achieve them because I want to, screw January 1st.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy New Year's eve -- I know a lot of people hate the pressure to have a good time, but I think these people can put the pressure on themselves.  I saw in 2010 at a small fancy dress party with friends and had a lot of fun, but in previous years I've had a good time doing nothing more exciting than go to the cinema, play pool, or stay in and watch TV.

2009 was a rough year in many ways.  I lost my job to redundancy, and the girl spent several months in exile in Western Australia waiting for the paperwork for a new work visa for her company -- money was tight and the distance put a strain on our relationship.  In the end, we made the tough decision to give up our house.

But 2009 was also a year of adventure for me.  In May, I travelled to South America with a group of about 30 other people to trek the Inca Trail in Peru, raising money for Macmillan Cancer Support.  Through rough  terrain at high altitude and on bruised and blistered feet, I made it to Machu Picchu.  The trek also wasn't helped by injuries I sustained falling down the stairs at home.  But Peru was an amazing, vibrant country -- and the girl's welcome at Heathrow airport when I got back stands out as a high point of any year, not just 2009.

Not content with travelling to the Southern Hemisphere just once in a year, in August I flew out to Perth to join the girl in Australia for a few weeks.  Together we visited friends and family (her family, not mine -- though we tried to see some of mine while we were there) and saw the sights of Perth along with the south coast of Western Australia, Melbourne and the Yarra Valley.  We took boat tours to spot whales, ate fish and chips in Fremantle, dodged rain showers, went off road driving and admired the unique Australian wildlife and scenery.

The redundancy, too, had a silver lining when I got a new job in London -- getting a new job at all in this financial climate was an achievement, so getting one that will enable the girl and I move to a new flat in London in the next few months is even better.

2009 also saw new friends made -- the girl and I travelled to Oxford one rainy Sunday to meet Tully, a lovely Aussie blogger who was visiting these fair isles on business.  We met Tully again a few months later for brunch in Melbourne, where the magnificent Miss Milo put us up (and put up with us) for several days and played the perfect hostess.  If you don't know these two, take the opportunity to check out their own personal journeys.  Australia also gave us the chance to connect with friends we hadn't seen since they were in London.  Sometimes the world can seem so small to make and keep friends from all over the world, and at the same time insurmountably large when these people are also so far away.

I want 2010 to be a continued year of adventure, and I want to work more on becoming the person I want to be -- and I know that is an internal journey I have to make, an adventure of the spirit perhaps, something I won't find on a rock pile in the clouds of a South American mountain or in a monthly payslip.

Ce no quiero librame

It's funny, isn't it?

You spend months redundant, out of work, a faithful member of the dole queue, and you dutifully apply for jobs. Lots of jobs.  Big ones, small ones, awesome jobs you aren't really qualified to do but that you try and talk your way into anyway, jobs in Starbucks even though you don't actually drink coffee, and after what seems like forever, you land a job.  You feel like a rock star in your dark suit and Tom Wolfe shoes.

Then a little more than a month into the job, the rot sets in.  The glow of having a job to do, knowing you are being paid and being taken out to lunch a couple of times in the first week, it all fades.  You look at yourself and think, am I really a salesman?  Quitting is not an option.  Jobs are too few and far between to just be given up, but you start thinking in terms of authenticity.   What is the real you, the authentic you?  Maybe it's too soon to know.  Maybe 3 months in, 6 months in, you'll be smiling to yourself as you rake in the commission and you'll say bollocks to "authenticity".  But maybe you won't.

You go to a job interview on the sly -- making up that you have a doctor's appointment, a believable enough story, since the day before when you were feeling particularly unsatisfied with the job people kept asking if you were feeling okay -- but before the interview feel disloyal, feel like you would be better off staying put.  Then the interview seems to go well, you are reminded why you wanted it, and you forget about feeling disloyal -- you don't owe anyone, anything. Other than the student loans company.

Your boss sits down next to you one day out of the blue and asks you how you are finding things, if you have any questions or anything you want.  You bring up training.  There was none for this job, a couple of days of learning how to use the software but that was all -- so you say how you would like training.  Not just in sales but in other things -- web design, marketing.  Your boss tells you as nicely as possible, that's not your job.  We have people to do those things, you are here to sell.  Don't remind me, you think.  So what?  That's what spare time is for.  There must be books you can teach yourself with.  If you have a "teach yourself" guide to Zen, there must be one for CSS out there.  Although it will probably not be any easier to get through.

But you're left with a choice just the same.  Stay put, stay as long as humanly possible -- which should really be more than a year, given your bad luck with work, hope that the focus shifts from sales to marketing, hope that with time you will be able to move sideways in the company, or at the very least you get good enough at your job to not care.  Or else look for better.  Look for the job you wanted to begin with, while keeping this one -- look to move as soon as possible to make it clear that this was only to get you back into work.

What's funny is how quickly being back at work turns into looking for something else.  Maybe what you seek is inside yourself, maybe you need Zen more than CSS and need to learn acceptance.

If you're alone and you got the shakes

I know.  I missed "Things I Love Thursday" this week, but being back in work makes it hard to update during the day (as well as seriously cutting down my reading time) -- this week I'll try and make a note each day of a couple of things I love, so that I have the raw bones of the post ready to go on Thursday.

But yes, work.  I am now back in the world of the gainfully employed; getting up at 0630 every day, jostling for position with the other commuters on the train station platform in the mornings, and sleeping on the journey into London.  One day in the near future, when my finances are straight again and so long as it won't impact on anything I'm saving towards, I am going to have to get myself some latest must-have gadget for the journey.  Music makes any ordinary journey seem like a movie, complete with soundtrack.  What I really want is a telepathic MP3 or Spotify player that will read my mind and know what music I want or need to hear -- choosing either to indulge me or challenge me, depending on the setting.

Work itself...is fine.  Just fine.  It's only been 3 days, and I've not yet really started on the "sales" part of my job -- which being a Sales Executive is kind of the big part.  I've done a lot of data entry, and I have started setting up social marketing by registering work accounts on various sites and am beginning very slowly to make friends and find followers of like minded people.  Part of me doesn't yet know what to make of the job, and part of me knows that it will be only what I make it -- if I do well or don't, love it or not, is entirely up to me.

Definitely in the plus column is the people I work with -- so far, everyone seems nice and nobody drives me mad.  I didn't meet the MD of the company until my first day in the job since she'd been in an accident recently (she was hit by a bus), but I have only positive impressions of her -- someone that genuinely cares about what they do, and seems like a cheerful, upbeat person.  It helps that I've also been taken to lunch twice.

Over a lunchtime pint on Friday I tried to sell her my photography printed on cavas for the new offices we're moving to.  She seemed interested, or just was being polite, so I have given her the link to my Photobox page where the items can be ordered.  It would be good if some sales were to come of it.  I've tried selling my pictures through Etsy in the past, but was never very successful -- at least with Photobox I don't have to pay for the service.

Somehow in the course of conversation with the MD and my other colleagues, we came around to PR and my background in it.  To cut out all the boring middle bit, I have volunteered to try and put together some sort of PR for the company.  It's a small company, but I'm increasingly passionate about what they (or we) do, and would like to see them get more recognition -- and, of course, more business.  Since it's not really my job to do this stuff, I'm going to have to approach it in very small measures so that it doesn't interefere with my "day job". With a lot of luck it could take off, and I could slowly move more towards this stuff than the sales side -- even helping them to set up their own internal PR department.  Alternatively, I might find the sales earn me plenty on their own and keep me happily busy so much that I don't care about their PR profile.  Or yet another option is I'll decide in 6 months this job really isn't for me and I'll go find something else.  But for now, it's earning a living like.

And I'll work on those plans for a telepathic MP3 player.

Back to the routine

I didn't mean for it to be a week between updates -- but it's just been one of those weeks where I hold off writing anything until I know where things stand.

We left me at the end of last week feeling optimistic and hopeful about my job prospects -- there had been interviews with two companies and a potential for freelance work.  Friday was as quiet as I expected -- no job offers landed on the doorstep (or in my inbox) and it was too early for any second round interview call backs.  This was fine.  Monday I was starting to get impatient -- sure, nothing could have moved on over the weekend, but by the end of the day I was starting to wonder and doubt.

Tuesday I was beginning to feel downright anxious.  What if neither of the companies wanted me?  I had already lost hope on the possibility of freelance work, since last week it had seemed so urgent but I'd heard nothing since.  I just had to resign myself that worst case scenario would be Christmas casual work with the post office, sorting mail and parcels -- it's not bad work, and there was always overtime on offer when I temped in the past, but this year with temps being recruited to counteract the industrial action, I wasn't so sure it would be the same.

It was difficult to concentrate on my course Tuesday morning, I kept my phone beside me so that I could take any calls when they came in -- I was particularly expecting a call about the comms role that morning, and wanted to know what was happening there before any job offers from the sales position.  It got to about 1pm and I'd heard nothing.  I decided to stay at the college rather than rush home to have lunch, and I was checking my email on my mobile phone -- checking what documents I needed to take for the post office recruitment day on Wednesday.  Except I didn't need to check that email, because the first one I saw had the subject "Emploment Offer".  And it wasn't even spam, offering me employment selling "v1@grA" or whatever.

It was an offer of employment from the sales position.  There would be no working nights and long hours at the post office for me now, the worst that could happen is that I would be gainfully employed as an executive in the city.  Now I just had to get some sort of answer from the comms role.  I called the recruiter -- who typically had no response form them yet -- and let her know I already had a job offer, so that should be passed along to try and speed up the process.

The girl and I remain worried about our finances.  Because she's been on unpaid leave so long, she doesn't know if she has money to pay the rent along with buying a ticket back from Australia and funding her travel to work every day when she comes back.  We're discussing our options on that front -- like if we were to give up our house (and come back to my parents for a room to stay again) would we have to pay cancellation fees on contracts we have in place.

On the other side of the coin, I had a look on the rightmove property website for places to rent in London, and found that when you discount the idea of just being able to walk to work, there are places with only a 30 minute commute that wouldn't cost significantly more than our house in Essex -- and would avoid the crippling travel costs.  Instead of paying out £400 each just in travel every month, we could pay an extra £100 a month each and actually live in London.  It maybe isn't an option right away, but in a few months time after the winter months have come and gone, we might be in a position to live in London.

I got a call yesterday to say it was a no to a second interview for the comms role.  I haven't yet been told why I wasn't up to the task, except that they only called something like two people for second stage and they were "good all-rounders".  I aim to get detailed info on if they liked the event plan I put together, and feedback on the tests they had me do on the day, as well as the interview itself.  But this means that it's sealed, I must take the sales job.  Of course, I could decide not to and that I would rather stay unemployed, living on benefits and looking for work, but my benefits would be stopped if the JobCentre found out I had been offered a job and turned it down.

The only real drawback to the sales role is that the basic wage is low -- obviously common practice in sales, a tactic to motivate you towards meeting your sales targets.  It's so low, in fact, I was earning almost £2k more a year in my last job, where I didn't have to commute into London -- but if I was to meet the targets in this role I would naturally be better off.  It's tough.  I decided to try and barter with them on the salary, tell them if they could make it £18k a year rather than £17k I could accept the job today -- where I had previously told them I would need until Friday to consider all my options.  I got a reply telling me they would have to discuss it with the MD, but if they were to accept a higher basic wage then my equivalent targets would also be higher.

I don't know at this point in time how achievable the sales targets are -- sure, they tell me they are achievable, but of course they would say that.  Is it worth the gamble to have a higher basic wage and risk not being able to hit the targets that make the job workable?  I don't know if I have that much faith in my sales abilities.  After some thought and a discussion with the girl, I've decided to stick with the original offer -- the basic salary is hardly liveable, but that just means I'll have to work harder.  Or find a second job.

So, the good news is I got a job.  Not the well-paid job in communications I really wanted, but a job all the same -- I'm getting off the couch, getting off benefits, and back into the daily 9 - 6 work routine.

Maybe everything that dies some day comes back

Another day, another job interview.

Yesterday's was much more of a proper interview, except if I want to be a grinch about it I feel a bit like my recruiter hadn't given me quite accurate information. And the info from the company was slightly misleading, too. But that's ok.

I can't go into much detail about the company, since this is a public blog and though I doubt they would be bored enough to google key words about their business, they still might possibly find it. But enough to say it is a communications role with a charity that is involved with disabled people.

For the interview I was asked to consider an event that I would need to plan, and what needed to be taken into account. They kept it deliberately vague. One morning last week I was considering it, and how I had no inspiration for it, when I had a great idea. It sucks to be you reading this right now, because I won't talk about the idea. I thought it was a great idea and I put a lot of thought and effort into my plan, but I don't want to write about it in case someone says "I don't think that was the wisest choice". What would it matter? I just don't want to think about it now. So, I wrote about what the event would entail, and my reasoning for this particular event, and all the various things that would need to be taken into consideration, and just to top it all off I gave a week-by-week breakdown of when each stage of the planning would need to be completed.

The information I had said that I would not be asked to present this plan, only to submit it for their consideration after my interview. This was not true, as after our mutual interview questions, they did ask me to talk about it, which I hadn't been planning to do. Hopefully, I was passionate and enthusiastic enough about it all.

The interview itself went well, they were nice and friendly, and seemed pleased with all of my answers and liked my experience.

Next came the test. I was expecting more than one test -- the recruiter had suggested there would be a computer test and a personality test -- but I hadn't fretted it, there's nothing you can do to prepare when you don't know what kind of computer test it will be. It turned out there was no personality test, and the computer test was the last thing I expected -- a written test. First I had to edit a feature article written for one of their magazines -- cutting it almost in half to a maximum of 350 words, then I had to write a press release. I was disappointed there was very sparse info on which to base my release, but I put my heart into it all the same. The editing was tricky -- that was something I'd never done before, editing someone else's work -- but it got done. Now I wait. They are interviewing someone else tomorrow, I'm told, and have no feedback yet but are reportedly pleased that I liked them.

Now, today's interview was the third and final part of the recruitment process for the marketing and sales role that doesn't include much marketing. I had to prepare a sales pitch for a specific two-day training course -- since that's what they do. Again, I can't talk much about the company, but it's IT-related and out of my area of experience. But prior knowledge of this kind of thing was far less important than hard work and enthusiasm, so last night was spent drafting out my pitch. Which I did have to present in this interview -- and was pretty much all there was to the interview. They seemed to like it, referring to it as "excellent", and that I had covered off the key points.

I think they're keen, they told me they were feeling positively about me, and asked me if I was offered the job whether I would consider it. I replied that I too felt positively and would definitely consider it. They mentioned they had other interviewees to see, so I made sure to mention I have other interviews to go to.

Right now, I feel like the communications role would suit me better -- but who knows, maybe my future is in sales. And I got a call this evening about a communications role in the NHS based very close to home, so I'm waiting to hear if I have a meeting on that one.

I look forward to a time in the near future when I have a job and I can then widen my area of interest into the rest of the world and write about more exciting things. Like the new shirt I bought, with its silver buttons and little silver tags sewn on, and how they glints and sparkles in the Autumn sun as I walk down the street. Or how apaprently the Bruce Springsteen song doesn't say "They blew up the chicken mine in Philly last night" -- I just thought a chicken mine would be where chicken salt came from...

When your only tool is a hammer, all your problems start to look like nails

...Or so I'm told. But what does that mean, exactly? Right now, it feels a lot like my job hunt.

I had the opportunity to meet a renowned Marketing writer/blogger last week, grabbing the chance to meet him while he was in London for a couple of days. Unfortunately, however much I think he and his blog are awesome, I can't link to it in this post as if he followed the traffic back here I don't think he'd dig my tales of girls and boys and marsupials, nor the old Serial Killer Sunday posts.

Anyway, I'd filled him in on where I am professionally -- some good experience but now "between jobs" and asked for his advice on how better to market myself, and get that awesome job with it. As part of my ongoing personal development, I have also set some objectives for myself -- working towards them involves in part asking people I admire how they got to be where they are.

It seems that there are two ways I can approach looking for work. The marketer summarised my position quite well, when you're out of work for a while you start casting your net wider and applying for jobs you could do, and maybe even do well, but aren't necessarily what you really want. There is nothing wrong with this, of course. The other approach is to hold out for what you really want, and accept no compromise. He suggested volunteering to work without pay for somewhere awesome, so long as I would be doing real work and not stuffing envelopes.

He has also stressed that I should be writing -- by way of submitting guest posts to relevant blogs, or writing a blog of my own. I tried setting up a new blog the other day just for writings on the PR/marketing industry, but I fell at the first hurdle -- I couldn't come up with a good name for it that wasn't already taken.

This week I have two interviews coming up: a second interview for a job as a sales and marketing exec, that seems to have little marketing to it that isn't actually sales, and a communications role that would be a significant promotion from where I was before. I was informally interviewed on the phone the other day for another sales position -- although it was described as management trainee or something, I think that was just clever marketing on the part of the job ad. It seemed to go well, I was told some of my answers were good, and that I'd here more if I was to be invited for the two-day selection process this week. I didn't hear anything more.

The trouble is, sometimes it seems like applying for jobs that aren't what I really want but I could probably do is treating all problems as nails. Do I actually want to work in sales? Would I be any good at it? And come to that, when did what I do for a living become so damned all-important anyway? It does not define me as a person, and should not be what my life is about. But it's easy to say that when you actually have a job -- getting one first is key, the rest comes afterwards.

A couple of my friends have turned to teaching. One of them has had several other careers to date, including being a police officer, a lorry driver, a petrol station attendant and a media sales executive. Will teaching finally be what they are looking for? The other friend has been treading water for the last few years, not really knowing what they wanted. I can more readily see them staying in teaching. They have suggested it to me as a career path, too, but I'd only take them seriously if they had already been doing it for several years -- but like social work which has also been suggested, I really don't see it being for me.

Finally, a friend posted this video on my Facebook the other day. It made me laugh, but I'm not sure what they were trying to tell me...