Travel

One of my friends made a suggestion that I should go to Australia, I've no idea where it came from. Ok she's not long back from a stint in New Zealand herself, but still.
So I've been thinking a little about it, not so much it's been my main distraction, but I've been thinking about it.
I would quite like to see Australia and New Zealand, and America. I won't be young and single for ever, maybe it's now the time. Ok, not right now as tickets will cost a few hundred at least, but could I make it my focus for the next few months, to raise enough to go on a trip, by just doing any job I can. Then travel, take time to review, maybe work my way around, then consider a career change on my return.
What do you think? Feel free to comment

5-a-day: 2 so far, maybe I should try and do at least one more.

5-a-day

The government health department, and the bandwagon riding supermarkets, push the 5 different fruit and vegetable portions a day as an aid to sensible eating, to ensure you get the right nutrients and so forth.

Maybe the DWP/Jobcentre should take a lesson from them. I recently signed on for a week or so, as casual work had dried up, they required me to:

• Write to at least 2 employers a week
• Phone at least 2 employers a week
• Contact Jobseeker Direct at least 1 time a week
• Ask family, friends and people I have worked with before
• Look on the Internet daily and in an industry journal weekly.

I make that five 'active' tasks and three relatively 'passive' tasks each week. My experience of the jobcentreplus is they don't even follow up whether you're doing that much. I think 5-a-day 'active' attempts to find work is something worth encouraging, and is what I want to try and do now.

So my 5-a-day is to try and actively pursue 5 potential lines of employment for 5 days of the week. That's 25 things a week.
My aim is also to try and explore different options, and potential new careers. So I'm going to try to aim to keep something of a balance between applying for these five types of work opportunity:

• Positions that closely match my usual role in the Entertainment industry, typically in response to adverts.
• Casual positions within my area of expertise in the Entertainment industry, typically these will have to be cold contacts.
• Medium term to Permanent positions, probably away from my usual role, but remaining within Entertainment.
• Casual, Temporary or Short-term work outside the industry. (e.g. Agencies and McJobs)
• Medium to long-term positions outside the industry, with a view to a potential long-term change in career direction.

The balance won't be perfect, I'm not going to wait till tomorrow to apply for a job I like because I've 'filled my quota' for that type of job for that day, but I'll see how the balance goes, and will try and keep an honest tally at the end of blog posts. Think I'll make a chart to record my progress...

5-a-day: Bad day, 0/5.

Be the best?

I'm watching too much TV, an almost inevitable by-product of not having much work to go for, and little money for doing 'fun' things outside the house.

Two adverts have pretty much dug themselves into my conscious, largely against my will:

1. The F.A.S.T. Stroke awareness adverts
2. Army recruitment ads
   

The second, it's making me, er, think... Is it something I could do? Would want to do?
It'd be a big shift in career, clearly, but would give me structure, a steady income, accommodation, training & development opportunities, a pension... All pretty good things, and things I would value, a lot at the moment...
However things like having to conform and being in a job where I might be required to kill another person (and be at significant risk myself) is probably not something I would actually go for, I have though, been on their website.

But how big a shift could I be prepared for? I've been thinking if I was to change my career, as opposed to picking up work on a 'temporary' basis outside of entertainment, or exploring other options within entertainment.

Could I be a Police Officer? Would I enjoy working in Public Transport? Is there a role for me in Retail? Might I find Ambulance work rewarding? Have I got a hidden passion for Teaching? Am I fit enough to be a Fireman? Really, how boring would I find Accountancy? Is it too late to pursue a career in IT? What would I do on a Building site? Are any of these "Sales Opportunities" genuine?

Most of these are things I've genuinely considered as possibilities in the last couple of months... and none of them have felt right, but conversely very few of them have felt wrong to pursue...
How do I pick which one (or more) to pursue? Do I really want to change career permanently at this stage? Am I even in the right place to decide on a long term change?