2208: Am I Better Than This?

I've been wracked with anxiety recently, as the more astute among you may have been able to tell. Partly this has been to do with my work situation — i.e. the fact that currently I don't have a regular job. Thankfully, I don't have zero income thanks to some regular freelance work I've been doing, but that is a little too erratic to be able to rely on completely.

As such, I've been looking for regular positions elsewhere. Having genuinely enjoyed my stint with Game over the Black Friday-Christmas period, I was looking into other retail positions around the place. I've actually had a couple of interviews in the past couple of days, but today in particular I was hit with a crisis of confidence. This is nothing unusual for me, but what was a little more unusual was the circumstances surrounding it.

Basically, what happened was this: I was speaking with the company's area manager about my application and my background. The way the retailer in question does things is a bit different from the retailers I've previously worked for (Apple and Game) and he pointed this out. He then said something that gave me pause.

"Your previous job," he said. "That sounds like it was the ideal job for you. Just speaking to you now, I can say that I'd be happy taking your advice and buying from you; you seem authoritative, knowledgeable and trustworthy."

He wasn't wrong; were it not for the low wages — the curse of retail in most instances — then I'd absolutely agree; my stints with both Apple and Game have been the jobs I've enjoyed most and derived the most satisfaction from in my "career", such as it is. And that's because I felt like I knew what I was doing: I understood the job, I felt comfortable with my responsibilities and as a result, I exuded confidence and passion when speaking with customers.

And that's where the problem comes in. While interviewing for the positions in the last couple of days, I just felt… uncomfortable. And it was more than the usual sort of discomfort anyone feels when faced with unfamiliar circumstances: I got a very strong gut feeling that I'm Not Doing The Right Thing. And, for the first time in quite some time I felt inspired to look for something more: to look for something that I know I'll be able to do well at, and preferably be paid appropriately for. I will, however, settle for something I'll be happy and comfortable doing at this point, because that can always develop into something with better hours and/or pay.

I have the weekend to mull things over a bit but I think I'll be taking a new approach from the start of next week. Rather than casting a wide net and hoping something sticks, I'll be pursuing things I know I'll be good at more aggressively. At the same time, I'll be upping the tempo on some projects I've had on the go for a while: the magazine I shared with you all yesterday, some ideas for non-fiction games books, and many, many ideas for fiction books. I may even look into editing and self-publishing some of the fiction I've previously written on this blog as an experiment, and perhaps into using a service like Patreon to allow people who enjoy my work to show their appreciation.

This route will doubtless be harder and take longer to get going, but I want to be happy and satisfied in what I do. I'm tired of constantly falling off the "ladder" and having to start climbing all over again. There has to be a better way. I have to be better than this. I know I am better than this.

Big words, I know. Whether I'll be able to follow through on them remains to be seen, but I feel that anything is better than settling for something that is convenient but miserable rather than rewarding and fulfilling.

2205: No End in Sight

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Regular readers will know that I'm going through a bit of a Rough Patch at the minute, to say the least. Tonight it's hitting me particularly hard, for various reasons that I shan't go into in detail. I wanted to talk a little more generally, as I find this often helps me sort things out in my mind a bit.

The thing that's making me feel particularly bleak right now is that it feels like there's no end in sight for this Rough Patch. I don't know how to resolve it; I don't know how to "fix" it. I feel like I've messed up — not once, not twice, but repeatedly, and I'm now reaping the anti-rewards that are the consequence of all the things I've done wrong in my life, all the poor choices I've made.

For sure, I know that I have made plenty of poor choices along the way, but many of them didn't seem like it at the time — and rationally speaking, I also know that I'm not the only one to blame for my current situation. The blame for that can be laid at the feet of a wide variety of people, including me, but that doesn't make it any easier to deal with — particularly as many of the non-me people that I blame for this situation are essentially "untouchable" despite me wanting nothing more than to at the very least yell at them and, were I feeling particularly feisty that day, slug them one right in the face.

Mostly I'm just frustrated because I'm not sure I deserve this. I feel like I have plenty to offer the world, and no way of making it clear to everyone that I matter, that I have value. I have friends and family, sure — both local and far-away — and that knowledge, to an extent, takes care of part of my emotional well-being, but it doesn't pay the bills, and it doesn't give me a sense of satisfaction that I am, in any way, making the most of my existence. Were I to drop dead tomorrow, 1) would anyone notice? and 2) would I be remembered for anything particularly worthwhile? Again, rationally speaking, I know the answer to both of those questions is probably "yes" — and I'm not planning on dropping dead tomorrow — but it's difficult to remember that sometimes when you find yourself struggling to stay afloat.

I really don't know what to do any more. For every bit of progress I feel like I make, I suffer some sort of setback. I end up not going anywhere — and, in the worst case, going backwards. When I left university, I was a teacher earning over £25k a year. Later, I had my dream job of writing about games for slightly less than that. Now I'm looking at retail jobs with wages of a relative pittance in comparison, on the grounds that 1) I feel like I can do them and 2) that's all I feel like I can convince prospective employers I'm good for. (Not that there's anything wrong with retail, obviously; it just feels like all that education was a bit of a waste, is all.)

I'll figure something out. Bad things have happened to me before and I made it through. And on those past occasions, it felt like I was drowning in black tar, with no means of escape visible in any direction — and yet I still did. I have no reason to believe this time will be any different; it's just a matter of when I can see the shoreline at the edge of this inky sea. At the moment it's somewhere beyond the horizon.

2189: Reflections on the Last Five Years, Or: Life After Games Journalism

I've had a whole lot of thoughts swirling around in my head for some time now about various matters, and I feel as a therapeutic exercise — not to mention an opportunity for some of you to get to know me a bit better — it's important that I express them somehow. I know all too well how frustrating, stressful and ultimately unhealthy it can be to have unresolved emotions and thoughts surrounding things that have happened to you — particularly bad things — and so this is my attempt to reboot my mind and try to move on a little.

Consequently, certain aspects of this post are more than likely to rub a few people up the wrong way. To those people whose jimmies are rustled I say simply: fuck you, I don't give a shit, and if you really cared you wouldn't have done the things you did in the first place.

In the interests of at least a facade of professionalism, I will not be naming individuals who have had a negative impact on my life in this post, though it will doubtless be extremely obvious to anyone who has been following me for a while who the people in question are. I will, however, be naming the companies involved, since that is less personal; everyone knows how unpleasant it is if you Google your own name and find something not terribly complimentary, whereas, unless you own a monolithic corporation, you probably care a little less about someone talking smack about your monolithic corporation. That's how I'm going to attempt to justify myself about this, anyway.

Also, this post is crazy long, so for the benefit of those who only read on my front page, here's a Read More tag.

Continue reading "2189: Reflections on the Last Five Years, Or: Life After Games Journalism" →

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

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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

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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.