The perils of job hunting and the psyche

I know it’s not personal but job rejections are truly damaging and when you are doing nothing but job hunting, it’s like everything you’re doing is worthless and wasted.
Third interview tomorrow and I’m already in knots about it.

Where did August go?

So 1st August was my last day in gainful employment and today is 1st September…how exactly did that happen?

I cannot point to any major achievements which is rather disappointing so have decided to be slightly kinder to myself and see if there are any mini achievements I can claim. A kind of 3BT when BTs are in short supply.

1. On the job front it has been deathly slow although I have been to two second interviews (one rejection and one leading to a third interview in a couple of weeks). I have pimped my LinkedIn profile and registered for various freelance databases so fingers crossed – really there have to be jobs out there somewhere.

2. One achievement is definitely getting my act together on Wii Fit. I have actually today set up my own Mii (don’t ask why it’s taken so long, pathological hatred of being weighed and judged) rather than just using The Beloved’s. Slight downside to that is that I would appear to be using less calories (less body weight) and now have to unlock all the levels I’d previously unlocked. However, I am quite determined to keep it up (for as long as I’m alone in the house, it is a strictly no-spectator sport!).

3. I have been to see a couple of films: Rise of the Planet of the Apes was surprisingly good, Andy Serkis is a genius; Cowboys and Aliens was very silly. Still haven’t managed One Day and I really want to see that but it requires getting myself out on my own for my own good and my motivational levels for being kind to myself are still on the stunted side.

4. I have tried to limit obsessive cleaning and become more able to cope with my lodger’s hair balls. She’s leaving on Saturday and it’s been quite fun having her here although we’re looking forward to having the place to ourselves again.

Hmmm…all a bit slim pickings really

3BT – 31st July

Possibly more than three

1. Went to see Carlos Acosta at The Coliseum. Was somewhat nervous by the reviews and, although it could have done with “more dancing”, I really enjoyed it. Although agreed with the critic (sorry can’t find the link) who said it could/should have been staged at the Tate Modern.

2. Hated what I was wearing yesterday. You know when you just put something on and it grows progressively more grim as the day goes on? Well, I felt so lucky that I could just pop to Hennes, buy a £12 top and feel instantly more human. Also bought a pair of shoes which weren’t entirely on the agenda but are lovely and I have bought a pair of lovely shoes until last October which is actually QUITE A LONG TIME  (well for me).

3. British athletes being fab, especially the beautiful Jessica Ennis and the passionate Mo Farrar.

4. Eating delicious food hand delivered from my parents garden (even though it’s nearly 100 miles away). And transforming courgettes (which are normally watery and a bit bleurgh) thanks to a recipe from the lovely Ruth and Rose – page 155 of The River Cafe Blue Book.

5. Sondheim at the Proms. There are few words apart from Judi Dench rocks.

6. The power of Twitter and this week’s story about Clare Balding.

7. Newly clean curtains and windows (although they need to drop about an inch – the curtains not the windows).

8. A spurt of ridiculously early morning energy counterbalanced by an afternoon nap.

There’s nothing like a deadline…

…to spur you into action. After a couple of weeks of whingeing and whining that I can’t get into work, I’ve suddenly got an enormous deadline (going on holiday on Friday – the excitement) so today I have written two and half presentations and two budgets – on fire!

I am quite beside myself with the anticipation of my holiday. I love it when the anticipation is so great that it actually extends your holiday because every time you thin about it you get a shiver of excitement. I am going further east than I have ever been (actually it’s probably so far east that you can’t get much more east without being west); I am also going to stay with lovely lovely friends who I (obviously) don’t see very often because they live so very far away. My smile is as far east and as far west as it can be on my face.

I just can’t get into it

I have not made a particularly good start to 2010 workwise. It’s not that I’ve done anything wrong, I just haven’t done anything much. For some reason I cannot actually get into a work mindset.

Part of it is actually not having enough on. I am loathe to get into work creation mode because if I start something then a whole avalanche of urgent work will suddenly appear on my to do list and I’ll end up doing the whole working late, working early, getting stressy about it all thing. So I’m determined to sit it out as I can see several big projects bobbling away on the horizon and I am also going on holiday in a mere two weeks. Which is probably another reason why I can’t concentrate as I am genuinely so over-excited about my trip that all I want to do is look at TripAdvisor and amend my packing list (which currently runs to four pages!).

The other part is I am struggling to actually identify my role at the moment. I was promoted at the end of last year (hurrah, all jolly good) and I am eyeing up a further one later this year (either that or I have to go and get a new job which is too depressing to think about) so I have to come up with some really shit hot ways of impressing people. At the moment, what those things are remains something of a mystery. I need to do that whole ‘big thinking’ thing…but, as I mentioned, I’m struggling to get into anything approximating a work mindset.

What I actually should do is just shut up and get on with it….

Three whole years and good news

Now who would have thought three years ago sat in a meeting room that coincidentally I can see from my current office (but is in a totally different building and a company so distant in culture that I might as well have been working on Mars back then – it was about as hospitable as well), that I would still be blogging?

I had marvellous news yesterday. After three and a half years of freelancing, I am now a permanent employee somewhere. This is very exciting.

I’ve wanted to find a work home since I came back from Tanzania because I realised I missed the stuff that often makes people want to freelance in the first place (people management, the odd bout of office politics). After all I never exactly made a conscious decision to become a freelancer, rather it was a financial necessity and a case of being very badly burned by making a duff choice in employer. But finding a home has been tricky: not a huge number of jobs out there (okay admittedly way more than there are at the moment, have you seen the back pages of PR Week? I haven’t seen a recruitment consultancy ad for weeks); people being highly suspicious of why I wanted to give up freelancing; and frankly some very unpleasant interviews with people who had the social graces of a rottweiler . (Clue, you don’t have to approach a prospective candidate like your fresh from the Guantanamo Bay School of Interview Techniques).

But now I have a proper, permanent job; a set of objectives just for me; the prospect of doing some training and learning more – hurrah on many levels.

Little update on life

Now why haven’t I been blogging recently? There’s been some sort of blockage – bloggage perhaps? Things have been happening, my life has been on its usual undulating journey but I just haven’t felt able to write about any of it.

As usual, there are a lot of things going on with the slightly gnarly relationship I find myself in. I think this is the root of the problem. I am actually too scared to write about my life in case it turns out one way (and I look stupid) or another way (and everyone thinks I’m stupid).

My work contract in theory ends next Wednesday but (again, in theory) I’m going to be made a permanent member of staff (hurrah!). Except that there’s been some really annoying game playing and politics which means they may actually offer me a job that I don’t want. I can’t decide if they’re just being a tad too laid back about it or if there is a more sinister motivation (of the “in this current economic climate she’ll take any job we offer” variety; they seem to have failed to entertain the concept that if they don’t offer me the job I want, I may actually leave). I will find out this week. 

So on the horns of such dilemmas, my ability to write/speak about anything has disappeared. All conversations are following a similar pattern:

Featherduster: “So how are you?”

AN Other: “Fine, how are you?”

FD: (Breezily) “All good. So what have YOU been up to?”

ANO: (Fills in details of life…) “… and how about you?”

FD: “Oh same old. Same old, you know working, being busy. The usual. So do tell me about…”

And I then use every blocking, stalling and diversionary tactic to avoid discussing ANYTHING about me. I suspect my friends are finding me entirely poor company.

I am hoping my bloggage will clear up soon…in the mean time I may just have to fall back on some of those tried and tested blog-fillers, yes I’m off to find a good meme.

3BT – 27th February

1. Spring arrived today. I didn’t need to put my light on to put my make up on this morning (of course the result may have been disastrous). But it was warm and delicious and you could almost see buds budding and life bursting (still not entirely convinced by people getting their legs out and wearing sandals – it is still February!)

2. ikou De-stress and Relax tea – genius delicious stuff.

3. My lovely girls at work who gave a fantastic company presentation. Rather worrying was the amount of Chlamydia kits that were nabbed (lots) and the amount of condoms picked up (few).

4. (Because I have been somewhat light on Beautiful Things recently). The excitement of a weekend away in Glasgow with old friends and new – although not together which makes everything much easier (although the trauma of what to wear is somewhat mitigating any associated joy).

5. Answering questions on Mastermind – always makes me feel slightly more clever than I really am!