Thursday 18 October 2012

New Year's Resolution - in October....

It's been ages since I wrote on my blog, and I feel very guilty. I have let myself down - again. I do this sort of thing constantly. I have a massive surge of enthusiasm for something, set myself totally unrealistic goals and then don't keep to them, ending in deflation and self-loathing!

Well, not quite, but I don't feel great about it. So anyway, I'm making a New Year's resolution. I will tame myself, rein myself in and curb the dreamier side of my personality - the side that gets carried away with unrealistic ideas, notions, goals, call them what you will. I will set realistic and achievable goals - little steps and not great big ideas.

I have a very chequered history in this department. I realised very early on that I wasn't quite mainstream. I look fairly mainstream, I suppose I act fairly mainstream, but I don't think mainstream, and this has proved to be a bit of a hindrance.

You see, from an early age, I knew that I didn't want to work in an office, I didn't want to be a nurse, or a teacher, or any of the more solid and sensible jobs that my contemporaries were contemplating. No, I had much bigger ideas. But, and this proved to be my undoing, I wanted to start at the very top in some very glamorous position.

I went through the gamut of dreaming of working in a whole variety of glamorous jobs - top London hotels for instance - I remember once writing to one such establishment and begging, yes, begging them to give me a job. In my naivety, I thought that desperation would inspire pity and therefore they would give me the job. Never mind about my quailification to actually do the work, humph, that would take too long to acquire.

How naive and stupid, but unfortunately this trait has dogged me throughout my life. It has led to a very varied working life and aquisition of skills (never finely honed however), but one that has stayed firmly on the ground floor, ending up with me working in a hateful office (to which I am pathalogically unsuited)and being stuck there on a part-time wage, struggling to make ends meet as always.

The enemy of the dreamer is the inability to accept the mundane and accept that mundane can lead to better things further down the line. I was always unwilling to wait and so moved on to the next thing expecting to find Utopia just around the corner.
So, my list of 'jobs' includes: - Shoe shop assistant(Saturday job)
- Bar maid
- Local Authority Housing office worker
- Cleaner (in S.France)
- Spud Stall assistant (beach bum job in S.France)
- Restaurant commis-waiter (couldn't even get job as actual waitress)(S.France)
- TV extra
- Hotel worker (Italy)
- Holiday Rep (France)
- General factotum for holiday villa company (S.France)
- Offices of large tour operator
- Tour co-ordinator for school travel company
- Interior designer
- Decorative paint effects specialist
- Antique stall holder
- Back to the local authority housing department (desperate measures)
- Market trader
- Photographer
- Credit card company employee

I also trained as a masseuse and aerobics instructor. Phew....there are probably a couple that I've missed...

Why didn't I stick at any of them? Well, a few reasons that I can come up with, although a psychologist might have other ideas.
1. I hated the work (not all cases)
2. The company went out of business
3. I wanted to be self-employed
4. I wasn't making enough money
5. Needed to earn a proper salary

And now, I find myself in the position where my part time salary is insufficient and I need an additional job, either working from home, or something that will fit in with school hours, but I have no skills to offer. At least nothing concrete. My experiences have been invaluable and would, I feel, be an asset to employers but looking at my erratic CV, who on earth would take the punt?!!

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