2147: Back to Reality

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Was going to assemble a lengthy post full of Xenoblade Chronicles X tips and tricks, but felt that three days in a row would probably be pushing it a bit, so I’ll save that for tomorrow. I have plenty to share!

So, as Sunday rolls into Monday, our short holiday is over, and we’re both back to work in the morning. The last week has kind of flown by, which is a bit of a shame, but we’ve both had a good time, and it was clearly good for both of us to get out of the house and away from numerous stressful influences so we could just enjoy ourselves.

I actually don’t mind the prospect of going back to work, though. I feel like I’m getting into a decent “rhythm”, for want of a better word — though irregular shifts and hours mean that it’s probably not the best word — and I feel reasonably confident staring down the Christmas retail period. I’m also feeling semi-confident I might manage to stay on after the holiday season is over, but I’ve learned to my cost to not, you know, something something chickens hatching. So I’m not counting on it.

Not a lot else of note to share right now, really; we saw some owls and did some archery at Center Parcs (not at the same time) and lots of swimming. We ate nice food — we set aside a particular day to ignore the diet and treat ourselves, so we’ll see on Wednesday how much impact that had — and enjoyed some peaceful R&R in the woods.

We’re into December now, and the end of the year beckons. 2015 has been another year that hasn’t been all that great for me, frankly, but there have been highlights here and there; this last week has probably been one of them. Let’s hope there’s a few more I can squeeze in before 2015 becomes 2016.

For now, though, it’s time for bed, and back to normality tomorrow morning. Boo.

2139: Black Friday

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I’m exhausted, both physically and emotionally, so I hope you weren’t expecting anything too coherent or lengthy this evening. I’m still here, though, so let’s get this over and done with.

Worked the Black Friday weekend at work (yesterday and today) and was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t as much of a clusterfuck as I was expecting. It was fairly busy, but not to an excessive degree; we didn’t have hordes of customers trampling each other or anything, so that was something of a relief.

I feel I’ve settled into things quite nicely with this job. I’ve established some decent “work friendships” with the people I work alongside — having been burned a bit before by getting too close to certain people I worked with, I have been deliberately distancing myself a bit without seeming too impersonal — and I feel like I know what I’m doing a bit better than I did when I started. I evidently exude something of an aura of confidence in what I do, because a number of the other seasonal temps who started after me keep mistaking me for a full-time, permanent member of staff. This, in turn, gives me a bit of a confidence boost, which I’ve been sorely in need of.

As part of my recent work, we’ve been opening up a new store. This has been really nice, as rather than trying to fit in to an established environment, I’ve been able to take a certain degree of “ownership” over the new place right from the outset. I know where things are, I know how the place works, I know its little quirks and idiosyncrasies. Being much more spacious and better laid out than our previous premises, it’s also much more pleasant to work in generally.

So work’s been going well. It’s just a shame a lot of other things have been so shitty recently, because it’s really getting me down; had a bit of an emotional breakdown this evening when I reached my absolute limit of endurance, and while I think that “release” helped a bit, I still feel a bit crappy.

Still, holiday coming up next week, so I shall do my best to relax and enjoy it, and hope things improve from there onwards. I can but hope.

2132: Calling

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How do you find your “calling”? In other words, how do you figure out what it is you’re “supposed” to be doing; the thing you’re good at?

I’m still not convinced I’ve figured it out myself, but I’ve been pondering it somewhat recently.

At one point, I thought teaching might be my calling, but the reality of the situation set in quite soon after I started my training; in retrospect, I’m pleased with myself that I managed to survive as long as I did, but annoyed that I wasted several years of my life and possibly left myself with some irreparable mental scars in the process.

At another point, I thought games journalism might be my calling, but going by the state of the modern games press and its contemptuous attitude towards both its audience and the things it covers, it’s pretty apparent that I’m not particularly welcome in that field, despite it being one of my biggest ambitions when I was a bit younger.

Most recently, I’ve been working retail for the second time in my life, and I’ve been surprised how much I’ve been enjoying it. This week we’ve been setting up a brand new store, and I’m absolutely exhausted as a result of the long hours everyone on the team has been working, but it’s extremely satisfying. And when I was in the existing store serving customers, it’s been extremely satisfying to help people out, advise them or simply hand them a hotly anticipated product ready for them to go home and enjoy.

I shouldn’t be that surprised, of course; the last time I worked retail, I enjoyed it a lot, too, though I attributed this to the corporate culture of the company I was working for at the time. My positive feelings towards said company — or, rather, the management team of the store I worked at — dissipated after both a colleague and I were treated rather badly, but I still look back on the majority of my time at that store with fondness.

The fact that I’m enjoying it just as much in a company with a somewhat more laid-back attitude — for the most part, anyway — suggests that it might be the work itself that I’m finding fulfilling. And indeed there are plenty of individual elements that I find oddly satisfying: things as simple as sorting out shelves and alphabetising discs, or as complex as talking an inexperienced customer through the various product lines available. It all adds up to something that I rather enjoy on the whole, with the only really sucky part of the whole thing being that retail, on average, wherever you go, tends to pay pretty poorly, creating a business sector where many employees are overworked, underpaid and underappreciated.

Still, at this stage, having suffered through a number of jobs that clearly weren’t right for me, I’m more than willing to suck up a considerable cut in my overall pay in exchange for something that I seem to enjoy and be reasonably good at. Long may these feelings continue.

2110: Stacking

I’ve been back in the retail sector for a little while now — part time, temporary, but still in there — and it occurs to me that, despite the pay being low, I actually don’t hate it. I even quite like it, I hesitate to say.

This is not entirely what I had in mind when pondering my career choices towards the end of secondary school. This is not what I had in mind when it looked like I was starting to build a career in the games press. This is not what I had in mind when I obtained a teaching qualification. But, well, it’s where I am now — and it seems to be “working” for me pretty much as well as anything I’ve done before, perhaps even better.

You may consider this to not be particularly ambitious, and I’d probably agree with you there; I’ve been conscious over the last few years of the fact that I’m simply not very ambitious when it comes to career prospects. All I really want is to be comfortable rather than rich, and I value the situation where I can completely “switch off” from work at the end of a day and just enjoy my evenings and weekends.

The other thing which occurs to me is that retail seems to provide an environment that meshes well with whatever it is that makes my brain work the way it does. I didn’t cope well with the traditional office environment, for example, because I couldn’t deal with all the gossiping, backstabbing, politics and outright lying that went on every day. It didn’t help, of course, that I was forced out of the job in question as a result of my immediate superiors not understanding what depression is or how to help someone with it. But then I hated that stupid, shitty, pointless job with all its stupid, shitty, pointless policies and procedures anyway, so despite getting the boot from it costing me a reasonably healthy salary, I’m not sorry I don’t work there any more; I’m just sorry that the circumstances under which I left it occasionally leave me with horribly unpleasant “flashbacks” when I’m trying to get to sleep.

But I shouldn’t dwell on the past too much; as I say, retail seems to provide an environment that meshes well with me. And I’ve been thinking about why that is: it’s to do with always knowing what I should be doing. because the things that there are to do are always obvious. Gap in a shelf? Fill it. Customer at a till? Serve them. Customer with a question? Answer it. Back counter messy? Tidy it. There’s always something to do, which takes care of what was my biggest frustration with the aforementioned office job: the fact that there sometimes simply wasn’t anything to get on with. (And boy, they didn’t like that being pointed out to them.)

I make mistakes, sure, because I’m still learning how things are done at my current job, but I pick things up quickly and I seem to have been making a good impression so far. It’s tiring, too, but coming off a shift feeling knackered makes me feel like I’ve done something worthwhile rather than sitting on my arse all day — plus it’s a kind of “exercise” that I can do without thinking about it.

So while it may not be particularly ambitious to say so, so long as I can keep bringing in some pennies each month with a combination of retail and the freelance writing work I’m doing on a regular basis (not for any websites or magazines, I’m afraid, so you can’t “see” it anywhere) I think I can probably muddle through like this for the immediate future. I hope so, anyway; I just want to be able to relax and just get on with life rather than wondering what amorphous, unclear, foggy target I should be aiming in the general direction of next. I just want to live, y’know?

2053: Back to Work

I had my first “proper” day at a new (part-time, seasonal, temporary) retail job today. While I’ve been earning a bit of money through some freelance work recently, it hasn’t really been “stable” enough to provide predictable income, so I had been looking around for other opportunities for a while. One such opportunity presented itself, and while it wasn’t what I’d maybe call my ideal job — minimum wage, part-time, seasonal, temporary — it is at least both relevant to my skills and interests.

I’ve worked retail before and was surprised at both how much I actually quite enjoyed it and the fact I seemingly had a reasonably natural “talent” for it. While I talk a lot about my social anxiety and shyness, this largely relates to being stuck in a “small talk” situation with someone else; when I’m given something clear and structured to talk to people about — such as selling them something — I generally have no problems with communicating, and I like to think I come across as personable and friendly. So far my experiences with returning to the retail environment after a few years away have backed that up.

Among other things, it’s quite nice to have a reason to get out of the house for a few hours. Working from home, as I’ve mentioned before, sounds like a dream come true, but in reality it’s a fairly miserable and lonely existence a lot of the time, particularly if you find yourself going through something of a dry spell with assignments. Sure, you can talk to people on the Internet, but it’s not quite the same as being surrounded by actual real living and breathing people you can look in the eye and hear the voices of. Despite everything I may have indicated to the contrary here on these very pages, I do actually quite like having company sometimes, particularly if they’re people I get along with and enjoy spending time with. And while it’s much too early to determine whether or not I’ll truly consider the people I’m working alongside to be “friends” — to be honest, after a few previous negative experiences with what I thought were workplace “friendships”, I’m very much inclined to keep everyone somewhat at arm’s length rather than getting too chummy — I certainly haven’t found myself walking out of the door thinking “what a tosser” about anyone, which is a pleasant position to be in.

When I was younger, I always wondered if I’d “make something” of myself and have an exciting, high-powered job with lots of responsibility or whatever. To be honest, as I get older I’m just content with something I can get on with and not be bothered too much. I’m not going to rule out the possibility of developing a career from this position if the opportunity presents itself once the “seasonal” season is over, but for now I’m just happy to have a bit of semi-predictable money rolling in alongside the more erratic income from freelancing.

I would like to find myself in a position where I can just get on with life without having to wonder if I’m doing enough to “get by”. For a while last year — and on a number of previous occasions — I thought I’d found that, but unfortunately that wasn’t to be. I have low expectations this time around; hopefully that means I won’t be disappointed, regardless of whatever ends up happening in the long term. In the short term, meanwhile, this will at least help me to survive, which is, to be honest, all I’m really concerned with for the moment.

1879: Progress, or the Lack Thereof

I am frustrated. I know I shouldn’t be, because fixing problems such as those I’m having with my life right now (i.e. not having a job) takes time. But that doesn’t stop it from being frustrating and anxiety-inducing, particularly when things like utility bills pop through the letterbox while I don’t have a meaningful income.

There are, at least, some things on the horizon. Tomorrow I’m going to an interview for a freelance, work-from-home opportunity that will hopefully provide something to do and some money coming in. Unfortunately, I don’t as yet know whether the money it might provide will be meaningful enough to make taking the opportunity worthwhile — particularly as it apparently requires a month of training in their offices in Watford, which is an hour and a half’s drive away — but I figured, at present, any opportunity is better than no opportunity, and attending an interview like this is at least a chance to get a feel for what is out there, what it might pay and whether it’s something worth pursuing.

Nothing has happened on the private music teaching front as yet. I’d like it to, and I’ve got some advertising out there, joined the Musicians’ Union and all manner of other business, but still nothing as yet. I have had some business cards made, too, which I will attempt to distribute via some means in the near future, likely to local music shops and possibly supermarkets if the facility is there to put community notices up.

Work for the local music service has been going a little better, though I’m painfully aware that the work I have been doing over the last couple of weeks is just sickness cover and consequently will likely dry up within another week or two. Still, it means I’ve had the opportunity to show my stuff and potentially open myself up for some further work in the future. Whether or not that will lead to anything meaningful, again, remains to be seen.

So you can probably see why I’m feeling a bit frustrated and anxious. There are several things going on that might prove worthwhile, but which also might end up being a total waste of time. It’s nigh-impossible to know what is actually worth pursuing, what will make me happy and what will bring in enough money to allow me to survive, and the whole business is stressing me out to a ridiculous degree. I just want it sorted, and I want it sorted now. I have plenty to offer the world, but it seems making the world pay attention is not a particularly easy task. And when it proves this difficult to be considered for even the most mundane of jobs, it leaves me questioning myself to an unpleasant degree: have I fucked things up beyond all hope?

Probably not, says the rational part of my brain. But it’s hard not to keep returning to that thought when all I see in my wake is a string of aborted — failed? — attempts at having a career. I’m running out of ideas.

1869: Back at the Chalkface

I’m doing something tomorrow that I’ve sworn a number of times I’d never do: I’m going back into a Music classroom in a school.

Things are a little different this time around, though. For starters, I’m not there as a regular teacher; I’m instead doing some work (my first, in fact) for the local music service covering an illness absence. It’s also only for a couple of hours, so even if it ends up being an absolutely hellish experience (which I sincerely hope it won’t!) then it won’t be long before I can escape.

But let’s be positive. I’m actually quite curious to see how this school is doing things, because it’s the first time I’ve come across a school giving instrumental lessons to a whole class at once — in this case, year 3 and 4 children playing clarinet. My past experience in the Music classroom has been limited to schools with a budget of about £5 a year for the arts, and an equipment cupboard full of little more than horrible ’90s keyboards, broken percussion instruments and perhaps a couple of recorders if you’re lucky. 30 kids having the opportunity to learn a “proper” (for want of a better word) instrument like the clarinet is a new one on me, and I’m all for it.

Music was one of my defining “things” growing up. I started learning the piano from an early age and did pretty well. I got through exams without too much difficulty, often performed in public, participated in local music festivals (including the unusual experiences of piano duets and trios, which I kind of miss the bizarreness of) and eventually started teaching before I left for university. I picked up the clarinet and the saxophone while I was at secondary school, and these opened the door to more social music-making occasions such as the school orchestra and bands, and the county concert band (which, although fun, was one of my first real experiences with social anxiety, particularly when I overheard someone I thought was my friend taking the piss out of me behind my back). It was often hard work, but it was enjoyable, and I made a lot of good friends at university through music, too.

It was something that, as I was growing up, you had to make a specific effort to do, though. Music to me was “special” — something a bit outside of the norm — and I liked it for that. I liked that it gave me a skill that a lot of other people around me didn’t have. I liked being able to play a piece on the piano and people who normally wouldn’t give me the time of day would suddenly (and, usually, temporarily) think I was cool and talented. I find myself wondering whether I’d feel the same way if I’d “had” to study my instruments, rather than wanting to.

This is why I’m intrigued to see this whole-class approach to instrumental teaching. I’m not convinced it’s going to be ideal, since an instrument like the clarinet in particular isn’t suited to everyone. It’s an opportunity for these kids to make music together, though, and using an instrument that’s eminently more relatable than the usual “school music” mainstays of tambourines, tambours and guiros. And a bit more practical than getting everyone playing the piano — although I do know of some schools that take similar approaches with keyboard tuition.

Anyway. That’s my day tomorrow; hopefully it will lead on to new and exciting things.

1864: Trying Times

It is, as they say, a Difficult Time in my life, as regular readers will know. I also find it somewhat unfortunate that said Difficult Time in my life is coming, as with the previous Difficult Time back in 2010, shortly prior to my heading off to something that should be fun, exciting and pure escapism: my trip to Boston for PAX East. (I hasten to add that this Difficult Time is for different reasons to the 2010 Difficult Time, thankfully; I’m not sure I could go through another 2010.)

But, as difficult as it is to stay positive sometimes — and believe me, it is extremely difficult to stay positive right now — I need to focus on the things that I’m doing that are worthwhile, and that could potentially (hopefully!) lead to future happiness.

I have a real piano in my own house for the first time since I left home, for one thing. That’s pretty cool, and as I suspected I vastly prefer playing it to my electric piano. The electric, though awesome and great-sounding, simply doesn’t “feel” right thanks to being on a somewhat wobbly keyboard stand, and the sound of it coming out of an amplifier isn’t the same as the real thing at all.

Said piano is hopefully going to be the centrepiece of at least some of my future work, and I’m making all the efforts possible to make the music teaching happen. I’m getting business cards printed, I have a listing on one of the biggest online music teacher directories in the country, I have my own website and, once the business cards arrive, I’ll be giving them out to local music shops and other establishments in the hope of drumming up some business.

I’m also going to be doing some work for the local Music Service. I only have a couple of hours of this secured so far, but hopefully that will lead to more regular future things. While a couple of hours certainly isn’t going to pay the bills, it’s a foot in the door, which is good.

Then there’s a few writing-related possibilities in the pipeline. I don’t know if any of these will come to anything just yet, but hopefully they will.

And then there’s a few other potential means of making some money out there, too, all of which I’m exploring in the hope of finding something that will allow me to support myself and remain at least reasonably happy for some of the time. In practical, realistic terms, it’s probably more likely I will end up mixing and matching lots of different things, which maybe isn’t ideal from a “stability” perspective, but will certainly keep things interesting and exciting — and more importantly, allow me to work on my own terms, which is something that I’ve come to crave.

I am trying to remain positive. I really am. There are good days, and there are bad days, and there are days that are sort of in the middle that can go either way. Today has been one of the latter kinds; let’s hope tomorrow is a good day. Only one way to find out though, huh.

1851: Bollocks

So, I lost my job today. It’s the third time depression has played a partial role in me losing a position, and the second time I’ve been treated like absolute shit by people who were supposed to be supporting me, effectively putting me in a position where it was either get fired or be forced to resign. (Regrettably, in this case, I was not given the opportunity to do the latter.)

I was pretty furious earlier. I may have bellowed an obscenity in the face of the person who fired me. It wasn’t my proudest moment, but I don’t regret it one bit. The person in question is someone who, along with a couple of others, has contributed to me feeling like absolute shit for the last couple of weeks. So no, I don’t regret it; they deserved it, and moreover, letting out that shout was enormously cathartic — so much so that I pretty much felt the last couple of weeks of stress leaving my body through my mouth.

I guess I should be grateful then? But fuck that. I do feel surprisingly better than I thought I would, however; I was in tears while this hideous process was going on, but once I got home — after a horribly gruelling journey up the shithole of a motorway that is the M27, hopefully for the last time — I was pretty calm about the whole thing, and ready to look for the next step. (That said, thinking back on it is making me a bit angry, so I’m going to stop doing that for the sake of my own sanity right now.)

Anyway, all this puts me in a position that I was planning to put myself in at some point soon anyway, albeit a little sooner than anticipated and without any of the groundwork I was hoping to lay before I put myself in this position.

I’ve come to the conclusion that working in a corporate environment like that simply isn’t for me. There’s too much scope for two-facedness, lying, backstabbing and general unpleasantness. There’s no reason for these things to happen, of course, but having spoken to a number of people who have had various office jobs, it seems that it’s pretty much par for the course with that kind of position.

Not only that, but I have absolutely no patience for an organisation that puts policy and procedure ahead of individual welfare and performance. I’ll leave specifics for another day, but suffice to say that this place was rife with ridiculous policies and procedures that served as little more than excuses to get people into trouble — and it was also host to the nanniest of nanny-state, wrap-everyone-in-cotton-wool health-and-safety bullshit-obsessed nonsense I have ever encountered in my life. So, aside from the regular income, I shan’t miss it one teeny-tiny bit, aside from the couple of people there who were genuinely decent folk just struggling on to get things done amid all this nonsense.

The plan, then, is to try and strike out on my own; in the past, while working from home has occasionally been lonely and stressful in its own strange way, I vastly prefer it to long and tedious commutes with toxic atmospheres at the other end. I can control my own working hours, I can take on the work I want to take on and I can simply get on with it without other people interfering with me. This, it seems, is my optimal means of working, and it’s unfortunate it’s taken such an unpleasant experience — and six months of wasted time — to confirm that to me.

I have a few avenues to pursue, one of which is something that I’ve considered trying to make a living from in the past: music teaching. I’ve done a little of this on the side in the past before, but only a few pupils. I know it’s more than possible to make a very healthy living doing this, though it takes time to build up that solid base of regular pupils. That means I’ll be looking for freelance or temporary work in the meantime, likely with an emphasis on writing and/or editing. It’ll also be a good opportunity to brush up on my web design skills, which in turn will open up opportunities for other work.

As horrible as today’s experience was, it’s ultimately a good thing, I think. It’s given me a push to not settle for a job where I’m miserable, and instead to actively seek out things that I am both good at and enjoy.

I feel there’s a long and difficult road ahead of me, but I feel ready to start walking it. Wish me luck.

1753: Shifter

It’s quite surprising what a relatively minor shift in your routine can do for you.

I said yesterday that I was going to try doing my commute a bit earlier than usual and see if that made a difference to my daily journey. Specifically, I woke up at 5:30am, snoozed the alarm for half an hour and got up at 6. Previously, I’ve been waking up at 6:30am, snoozing the alarm for as close to half an hour as I think I can get away with, getting dressed, having a quick breakfast and shooting out of the door as close to 7am as I can manage. Today, I managed to be out of the house well before 6:30am, which meant that it was still dark and cold — although at this time of year it’s still dark and cold at 7am, too — and well on my way to work considerably ahead of my normal schedule.

Surprisingly, I felt pretty alert. Sure, the espresso I had necked before leaving the house probably helped, but I often have one of those on “normal” days, too; this felt somewhat different, like I had somehow hit on the correct biorhythm and synced up my body with what the universe felt I should be doing and when.

I grit my teeth and clenched my buttocks as I approached the accursed M27 and prepared for the worst — and longest — part of my daily journey. I merged onto the main carriageway, accelerated, accelerated, accelerated… and before long, I was cruising at what I’d consider to be a normal motorway speed without being dragged to a grinding halt by overhead flashing lights declaring the recommended speed to be “40” and a sea of tail-lights indicating that no, I’m not going anywhere for a good while yet.

In other words, my journey was smooth, quick, uneventful and, most importantly, completely stress-free. I arrived at my destination in ample time to find a convenient parking space that didn’t involve a mile-long walk to the office; I walked the route to work still feeling fairly chipper and positive, and it put me in a good frame of mind for most of the day: compared to a lot of other days I’ve been working at that place, today was extremely busy and could well have been quite stressful had I arrived in a negative frame of mind. However, due to that good start to the day — all because I went through my morning routine an hour earlier than usual — it didn’t; rather than stressful, it was productive, and I managed to get a whole lot done on a big project that I’ve been working on, which was good.

Shame I had to go and ruin all that with my journey home, then; I noticed rather too late — i.e. once I was on the motorway and approaching a buildup of traffic — that I was low on fuel, and sure enough, a moment later the warning light came on. I pulled off the motorway to go in search of a petrol station, but made the mistake of driving into the black hole of despair that is Fareham, traffic capital of the South Coast, and ended up turning what should have been a 45-minute journey into one that took two hours. In stark contrast to how the smooth run this morning put me in a positive frame of mind, this appalling journey home was stressful, unpleasant and put me in a bad mood — albeit a fleeting one which has dissipated after some food and funny TV.

Just goes to show how little changes can make a big impact on the way your day goes and how you feel. I’m going to see if I can continue the routine of getting up at that earlier time and enjoying a smooth run in to the office of a morning; starting the day right is very important, and I experienced firsthand today what a big difference ensuring that start was a positive one made. So hopefully I will be able to keep it up.

I give it a week before I’m back to rolling out of bed five minutes before I absolutely, positively have to leave the house otherwise I’ll be late. But it’s nice to be (vaguely) ambitious.