1686: Sunday Night

Back to work tomorrow, and after a rather gentle start last week I’m actually hoping I’ll be able to get stuck in and make myself useful a bit more this week. I have a full-day company induction on Tuesday, I believe, but all being well the remainder of the week will see me actually doing my job, which will be nice.

Yes, that’s right, I said “nice”. I know in modern life it’s fashionable to be cynical about your job and to merely tolerate it rather than enjoy it, but for the moment I’m actually relishing the prospect of having something to do each day — and that something being part of something bigger.

I’ve had this to a lesser extent when working on websites, of course, but when working remotely from a different timezone to the rest of your colleagues, it’s easy to feel somewhat justifiably isolated at times. The advantage of what is effectively working “solo” alongside a bunch of other people who are also working “solo” on the same thing is that you can turn things around pretty quickly — more often than not, I’d have an idea for a feature on a website and be able to research, write and publish it within a space of a day. (Obviously things that require longer to research — by playing a whole game through for a review or walkthrough, for example — take a bit longer, but these can be worked on alongside other things.)

The downside of this I’ve already mentioned: you feel like you’re kind of going it alone, even when the people you work with make an effort to get together online in some form or another and swap ideas.

Conversely, having switched work environments from working solo at home to part of a team in a big office, I’ve noticed two things related to the shift: firstly, things take a whole lot longer than if I was doing everything myself as in the past, and secondly, you’re a lot more reliant on other people.

These things are a mixed blessing at best; it can be frustrating to be waiting on an important piece of information from a specific person and they simply don’t get back to you for weeks at a time. On the other hand, it means that things are — theoretically, anyway — a whole lot less stressful, since the workload of getting something done is spread between several people, each of whom can concentrate on their own specialisms rather than having to dip their toes into unfamiliar waters on occasion. It also kind of means you can work on a lot more things at the same time — do your bit, pass it on to the relevant person or people, then get started on something else, only returning to the original thing if you have to go back and fix something.

None of this is news to any of you who have been happily chugging along in office jobs for years now, I’m sure, but this is still quite a new experience to me. Those who have known me a while will remember that my past lives have included being a teacher, a salesman, a software trainer and a video games journalist — all jobs that tend to involve you dealing with things by yourself, whether or not you’re part of an overall “team”. It’s actually kind of nice to know that now, for the first time, I can share out some of the responsibilities a bit more as well as helping other people out when I can. I foresee it being a much more pleasant way to work — let’s just hope I keep feeling that way after the initial “honeymoon period” is over!

Anyway. In line with my new responsibilities as a cog in the corporate machine, it is time for me to disappear in a bedwards direction. I hope you have a pleasant week.

1642: Still On the Hunt

Still trying to secure a job. It’s a stressful process — particularly as I’m not working right now and thus very much need one rather than just wanting one — but at least things are moving, albeit slowly.

I’ve had two interviews this week, one of which I felt I was unlikely to be successful in but figured it was worth a shot anyway, and the other of which was today. I won’t say too much about that as I’m yet to discover what the results were — even if I proved successful at this stage, there’ll be a second interview to contend with — but it was quite a pleasant experience.

I’ve actually had relatively few formal interviews in my overall “career”, if you can call it that. Professional working life, if you can’t. I had formal interviews for when I worked in schools — during which I discovered that, more often than not, any parent governors on the interview panel tended to look positively on candidates who asked them questions about the school and how it was serving their children, rather than the usual, boring, predictable responses to the dreaded “any questions?” Aside from that, however, my work in retail involved a group “interview” that was actually more of an activity day, and my work in the games press tended to involve either being headhunted directly — always a nice boost to the self-confidence — or behind-the-scenes negotiations without a formalised “recruitment” process.

An interview is an important part of the hiring process for many companies, but I’m not sure it’s always the best approach. It’s all too easy for a candidate to overprepare and start spewing cliche after cliche rather than giving a true picture of their personality; I try and avoid this approach as much as possible, answering questions honestly and hopefully letting the real me shine through. Then hoping that the panel actually likes the real me, of course.

What I find much more interesting and useful is an “interview” situation where there are things to do that are directly relevant to the job in question. Perhaps the ability to demonstrate my lightning-fast, super-accurate typing, for example, or maybe the opportunity to show my skills at proofreading and editing. Even the much-maligned practice of role-play can be valuable, encouraging you to put yourself in another’s shoes and determine the best way to resolve a situation.

Anyway. I’m rambling and being vague, and deliberately so, since I don’t want to say too much about the jobs that are still in the running. I have a second interview for a job I went for a little while back on Monday, and I should hear if the company I went to see today wants to see me again next week, too.

Here’s hoping something comes of one of these. They’re both good jobs that could lead on to better things, and I’d be glad to take either one — but I’m mostly just anxious to get a job, full stop, right now.

Wish me luck. I need it.

1571: Fork in the Road

I’m at one of those points in my life where I feel I’ve reached a definite “fork in the road” where I need to decide if I’m going to continue on my current path, or branch off in a different direction. Going backwards is not an option, but both paths ahead are fraught with trials and difficulties.

The road to the left is a continuation of the road I’ve been taking. It’s the road that proceeds merrily through the land of Gamindustri, looping and wending its way past anthropomorphised hillocks and clouds before taking occasional detours into explosive-devastated warzones, alien landscapes and racetracks. It’s a fun road, but you never know what’s coming next; over the next hill could be a pot of gold, or there could be a pit of spikes.

The road on the right I don’t know much about. Not long after the fork there’s a tunnel, and the lights inside seem to have failed. It’s difficult to tell how far the tunnel goes, too; there’s no way of seeing the light at the other end of it. But there are people coming and going, and they look if not actually happy then certainly at least vaguely satisfied with what is going on. None of them look as if they’re afraid about what’s happening either now or in the future, and it’s then that I notice that posted along the side of the road are a number of uniformed officers. They’re not armed and they carry kindly expressions on their face; I get the impression they’re there to keep everyone safe and protect them from the unknown. There is no such detail on the road to the left.

All of this is a rather pretentious way of saying that I think I’m going to have to make a decision soon: whether to continue pursuing life in the games industry, or whether to try and branch off in another direction. As I alluded to above, both roads carry their own fair share of potential pitfalls.

Were I to take the left road, it’s doing so on the understanding that I can’t relax. Even if I work my hardest, there’s no guarantee that I won’t simply wake up one day to discover an email politely informing me that I will soon be out of a job through no fault of my own. And when that happens, there’s no guarantee of being able to immediately score a new job; more often than not, it means a return to either begging for scraps as a freelancer or, were the unlikely to happen and I find myself with a new position straight away, having to work my way back up from the bottom, effectively starting my career over again. This has happened to me a couple of times now and it is already starting to get a bit old.

Were I to take the right road, I have to deal with the true unknown, and there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to find my way to safety and security. My particular combination of qualifications and experience opens up a relatively narrow number of potential career paths to me, and looking at job site listings it can be challenging to determine exactly what type of job I should be looking for, or if it’s even worth applying to things that sound like they might fit the bill. There’s also the feeling that I’m walking away from something that, when it goes well, I do genuinely enjoy doing.

I love writing about games. But I hate — hate — how volatile the games journalism business is. I understand the reasons for it — and it’s a risk we all acknowledge when we enter into it — but that doesn’t make it suck any less when promising careers are cut short for reasons that aren’t any fault of the people in question.

Which is why, to be perfectly frank, I’m leaning towards the right road. I’ve already put in some applications to jobs that are nothing to do with games, with the intention of, if I successfully secure a position, continuing doing games writing purely for myself and those who wish to follow me through projects such as MoeGamer. Given that Andie and I have recently purchased a house — we get the keys tomorrow, in fact — I am getting to the stage where financial security and not having to continually worry on a week-by-week basis about whether I still have a job is worth far more than being able to say that my hobbies and passions are also my career.

That’s a sad and disappointing way of looking at the world, and I’m annoyed that I’m even thinking that way. But unless there’s a significant change in the way the games journalism business works, I’m not sure I can take going through this whole process again.

1562: Soul-Searching

Unsurprisingly, yesterday’s bad news has prompted a certain degree of soul-searching. The reality of the situation still doesn’t quite feel like it has hit me yet. I’m depressed, yes, but it doesn’t quite feel “real”, if you know what I mean.

I’ve been taking advantage of this calm before the inevitable storm to do a bit of pondering about what I might want to do next, or how I might want to do it. And so far I’ve pondered the following options.

Teaching. No. Nope. No no no. Never. No. I may have all the relevant qualifications, but the last two times I tried teaching it had an enormously negative impact on my mental health. I enjoy teaching, but all the other stuff that goes with it — primarily to do with behaviour management — is just too stressful to even contemplate.
Private music teaching. Possible, but difficult to become established, plus the fact that I don’t have 1) my own transport (Andie and I currently share a car), 2) a real piano to teach at home or 3) a particularly suitable space to teach in. So I think that’s out, at least for now.
Attempting to return to a previous career in a certain tech-related retail chain. That door closed a long time ago, despite the fact that I’m clearly eminently qualified and good at it. This was evidenced by the fact that I made superb progress on a previous attempt to return, the management of the store I was applying to were enormously enthusiastic, then they abruptly and bluntly turned me down without giving a reason after contacting my previous management. (We parted on poor terms after I made an official complaint about certain managers’ workplace bullying.) That copy-book is forever blotted.
Freelancing. Not a terrible idea, but it brings with it a considerable degree of hassle, plus an unreliable paycheque each month. Successful freelancing involves endless pitching and hoping, writing content to tight deadlines if you do happen to be successful, having to do your own taxes (ugh) and occasional sleepless nights of despair as you note your bank balance is going steadily down and hasn’t gone up for a very long time indeed.
A permanent position on another site or magazine. Obviously this would be the ideal solution, since it would make for a relatively seamless transition from what I’m doing now. The trouble is, very few places are hiring right now; even new sites such as Kotaku UK already have a staff in place, while others have a well-established network of writers; others still prefer to recruit quietly from their extended network rather than prominently displaying their available positions. So while achieving this would be ideal, actually doing so may be challenging. Still, feelers are being put out.
Broadening my remit. I write about games. I haven’t written about anime, TV or tech professionally but I’ve had plenty of practice on this site and know I could do a good job. Question is, do I want to?
The shift that all games journalists seem to make at one point or another. A lot of games journalists end up in PR for some unknown reason — the better pay probably being a significant contributing factor. I know I could do a good job of PR with the skillset I have; the difficulty here is in convincing recruiters of that fact when I don’t have any practical experience.
Taking a risk, Part 1. I have a number of books in me, both fiction and non-fiction. I could try and write those, but actually “making it” — i.e. being able to make enough money to survive — with one will be a challenge, particularly in today’s crowded marketplace. It would have to be something great, unusual or both to stand out. Or perhaps I should write some vampire teen romance. Is that still fashionable?
Taking a risk, Part 2. One thing that came out of my announcing that I was leaving USgamer was that a lot of people reached out to me on Twitter and said that they were thankful for the unique perspective (among mainstream games journalism, anyway) that I provided on Japanese gaming. One went so far as to say that I understand the games they like and why they like them, which is exactly what I was hoping to achieve with my work. These people got me thinking: is there a market for specialist writing like this? Could I somehow do it full-time (or near-as-dammit) through something like Patreon? I don’t know how viable Patreon is as a platform — I’m yet to really see any successful projects from it — but it’s an interesting possibility at least. It’s also a big risk.

So that’s where I am now. There are also a number of options that have flowed through my mind but which are impractical at this particular juncture due to my lacking some relevant skills — things like working in localisation for Japanese games, for example. I don’t know where I’ll end up or what I’ll end up doing, but I sincerely hope it is sooner rather than later.

Wish me luck. Oh, and wish me happy birthday while you’re on.

1229: What’s Next

Those of you who have me on some form of social media will know this already, but I’ve started my new job. Excitingly, this is the first ever new job I’ve had that was accompanied by an official press release. Yes, really — check it out.

For those of you too lazy to check out that link I’ve so graciously provided for you, allow me to explain as much as I’m able to at present.

You may be familiar with the video games website Eurogamer, home of some fine commentary on games, the games industry and all manner of other things. Eurogamer is one of the few European (specifically, British) sites that has risen to prominence amid the dominance of primarily American publications such as Gamespot, IGN, Kotaku and Polygon. However, one thing Eurogamer lacked — as you might expect from the name — is a presence in the US.

Enter USgamer, a new site set to launch into beta next week, and a site on which I’m officially acting as News Editor, but in practice will be contributing a whole lot of lovely stuff to on a regular basis. USgamer will be more than just a reskin of Eurogamer — it’s going to be a great, very distinctive site, but you’ll have to wait until next week to see exactly how and why it’s great.

I’ve been preparing some content this week in preparation for the site’s launch, and I’ve been surprised how refreshing it’s been. After over a year of writing about mobile and social games — a good 80% of which were total bobbins — it’s an absolute pleasure to be able to get my teeth back into writing about the industry as a whole, and specifically to explore, criticise and wax lyrical on the parts I’m truly passionate about.

It pains me a little to admit, but there were times when I was ashamed to be associated with the mobile and social side of things. There are too many companies out there peddling products that are just flat-out sleazy in the ways they attempt to coerce their audience into paying exorbitant amounts of money for “consumable” digital goods; in the way they shamelessly clone other people’s work (or even, in some cases — *cough*Kabam*cough* — their own); or in their gross, misleading, often sexist or otherwise offensive advertising (Hai, Wartune!). I made a point of calling out these objectionable titles whenever possible, but I fear my criticisms may have fallen on deaf ears in most instances. So long as you keep pulling in the monthly and daily active users, it seems, it doesn’t matter if you steal a bit of artwork here, outright lie about your game there, charge £70 for in-app purchases everywhere.

The mainstream games industry isn’t free of sleaze and anti-consumer practices, of course, but at least it’s easier to avoid, whereas it’s fast becoming the norm in mobile and social, disappointingly. But I digress. My thoughts on social games and how they fail to cater to lifelong gamers have been well-documented.

No, the thing that is nicest about my new position at USgamer is the fact that I get to write about things I truly care about. I’m currently preparing a feature on the history of a particular game genre (find out what soon!), for example, and I’d forgotten quite how enjoyable it is to research and put together pieces like this. Gaming is a rich and diverse art form, and it’s exciting to look back on how far things have come since the inception of the medium. It’s also exciting to look forward to the future and imagine where we might be in a year or two — and it’s also exciting to explore the sheer breadth of content that’s available now. For every Call of Duty, there’s an Ar Tonelico, a Fez, a Dungeons of Dredmor, a Long Live the Queen, a Deadly Premonition… there’s certainly more to talk about than one person could ever manage in a lifetime, and new things happening all the time.

As you can probably tell, I’m very excited about this new position and about the site as a whole. I’m aware of the irony of me — an Englishman in, well, England — writing for a site called “USgamer”, but I’m extremely happy to be working with the team that’s in place, which includes some industry veterans as well as some old colleagues from my days on GamePro. It’s going to be a fantastic site once it’s up and running and available to the public, and I can’t wait to show it to you when it goes live.

1143: Kilo-Commuter

My brother posted a link on Facebook earlier about “mega-commuters” — a relatively small number of Americans (about 600,000) who travel more than 50 miles each way to get to work each day. He’s one of them.

Sounds hellish, doesn’t it? But it doesn’t necessarily have to be that bad.

I can’t make a claim to be a “mega-commuter” as the longest commute I’ve done on a daily basis was about 35 miles each way — I guess that makes me a kilo-commuter? — but that was plenty to potentially drive me insane. As it happened, it was the job itself I was doing at the time that did a much better job of driving me insane, but I digress; my distaste for the teaching profession and reluctance to return to it ever again is well-documented elsewhere on this blog. (In fact, it was my growing sense of discomfort at an ill-advised return to the profession that spurred me on to start writing on this ‘ere site every day in the first place, so I guess I can’t complain too much.)

No, believe it or not that’s actually sort of relevant, because my daily 70 mile round trip to get to and from work actually became something of a haven of calm amid the chaos of my professional existence. While I was in my car, no-one could “get” me. (Well, technically, I suppose they could; someone could have crashed into me and injured or killed me. But… oh, shush.) It was some time I had to myself to spend as I pleased… sort of, anyway — I mean, obviously I still had to do the driving bit.

Consequently, I found myself spending my commute doing things that I don’t really do any more as a “work from home” person. I listened to the radio. I listened to podcasts. I listened to a lot of music. I sometimes phoned people. (Hands-free, obviously.) I phoned people. Jesus Christ, I never do that now, largely because the telephone tends to fill me with an uncommonly-large amount of dread, but nope, the sheer tedium of driving down the M3 (or sometimes, for variety, the A31) every day was occasionally mitigated by actually talking to someone other than myself. But more often than not it was mitigated by listening to the radio or podcasts. I attribute the fact that I can tolerate (and even enjoy) Chris Moyles’ brand of comedy — something that it appears to be fashionable to hate — to the fact he accompanied me to work and made me laugh every morning through what turned out to be a very difficult period of my life. I’m not sure I would have stuck out a job that eventually pretty much gave me a nervous breakdown had I not had something like that to help me mentally prepare myself each morning. (Obviously ultimately it didn’t really work, but still.)

While it was nice to spend that zombified period of time driving in a straight line for about 50 minutes, the prospect of doing so every day isn’t really the sort of thing that makes you want to get out of bed each morning. You have to really like your job to be able to stick it out for longer than a few months. I somehow managed to convince myself to do it for a total of two and a bit years altogether — eventually I moved closer to the job that eventually saw me escaping the teaching profession, which is probably something I should have done sooner — but that commute was probably one of the contributing factors that made me come over all queer, as a grandmother might say.

Despite that, though, I do sort of miss it. I don’t have my own car at all any more — Andie and I share one, as I have no real need for my own now — and so long drives accompanied by the radio or podcasts are now an increasingly-distant, wistful memory for the most part.

Then I remember that I don’t have to get up before 6am any more and I don’t miss it nearly as much.

#oneaday Day 701: Deadline

First up, a shoutout to Mados’ excellent post on Telephobia, which makes use of one of my cartoons as well as quoting me, making me look wittier than I remember being about that particular affliction. Thanks, Mados.

Now, onto today’s discussion

At what age are you supposed to have “it” all figured out? And by that I mean be doing what you’re “supposed” to be doing, looking toward the future rather than dealing with the immediate present and being in a position to buy super-expensive things like cars and houses. Is 30 a reasonable deadline? Because if so, I don’t think I’m anywhere near.

Since leaving university, I’ve had a number of different jobs. I’ve been a teacher in both primary and secondary education. I’ve been a freelance writer. I’ve been a shop-floor salesperson. I’ve been an in-store personal tech trainer. I’ve been a regular long-term contractor for a video games website. This isn’t even considering jobs I had while at university, which included mopping up sick, collecting glasses and making a badass prawn cocktail.

The thing, though, is that I don’t feel like I’ve made a lot of “progress” along the way. The only position in which I’ve had what you might describe as a “promotion” was when I went from being a shop-floor sales person to an in-store personal tech trainer, and that was more a change of role (or, more specifically, the formalisation of something I was already doing anyway) than a “promotion” per se. That particular job was the one I held the longest, staying there for around about two and a half years. Other jobs I’ve move on from in a year or less, leaving no time to be promoted. And others still I’ve left simply because there wasn’t a job there for me any more — this happened with my first teaching post thanks to the school being half a million quid in the red, and more recently with the sudden and sad closure of GamePro.

It’s worrying me a bit, to be honest. I know plenty of people who found themselves jobs after university and have been steadily working their way up through the ranks ever since. They seem quite happy with what they’re doing, even though it’s not in the slightest bit related to their degree, and generally just seem to be far more “sorted” than I feel.

Now, granted, I don’t live inside their heads and thus can’t say for sure what they think about their whole situation. It’s entirely possible, of course, that they feel that the job they’ve been making such good progress in is actually a dead end, and long to break free and do something they really want to do.

Thing is, the whole “follow your dreams” thing is sort of what I’ve been doing, only the trouble with dreams is they have a habit of not living up to what you expect — largely because, being dreams, you tend to ascribe somewhat unrealistic expectations to them. And after the fact you’re just left feeling slightly bewildered and disillusioned by the whole experience.

I don’t have a solution for myself. From January, I have some work that I’ll enjoy, though I’ll need more to be able to live comfortably. I do also have an interview for something lined up in January, too, which would, to be honest, solve a lot of problems if I do manage to get, even if it’s arguably something of a step backwards in terms of salary and whatnot.

Fingers crossed, I guess. And if not… err, is anyone reading this looking for someone to write the news on their website? And pay?

#oneaday Day 530: One Year Ago Today

One year ago today, according to this very blog, I was still not in possession of gainful employment, and I was frustrated with the whole jobseeking and application process.

The reason for this was, of course, the fact that job sites are shite, and I would recommend that anyone currently seeking gainful employment should avoid them completely.

They’re good in theory, of course. A site featuring a searchable database of jobs by area and category? That should be awesome. That should make it ludicrously easy to find a job. That should make the entire application process streamlined, elegant and very straightforward. People will be able to get matched with awesome jobs and employers will find their model employees. Everyone’s a winner.

Except they’re not. Through unscrupulous recruitment agencies, listings for being a boiler engineer get mixed in with journalism listings. Recruitment agencies refuse to say what the company they’re recruiting for is or where the fucking job is in the first place. And on the off chance that you do actually manage to get in touch with a recruiter, you run the risk of dealing with the HR equivalent of a cock-tease, making you think you’re in with a chance of getting a job, when actually you’re not.

So basically, fuck the job-hunting sites. Here’s what you need to do: get on Twitter, and go directly to the people in question. Do some networking online. Talk to people. Shamelessly whore out your work — there’s no shame in sharing things that 1) you’re proud of and 2) potential employers might be interested in.

By following this approach rather than wasting my time with job hunting sites, I’m finally in a position where I can say I’m gainfully employed. I’m pleased to say that I’ll be sticking around with GamePro, and that doing so is enough to call a “proper job”. I shan’t share specifics, because that would probably be inappropriate, but I shall say this: compared to this time last year, when things were shit and rubbish, things are certainly well and truly on the way up.

Which is, you know, nice.

#oneaday Day 129: Professionalism Is

Skills are a funny thing. Unlike in the world of roleplaying games, it’s extremely difficult to quantify skills. Sure, you can go and get yourself a qualification, but it’s not a simple case of repeatedly doing the same thing over and over again until a chime sounds and the words “LEVEL UP!” appear over your head. (Unfortunately. Because that would have made assessing learning in the classroom a whole lot easier.)

No, the vast majority of skills that you (well, I) have are not quantifiable in any sense. I can write — well — but that’s difficult to prove except with, well, writing. I can’t point to a character sheet and say “Look! 85 skill points in writing!” when applying for a job. I can just say things along the lines of “I’m excellent at writing” and “I have a strong attention to detail and think people who use the wrong ‘your’ should be abused with sledgehammers” or the like. I can also correct typos without too many people noticing.

It’s even worse with IT skills. I can use computers, and I have a knack for being able to find creative solutions to problems if something’s behaving strangely. When putting my new PC together the other day, I found myself frustrated with the woeful instructions that came with it and just worked things out for myself. Sure, it took me a little while to figure out that you can actually unscrew and take out 3.5″ drive bays in order to fit a hard drive in them — I thought it was a bit stupid to expect Eugene Victor Tooms levels of contortion just to screw in a storage device — but I got there in the end. (Also, bonus points if you know the reference.) However, the ability to “find things out” isn’t quantifiable in any way, and short of someone plonking me down in front of a broken computer and saying “fix it!” there’s no way I can prove that I’m “good with computers”.

I guess this is where all those lessons you had in Persuasive Writing back in school come in handy. It’s up to you to convince people that you are The Right Person for the Job by using suitably flowery language and/or carefully referencing things you know about the person in question. And it doesn’t always work, as my year’s worth of “we have decided to pursue another candidate” emails and letters will attest.

But oh well. Some good has come of my skills and abilities — I’m writing for sites I like on a freelance basis, and that in itself is giving me a sizeable portfolio of experience that I can point at should I find myself in the running for a full-time position somewhere. While it may not be a character sheet with 85 skill points in the Writing skill, it’s the next best thing.

#oneaday, Day 4: The Application Letter I’d Actually Like to Write

Dear Employer,

Hello. My name’s Pete, and I’m a fully-functional human being able to perform tasks for you in exchange for money. I’m not actually that fussy about the tasks you’d like me to perform, so long as they at least fall under the category of “things that I’m capable of doing”.

Things that I’m capable of doing, if you were curious (which you should be) include the following:

Typing like the clappers (anywhere between 85 and 100wpm depending on how easy your test is)
Producing good-quality writing at short notice (as this blog which I update every day will hopefully attest)
Spotting mistakes in others’ writing and being able to correct them, with a particular focus on people who do not understand the difference between “your” and “you’re”.
Inspiring a viral trend of people to get off their behinds (or, more accurately, get back on their behinds, only in a different context) and get creative—see the One A Day Project, up to 105 participants at the time of writing.
5-Star “Poker Face” on Dance Central (but, eh, let’s keep that one our little secret, shall we?)
Teaching people who have no idea how to use a computer how to use a computer in terms they can understand.
Being honest about the things I don’t know or understand, and finding the information out for myself.
Being able to sit down in front of a new piece of software and get to grips with it very quickly.
Feature on, edit, produce and release a podcast (see: the Squadron of Shame, soon to return after our holiday break)
Using Aperture and Photoshop for photo-tweakage.
Having an opinion worth listening to (see: the number of people who are playing Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale at least partly because of my enthusing)
Write words on paper that people can actually understand without having to resort to words such as “timeously”, “leverage” and “monetize”.

You may think that the vast majority of experience on my CV isn’t exactly relevant to the position you’re advertising. And you’d probably be right. But man is far more than a list of past positions on a piece of paper. He is the sum of his skills, experiences, memories and adaptability. And I have all of the above in spades, meaning that I’d be more than happy to turn my hand to something new. And not only that, the fact that I can learn new things incredibly quickly and retain them easily means that even if I’ve never done the exact job you’re advertising before, I’m pretty certain that I could do well at it if you simply explain what it is I have to do first.

I’ve also been out of regular work since last March, which means that by hiring me you’d be doing your bit to help the UK out of its “millions of people unemployed” situation. I haven’t even been claiming any benefits, but might start having to pretty soon. By hiring me, you’d be allowing some of that taxpayers’ money to be spent on something useful rather than keeping me provided with Lemsip, toilet paper and Eccles cakes.

But above all, by hiring me, you’d be helping both yourself and me. You’d be giving me a job, some financial security, a reason to get up in the morning and something upon which to focus my efforts. And I’d be giving you a committed, grateful, industrious worker who will do his utmost to show you he’s the best damn person-who-can-fulfil-the-position-you’re-advertising ever.

So think about it, huh? Do you want the person who writes the predictable but completely empty-of-soul letter that proclaims how supposedly “passionate” they are about whatever your industry is, and how much of a “generalist” they are? Or do you want the actual human being?

Thanks for your time. I’ll be right here while I don’t have anything better to do of a day. Call me. Email me. Hire me.

Pete