Rejection, Failure... My life continues.

So, lately a few good things have happened to me:

1) I passed my driving theory (thank you, Pearson Vue and your distinctly odorous Portsmouth offices)

2) I learned that I would not incur charges on my overdraft unless I was still in it in November (Thank you, Halifax and your double-sent letters).

3) I got out of my overdraft (Thank you, Dole... I think).

4) My father sent me details of this awesome volunteering post that has become available in the centre of the universe (= thank you, immediate paternal ancestor).

5) I got a nice macro of a Conopid fly (Physocephala rufipes) in the garden, having never even seen a live conopid before (Conopids: bizarre nectar-feeding flies which seem to be related to hoverflies, with elongated antennae and larvae which are endoparasites of various bees, wasps etc): here is a quick and half-hearted edit of it especially for you:

and

5) The evil monstrous hearless nice bitch cow devil-woman lady at the pit of despair job centre was not horrible the second time I saw her.


Unfortunately, the bad things keep happening:

1) I remain utterly unemployed.

2) I am only out of my overdraft because I am on the dole, which is increasinly making me want to die.

3) For some obscure reason, the government thinks I would make a good juror. I thought this was a good (or at least interesting)  thing until I realised that a) it means that I cannot apply for anything overseas because I would then have to return halfway through and irk my employer right out of their socks and b) if any of the stuff I have applied for overseas says yes (unlikely, I admit) I'll have to explain that I now can't, unless they feel like postponing my start date.

4) Two jobs that I had applied for which were local and unambitious (so I thought I had a good chance) have turned me down.

5) I have to see the dragon lady on 9.11 (American style date to make the point that although I am in the UK, I have an appointment with a monster lady on the eleventh anniversary of an event that makes me feel petty for being miserable).

6) I do not handle rejection well and as a direct result of having two rejections in one "send and receive", I am having to drink copious amounts of tea to remain even remotely functional.

7) My best friend has buggered of to Bath to do some singing for a week. Which means that my life is in dire need of comic relief.



I want to have some sudden inspiration as to how to see these things in a positive light... but currently I lack any inspiration and require more tea. 


I'm going to watch Kiwi! on youtube in order to feel more tragic... is this logical?


And then I'm going to daydream about being Australian.

Smivel

Personal Statement Part ii... the elimination round.

So, having got past the "I hate me, how do I say that nicely in a personal statement?" part (here, in case you're interested),  I now have to find some way to whittle down the nauseating string of positive adjectives into a personal statement.



Based on the adjectives that I managed to twist out of my self loathing, I could say that I am an organised, committed, creative, engaging, positive, outgoing, flexible, contemplative, observant, unbiased, tolerant, reflective individual who is independent and happy to instigate, but good at taking a back seat, confident but constantly striving for self improvement and open to criticism, passionate and enthusiastic but having perspective, taking a balanced view, knowledgeable and with a thirst for knowledge, assertive with good prioritising skills and attention to detail, looking for work in the environmental sector with a long-term view of furthering my higher education.

But that is long, boring and wordy. Not that I'm in a position to, but I wouldn't hire someone so... immodest. In fairness, if I was a recruiter (which I am not), I would prefer to hire someone who put no personal statement because they feel that singing one's own praises is trite and - more importantly - vain.

I feel slightly unwell. And the point of the exercise is to feel better about myself, not to want to vomit on myself.

Because of the way that I  came up with these adjectives (which is far too long to go into within brackets) some of these words are redundant. The next task, then, is to group associated and/or interchangeable words:





positive
knowledgeable / engaging

contemplative / reflective
observant / attention to detail / organised


flexible/ independent / happy to instigate / creative / good prioritising skills
confident / assertive / outgoing

flexible / tolerant / good at taking a back seat


tolerant / open to criticism / striving for self improvement
committed / passionate / enthusiastic / thirst for knowledge

having perspective / taking a balanced view / unbiased

You may notice that flexible and tolerant are both included twice: flexible because it says that I can lead or follow (independent or taking a back seat), tolerant because it says that I can take leadership and advice (taking a back seat and open to criticism.

So the next step is to try and make sure it doesn't sound cliche. 

Let's get rid of:

Positive - in the current economic climate, it says a lot about you that you can spend 8 months unemployed and stay positive, but it's a little bit... peripheral.

Attention to detail - I was on a "how to get employed" course a while ago (can you tell it didn't work?) and one of the words that everyone used and it annoyed me that the lovely instructor didn't pick up on was "Attention to detail." I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that out of the five other people there, all of them included "Attention to detail" on their draft personal statements.

Of the two remaining, observant and organised... organised is not something to boast about. It's either required or not required, and you're not expected to apply for administrative posts if you're not organised. Stating the obvious in such an application might make them question whether you are actually organised. Well, if they were me.

So that's out.

(Do bear in mind that recruitment agencies use the most twattish thing ever to sift through CVs - automated keyword searches. And guess what? Automated keyword searches ignore the people that have used more original language and go for the drones. However, quite where in your CV the word is doesn't matter to the bot, so it could be an idea to put spare/commonly used words... between the lines*)

Between contemplative and reflective, I would tend towards contemplative. Reflective conjures images of someone daydreaming philosophies in the back of biology class. It's out.

Because they are a little less wound, the "independent" words are difficult to get rid of. Independent itself is again, a bit of a cliche and (I think I recall hearing) has gained a sort of stigma as it may mean that someone is impossible to get on with. It's out. Good prioritising skills feels like organised - if you're applying for a position where you have to prioritise, and you're saying you can lead, it's pretty much assumed that you know where you stand on getting the cake out of the oven or the baby out of the burning building. And less cut-and-dry cases. It's gone. 

Flexible is generally a useful one to keep in, and creative I'm going to hold onto as it's a little bit outside of the "independent" box. Happy to Instigate, then, is going to stand for independent here (although it is liable to tweaking later in the game...)

Outgoing sounds too much "I'm going to climb a mountain and then jump out of a plane" for most jobs (although I would imagine it's a useful hidden keyword for sales positions). Confident sounds a little bit overblown ("I know I'm wonderful, just hire me!" sort of thing). That may be the point, but Assertive is a good word because it tells them that you're not going to be in their face, but that you aren't going to just sit back and take abuse, either. It is possibly a bit cliche, but it's cliche because it's a very good thing to be that is not a prerequisite, and, if you have an assertive bone in your body (even if, like mine, it's in one of your toes), it may be worth keeping it (the adjective, not the bone) in for the semi-final.

I'm in two minds about Tolerant. It sounds a little bit like Nick Griffin (British Nationalist Party racist bigot leader, just in case you didn't know) saying "Some of my best friends are black!" (Although I doubt he'd say something like that and lose his single voter). Regardless that it's not actually about seperating yourself from ethnic/religious intolerance, but rather about tolerating bosses who are assholes (with me being British, that means "donkeyholes", which is infinitely less insulting than the alternative and need not be censored), it sounds like you're trying to cover up that you're actually an intolerant jerk. It can be different in context, of course, and may be another useful hidden word.

Open to criticism versus striving for self improvement is dealt with as such: which one takes a more active role? Striving for self improvement. It says you're not just open to criticism, you actively seek out criticism and advice to make yourself better. It wins. 

Now we come to committed, passionate, enthusiastic and thirsty for knowledge. 

These ones are difficult. The first three sound a little bit cliche, and thirsty for knowledge sounds wierd without one of them. It's going away (for now). Eager to learn may be a better one to say that you eat knowledge for breakfast, but if we use striving for self improvement, we cover that ground anyway.

Passionate is a little too informal, unless you're going for good cause work. It's disappearing from generic personal statementland in the meantime. Committed and enthusiastic work reasonably well together, so they both stay, for now. 

Taking a balanced view is clearly a messy way of saying unbiased. It's going, although unbalanced is another one for the invisible keywords if I suspect auto-filters are in use. As for having perspective... it sounds like it would be appropriate if you're applying to work in, for example, a funeral home, and are no stranger to grief, but it sounds a little out of place otherwise. Unbiased is great if you want to be a judge, but Objective might be better here.

So far, then, we're down to:
Knowledgeable, Engaging, Striving for self improvement, Contemplative, Observant, Flexible, Happy to Instigate, Creative, Assertive, Good at taking a back seat,  committed, enthusiastic and Objective.

This still seems a bit much - if I was to say:

"I am a knowledgeable and engaging  zoology graduate from the University of Nottingham, looking for work in the [e.g. customer service industry]. I am assertive but observant and flexible, happy to instigate or to take a back seat, and would enthusiastically commit to a role that makes the most of my objectiveness while challenging my creativity and allowing opportunities for self improvement."

it would seem a little bit... crowded. In particular Objectiveness doesn't seem to fit in, and the "but" between assertive and observant makes it seem as though we're using assertive as a euphemism for aggressive (when we just want to say we're capable of aggression when required). 

One option is to thrown in a third sentence (radical, I know):

"I am a knowledgeable and engaging  zoology graduate from the University of Nottingham, looking for work in the [e.g. catering industry]. I am observant, flexible and assertive, capable of instigation and objectively taking direction.  I would enthusiastically commit to a role that challenges my creativity and provides opportunities for self-improvement."

It's pretty keyword rich, and can't be read more than a couple of times, but as a basic structure, it works (more or less...).

However, I don't want something to work more or less - I want something that works. 

And that brings us to the next major hurdle in trouble. 

The first thing I do when proofreading anything (usually longer things, to be fair) is read them aloud. And reading it aloud, I'm getting rid of objective. It just doesn't fit. Other than that, it seems to be ready for someone else to tell me whether it's alright, and to go in pulp CVs in between... 



"I am a knowledgeable and engaging zoology graduate from the University of Nottingham, looking for work in the retail industry. I am observant, flexible and assertive, capable of instigation and taking direction, and would enthusiastically commit to a role that challenges my creativity and provides opportunities for self-improvement."





In other news, I have a rejection from Cardiff on their otters job.

Not unexpected, and at least they got back to me. And it wasn't right after the closing date, either, which means they must have thought about it. I would make this relevent by saying that they would have given me the job if I'd had a personal statement, but as it turns out, most of the jobs I apply for don't even want to see your CV, but rather require you to fill out an application form.









*By between the lines I mean throw invisible keywords into your CV. By colouring them white and putting them either in headers or footers or after fullstops, you keep them invisible but make sure the bots don't pass you by because you can think for yourself and/or use a thesaurus. 

To do list... Eurgh.

So, I currently lead what others might term a spectacularly uninteresting existence.

As such, it seems only rational that I should make a to do list of how to escape the "Life Fail" category of people.

This is more or less how it flows:


1) Get a job.

2) Get a better computer

3) Get back to enjoying photo editing, animation and writing without cursing the effing computer for crashing every thirty seconds.

4) Improve on all counts.

5) Get famous.

6) Get rich.

7) Buy Victoria Province, Au (or the whole of Ausland if obscene fortune permits)

8) Set up awesome captive breeding program for endangered amphibians, reptiles and relict groups of "higher" vertebrates.

9) Do this on stilts (remember, Victoria Province has a C20 year flood cycle).

10) Simultaneously restore large areas of native forest, thereby stabilising first local, and then nationwide climate.

11) Become Australia's favourite person.

12) Get Australian Citizenship.

13) Learn to like Beer.

14) Be Australian.


I'm currently stuck around stage one (the get a job bit) so it seems necessary (strangely) to create an entire to-do list for this level.

Currently, I'm working with a sort of flow-chart of fail that goes like this:

ACTION 1:                                                Search for job
DECISION 1:                               Are jobs available?
            YES (80%) - continue to Action 2                                        NO (20%)- Cry and return to Action 1

ACTION 2:                                 Check person specification
DECISION 2:                                       Do I (even remotely) qualify?
            YES (<10%) - Continue to action 3                                  NO (>90%) - Cry and return to Action 1

ACTION 3:                  Dance around in elation at having prospects
DECISION 3:                                           Still happy and hyper?
           YES (100%) - Continue to Action 4                               NO (not possible) - Prepare popcorn for
                   (and quickly, Puto!)                                                         imminent implosion of universe.

ACTION 4:                             Apply with lightning speed
DECISION 4:                   Did you remember to attach your CV to the e-mail?
        YES (100%) - Breathe sigh of relief,                                     NO (?) - Cry. Hard. Attach and resend.
                Continue to Action 5.                                                                Continue to Action 5

ACTION 5:                                      Await first response
              (Because your ecstatic brain has decided this is the shelf-stacking position for you, and will not consider other avenues at this stage)
                                                                Continue to wait.
                                                      Grow increasingly depressed.
                                                      Waste time on Sporcle.com.
                                                               Recheck e-mail
                                                 Initiate parallel iterations from Action 1.
                                                      (and continue within this iteration)

EVALUATION 1:                            Does any response ever come?
           YES (<10%) - Squeal loudly.                                              NO - Sink further into pit of despair.
               Continue to Evaluation 2.                                                              Return to Action 1

EVALUATION 2:                                       Positive?
          YES (<1%) - Die of Excitement.                     NO: (>99%) - Contemplate the world philosophically.
          Revive and continue to Action 6.                                  Conclude that it is actually Hell.
                                                                            Drink tea and procrastinate online until this feeling passes.
                                                                                             (1 hour to a week, depending)
                                                                                                       Return to Action 1.

ACTION 6:                                                Attend Interview:
                     Be engaging, witty, positive and (difficult) consistent. 

Await feedback.

Keep Waiting.

Can't be long now. 

Wait some more. 

Suffer a down spell. Eat masses of sugar to control mood.

Add further parallel iterations from Action 1. 

Continue waiting. 

Wait...

Okay, they're not getting back to you.

 Give up hope and stop worrying about it.

Oh, wait, they got back to you.

They really liked you at interview (100%) and would like to offer you a job.

Accept.

Repeat this confirmation that you accept.

Await any further word from them.

Repeat your confirmation again, request details.

Actually, they've realised that they want someone longer term for this post. 

But they'll get back to you.

Smile and be friendly. 

Wonder when the hell you gave them the impression that you  gave them any reason to think you were only interested in a short term position.

Talk about this to the woman at the job centre.

Be told that because you have a degree (looks like prospects) and more than 3 months unemployment (looks like a negative) no-one would ever hire you.

Leave the job centre fighting the temptation to throw my head under the wheel of every moving car I see.

Spend a few days feeling devastatingly demotivated.

Return to Action 1. 

This obviously isn't working.

Obviously.

Really Obviously.

So I have a new (potentially more realistic)"To do list" on this level:

1) Revamp CV, including a personal statement (apparently it's not enough to have that in the cover letter).

2) Maintain a list of Applications (with dates).

3) Bite the bullet and call all non-responsive applications a week after application closing date.

4) Call up Temp agencies recently applied to. 

5) Pester the f***ers. 

I'm hoping this one might be a tad more successful. 






PS - Smivel and go forth.

Animation Shmanimation.

I must first note that I love animating things... not least because it effectively makes me the god of all the helpless little characters I have created (Mwahahahaha).

However, my computer - bless its silicon heart - is not a particularly powerful device. We used to get on fine when I just used it as a word processor, and we still had close decent relationship when I added photography to my hobbies and soon filled over 40 gigabytes with "special" pictures (probably more by now...), but now that I have taken up computer generated animation, I really, really, really want a new one.

I'm dawdling on the idea of transferring to Unix, but that's by the by.

Point is, GIMP has come between my computer and I. I love GIMP. I particularly love how you can do just about everything (although not quite...) that you can do in Photoshop for the bargain price of £0.00. It's awesome. The same applies to a lot of GNU programs.

The trouble is that they are big. Well, not really big, so much as medium sized, but my poor little HP was purchased at a time when my only interest in computing was MSWord, MSExcel and the very occasional, very brief bit of photo editing.

In animation the way I do it, a single .xcf file can contain as many as 200 layers with various transparencies that are constantly being shifted and edited because I always forget what a pain it is to make something move and sing at the same time... so every frame in every stage (5 total) for a scene of an animation is held in one BIG file. And every re-write of every frame takes place in the same BIG file. And duplicates are made of key frames in case I damage one without noticing.

Couple this with HP's over zealous system maintenance operations, antivirus and the convoluted system of hosts that we know as Windows' version of functionality, and everything takes a very long time. Which is why this:

is still only on stage 2*  after several weeks, when it would have been finished in 3 days if I could do it properly.


I have thus decided that I need two basic things: a new desktop computer and a double whammy of patience and concentration in my brain.

The second one can only be acheived by praying to anything that doesn't run screaming (up to and including slugs... can't run? Be my God!). However, the first one has more sensible requirements:

1) I need the money to buy it.
2) I need a desk to put it on.
3) I need money to buy a desk.
4) I need the space to put a desk.
5) I need the money to find somewhere that is not a broom cupboard in my grandmother's house for me, my new computer, my new desk, my pet snake and all my assorted junk.
6) I need a job of some sort to help me acquire said money for rent, desk, computer and so forth.

Alternatively I could take over the world...

But I think (although without any empirical evidence) that getting a job would be easier.

This one's gone a bit away... further than usual...

The point is, basically, that there will soon be an animation of six mini-eggs singing a song about a song they are about to sing about their origins, but it's taking longer than it ought to because I'm having a few techmological differences (to quote Idiocracy, which I should do more often). So the campaign for Mini-Eggs (and my associated level of ultra-crazy) to be available year round rather than limited to that special time of year when christians celebrate the foundation of their religion with a pagan festival of fertility...











(*Stage 1 - basic frames for timings, stage 2 - texture/generic features, Stage 3 - duplicates, colour and generic movements, stage 4 - character movements + individual features, Stage 5 - bookend animations)



PS - also, it turns out that I remain utterly unemployable... despite being informed that I "Passed the interview stage and am ideal for Sainsbury's"... I didn't get the job.

PPS - This has not greatly improved my sanity or my self-esteem.

PPPS - It has, however, allowed me to memorise most of the periodic table.

PPPPS - don't ask.