Working Dolly's Shifts

This has been a good week. Certainly much better than expected.
On Monday I got a call in the afternoon saying did I want to cover a shift on Tuesday. On Tuesday I got a call from a friend asking if I'd work at his office on Wednesday, On Wednesday he asked for Thursday, and Thursday for Friday. So having been expecting to do 2 hours work this week, I've done about 40 now. And probably more next week...

For my friend I'm doing IT type work, which is something that I have little experience of above individual user. (And it's been a while since I've used Windows much). I have to be told how to do everything, but the tasks are pretty repetitive, so once I know what I'm doing I can just plough on with it, meaning the more skilled people can plough on with the more challenging work.

As for searching for more permanent work, it's not going well, my laptop is damaged which is an excuse for not doing as much as I should, along with being busy. I've seen a job, in a role I'm not overly keen, but reasonably paid, and permanent. Problem I have with it is that it's half an hour away from my parents (by car). Moving back to that area is in mind very much a backward step for me, and chances are I'd spend a few months at parents as well. My parents are really the only link I have left in that part of the country, and while it's not a million miles from where I live now, I'm beginning to feel settled here...

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.

In the end...

I didn't clean the bathroom, but eventually did put in one job application. It's for a company I've applied to before, although for a different role, so opened up the application form from last summer and had it alongside while I completed the one for this job. Last time I didn't get shortlisted for an interview, and today, looking at the application form, I can kind of see why. So hopefully this one's a bit better, and I'll have a trip up to Yorkshire.

Application forms aren't my favourite things, especially the open questions, where you have to 'draw on your experiences to illustrate how you match up to the requirements as laid out in the job description', sort of thing. I never really know what to put down, and how to present it. I do think I'm beginning to improve my approach, but still don't know how close to getting it consistently right I am.
The other thing is finding all the information... A lot of detail isn't on my CV, as it would be very cluttered if it was, so today I was Googling for the addresses of a couple of my recent employers.

Aside from that I had a good play of my piano this morning, and well I'm not sure what else I actually acheived today, apart from about 100 refreshes of Twitter, Facebook and regular checks of my RSS feeds. Oh and a Moogle Gap of 10-mile, 20-mile, 30-mile and 40-mile walking radii from my home.

I'm working tomorrow, and because I'm trying to not spend so much money at the moment, I made extra pasta and sauce for lunch to take with me. My pasta sauce is absolutely gorgeous, if I do say so myself.

Down the pan...

Right, so with all the tabs of potential job opportunities that has been open on Firefox pretty much since Monday, the 'draft' CV that has been open on my desktop since Tuesday morning and the ad from the local free paper that I ripped out yesterday... Where shall I start?
I think I'll clean the bathroom...

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?

An Introduction

Hello

Welcome to my blog. Please wipe your feet or take your shoes off as you come in.

Somethings about who I am:
I'm in my twenties, and have been working in live entertainment for the last few years. However, at the moment I'm "between jobs" or "resting" as it's also known in this industry.
Life is getting pretty hard for me, I'm gradually running out of what money I have, as the little I'm earning from bits and pieces of casual work isn't covering rent and my other monthly costs. For about 4/5 days over this weekend I was completely unable to spend anything due to being out of cash, having a maxed out credit card, and my debit card while not at it's overdraft limit, a pre-authorisation meant I couldn't withdraw on it.
Yesterday I was able to get a tenner out of the cash machine, but am concerned that I've got to survive on that and the canned food and staples found in my cupboard.
My parents have been great and bailed me out a few times, and there's always a bed and well-stocked kitchen to retreat to, but that's not an option I'm wanting to resort to.
I trust God to look after me, and family and church are two ways he's supporting me already.

That's it for now I guess...