One Goblin, slightly used.
She is looking for a home for a few years with a kind, loving family who will look beyond her obvious flaws and social ineptitude and get to know her for the lovely person she is. It’s true. Beyond the clumsy and awkward exterior is actually a very nice, intelligent person.
As you may guess from the above paragraph, the interview last week didn’t go well and I wasn’t successful so this is my Monday Morning Nag Post to remind you all that I am looking for a job. I won’t say I’m at all surprised actually. They were very kind and told me they decided to go with someone with more experience – which may be true, it’s entirely possible – however, I suspect part of the reason may have also been because of what a colossal mess that particular day was. It didn’t exactly help me to portray myself in the best light or perform to the best of my abilities. That kind of thing.
However, hope springs eternal.
A few weeks ago, Angel mentioned that it might help to know what the hell I can actually do if I’m going to nag for job possibilities on a weekly basis. Of course, I admitted that she had a bloody good point.
The fact of the matter is that it’s actually not very much – experience wise. Attitude wise, well, I reckon if given the opportunity, I could happily do almost anything – except sales, I would be useless at that. That’s not arrogance or a high expectation of my abilities, that’s purely because I love learning more than most things. Also, I’m quite desperate to prove myself so I tend to work my fingers to the bone to do just that.
Then there’s the education side of things. Well. That’s such a pain in my rear to tell you the truth.
When I finished matric, I went straight into studying a degree in Communication Science because I was keen to go into copywriting. However, being seventeen and just beginning to find out all about myself, it soon became a case of not being sure if that was, in fact, what I wanted to do. The smart thing would have been to take a gap year and perhaps do some travelling to figure things out, but at the time I felt absolutely sure of what I wanted to do in life.
After a year and a half into the degree though, the rest of my life seemed a long way off and, at 18, it suddenly seemed like I might be making a mistake so I decided to give it a rest for the moment and work for my mom for a bit and try and figure things out.
A short while later, it occurred to me that I loved movies and that perhaps that would be something I would love to do. Thankfully (or perhaps, not so thankfully, the jury is still out on this one), I have a mother who was willing to help her kids pursue their dreams (however temporary). So off I went to study film. Of course, as anyone who begins studying film, I had this idea that I would like to go into directing. That didn’t last long though. After a few months of studying, I was absolutely taken with editing. I loved the fact that I was able to combine my love for technology and film in a creative way. To be honest, I was much better at Scriptwriting, but it didn’t offer me much of a challenge and I preferred to major in something that was, well, more challenging. So I did.
After two years, I completed my diploma with a major in editing. And then I was stuck. I hadn’t studied at the most organised institution and, as anyone will tell you, having a showreel is a bit of a must to begin working in the industry. Of course, the show reels weren’t something we really got to in our second year – it was mainly something you did during your optional third year (which I didn’t do because of staff restructuring and a loss of faith in the institution). Now, I could have made a showreel from what I did have, but I didn’t feel those projects were nearly good enough to show anyone and, quite frankly, many of the projects were never seen again after disappearing into the store room – mainly because they were checked out by other people and never returned.
This all meant that when it came to trying to find work, I felt completely unprepared and completely lacking confidence in my abilities.
This will become a running theme. I know I’m capable of many things and I know I’m actually rather good at some things, however, I do lack confidence at times and in the past this has meant I didn’t even try. These days of course, I’m desperate enough to work that I try my luck at anything.
Anyway, where was I…yes, lacking confidence after completing the diploma.
For a year, I tried to find work but to be honest, I let a lot of opportunities pass me by for fear that I would end up letting someone down because I felt they could find someone better than me and more experienced than me. Clearly, this didn’t work for me.
So, I decided to return to studying my communications degree (after a brief stint starting a BCom in Accounting). At which point, the poo hit the fan. Up until this point, I was lucky enough to have parents who were willing to allow me to find myself and figure life out. I was able to work part time for my mom to earn my keep. That all changed when the great scandal broke and the business was put into liquidation.
Without any means of supporting themselves and having all their funds frozen for the moment, I went out in a big way to find a job to help out (because god knows, there was no way my brother could do it all from Australia). Fortunately, I was lucky enough to find one quite quickly and soon began working as a creative writer/scriptwriter for a GPS based radio station.
After about 9 months of writing, they needed someone to start marketing their product because it wasn’t exactly doing well on it’s own. So, out of the ranks I was chosen to try my hand at doing online marketing for them. This was mainly due to the fact that I was the most geeky person they had apart from the IT boys who had their hands full as it is.
Five months later, I quit. You all know the story why there.
Since then, I’ve been applying for anything and everything without much success (clearly). It wasn’t exactly the best time for me to quit with the job market being the way it is and me not having much experience or formal qualifications (or the shiny ability to stun people during interviews).
And then we get to this post.
I’m not going to give up. I’m keen like a bean to work and to prove myself and don’t think I’ve spent these few months just sitting on my ass doing nothing.
Phillipa from Glad to be a Girl hooked me up with someone looking for people to do part time web testing so at least I’ve been able to make some cash. Then there’s future possibilities. To broaden my horizons, I’ve decided to let my geeky soul run things for a while and have decided to get my A+, which will be followed by the N+ and then, who knows. Like I mentioned a while ago, I might decide to go the programming or web development route, however, it’s perfectly possibly that I may decide to do a CCNA or similar thing instead.
All this being said, my heart and soul will always firmly be rooted with the written word. While I love technology and the geeky side of things and am not at all opposed to doing something in line with that part of me, I would love to spend my days surrounded by words. Of course, like anyone with this inclination I’ve silently been working on writing a long little story (I’m loathe to say book) in the free time that I have but, as I’ve mentioned previously, I would love to go and study it fully. Unfortunately, even Unisa is a bit expensive to do it these days so that will just have to wait a while.
So there you have it.
One half of a degree, one diploma, some general personal assistant experience, writing experience, basic marketing experience and some web testing experience. All in a package of an intelligent and super keen little Goblin looking for a job.
If you know of anything or anyone in Cape Town who could use me, drop me a comment/mail 
(Oh and bloody well done love, it’s amazing how well you’re doing).
The Peanut Gallery