Tag: training

2350: Back to It

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It’s back to the jobhunting grindstone tomorrow. My wife Andie has found herself a new job and is starting tomorrow, which finally brings this difficult period of both of us being out of work simultaneously to a close, so now I just have to secure myself a position of some description.

Thankfully, there are a few possibilities on the horizon, for once. I sent out a huge number of applications over the last few weeks, taking a chance on positions that I might not have done before, but which I had the appropriate skills to be able to do with a bit of training. While I still wouldn’t describe myself as feeling particularly ambitious, I want to do something a little bit more lucrative than retail work; while I enjoy retail work for the most part, the pay is pretty shit, and certainly not proportionate to what you have to put up with on a daily basis.

While I’ve had a few rejections already, the fact I’ve sent out so many applications means that I don’t feel quite so bad about these as I have done in the past, because — this sounds bad, but you’ll know what I mean — I’m not especially invested in having that specific job. It’s not the perfect wonder-job; it’s just something I’ll be able to do that will pay a decent amount of money and give me the opportunity to progress if I want to — and, importantly, time to myself when I’m not there. A job that I can leave behind at the end of the day and the week and just get on with enjoying life; no taking my work home, like there was in teaching.

I got a voicemail message on Friday offering me an interview for one of these positions I’ve applied to. It’s not ideal due to where it’s located — I’d rather keep commuting time and distance to a minimum — but it’s something, at least. I also wasn’t able to get in touch with the contact who left the message for me because by the time I received it after taking care of some other business, they weren’t answering their phone, since they left me the message at the very end of the working day. Tomorrow’s job, then, is trying to get hold of this person and hopefully sorting myself an interview out for later this week. And then, if that happens, getting the haircut I’ve been putting off for the last six months as usual.

In the meantime, I’m hanging in there, just about. I’m continuing to update MoeGamer in my spare time — expect a gushing writeup on VA-11 Hall-A this week — and I’m also casually studying the material for the IT qualification known as the CompTIA A+, which if I can attain will make me eminently more attractive to employers in the IT field, what with it proving that I actually know my stuff about computers rather than me having to convince them using nothing more than a CV and a cover letter. I’m attempting to use my time productively when I’m not lapsing into depression, in other words, and on those occasions where I do lapse into depression, at least I have plenty of things I can enjoy to take my mind off said negativity.

Everything is going to be all right. Probably.

#oneaday Day 917: Select an Ability to Learn

I like learning stuff. It’s a fun process to start from “nothing” and gradually equip yourself with Knowledge. I’ve done it a number of times over the years, though I will admit that I’ve not taken any of these things really far enough to, say, get a qualification. But I do have a working knowledge of HTML, CSS and several specific software applications that I didn’t know before, all thanks to my ability to self-study.

The trouble with self-study, though, is that it requires time — time that you don’t always have — or time that you might not have the inclination to spend “working” when there are nicer things you could be doing.

It’s when I think about this sort of thing that I wonder what it would be like to go back to university. I’m pretty sure there are a lot of people I know who look back very fondly on their university days, but that — assuming they went at 18-19 — the actual “studying” part of things isn’t the main reason for the rose-tinted spectacles. I know it’s certainly not true in my case — while it was a lot of fun to, say, get up on stage in a nice concert hall and perform music, or sit in a small room and argue semantics with a group of fellow English students, the things I remember most fondly are the extracurricular and social activities I did. Theatre Group and their various productions. Trips to the Edinburgh Fringe. Drinking in Chamberlain Bar. That time my friend Plummer came down and we got wasted on the Union’s £1 triple vodka and oranges then consumed roughly a pound of cheese between us at about three in the morning. That time a shopping trolley showed up in our flat so we mounted a huge clandestine operation to get rid of it without being identified.

Now I’m a little older, I can’t help but think that going back and, you know, doing it “properly” might be fun. That said, the possibility of shenanigans is also appealing. Andie and I were discussing this the other day — university is one of the only times in your life when you have pretty much all of your friends together in one place, making it an absolute snap to arrange impromptu social events. Nowadays, I don’t see my friends anywhere near as often as I like, and it’s sad. But I digress.

Yes. Doing it “properly” might actually be fun. Picking a topic, studying it, doing assignments, getting graded, improving. Learning something. Coming away from the experience with both practical experience of applying subject knowledge and an actual qualification to prove you’ve done it. Sounds pretty good to me. If I had the opportunity, I’d study something practical that I know very little about — probably something computer-related, since I’ve always been IT literate and willing to tinker about, but my actual specific technical knowledge of things like, say, programming is rather limited.

Unfortunately, it’s pretty unlikely to happen any time soon. Going to university is very expensive, and I don’t see myself surviving on the relative pittance that is the student loan any more.

That said, I do have a work-from-home job with flexible hours and good pay.

Hmmm.

Hmmm.

No. No, I can’t do that. Not just to satisfy some sort of whim or early-30s crisis or whatever it is that’s going through my mind right now.

What I can do, though, is take some steps to learn something new on my own time. Self-study. Perhaps signing up for some sort of evening class. I’d like to do it, certainly, it’s just a case of finding — or perhaps making — the time.

Now, what to learn…?