Blogger Returns

Well... That has been an interesting month.

 I didn't mean to stop blogging but to be frank it has been a pretty bleak time and writing about it didn't feel like it would help.

 By the end of this month I will have been unemployed for six months. Six to Seven months has been the average it has taken me to find a job after previous redundancies or out-flouncings. More fool me to work in such a precarious sector, I can't help myself: when you get through the bullshit of over-cautious administrators and consultation-fatigued residents and sparks of COMMUNITY ignite!... -That makes it all worthwhile. 
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I still got bills to pay. 

 Commitment has always been my problem: I have avoided jobs I could forget with the ease of discarding a jacket on getting home after work. I do what I do for the positive possibilities I hope the activity will create or inspire. The fatter pay-cheque didn't seem worth the mind-death of a job to which I could not feel committed. I want to be challenged. I want to improve and to increase productivity and impact and all that jazz. Maybe its time just to just do a job for the cash and maybe find the excitement and sense of purpose I've experienced in "Community Development", in other parts of my life. 

 I wish I had researched some of the people for whom I ended up working before I signed a contract LOL. But when you've been out of work for six months, life becomes precarious, choice is in short supply so refusal is impossible. 

 So: two job applications per week for five months and been called to ONE interview! 

 That's harsh. 


 I am applying for jobs for which I KNOW I am qualified and where I can show I have had relevant experience and aptitude. Failing interviews I can accept more than not being considered in the first place. What am I doing wrong? Is it my age? Is it that I have resigned from two jobs in thirty three years? Have I had too many jobs? Is my CV too long? [Its already heavily edited!] Does my reputation precede me? Are my applications missing the latest "buzz terminology?". 

 Seeking feedback is rarely useful. Applying for two jobs per week- although I put as much focus as I can into the applications, it is hard to actually remember what they are and if you're not shortlisted you don't find out until you don't hear back from them. One thing I have noticed is that there are now qualifications in Community Development for example and Project Management that hadn't been conceived when I started work. I am at a disadvantage against people with those qualifications.
***********


When I wrote this it felt like the extended whine of an adult baby and I didn't feel like posting it. Writing it stimulated some ideas that have given me new impetus. I have started researching the procedure to convert the community interest company I founded, into a "Charitable Incorporated Organisation". This 'new' form fits the way I have persuaded my co-directors we will take the organisation. 

I still need employment, [Or investment I just realise!!!] but I don't NEED to be as committed to it as I have been before. How novel it would be to NOT bring work home and spend weekends preparing and researching and stuff... Apart from me being able to still do that stuff to make sure the new company begins to tick over nicely. Within the time of an average probationary period I should be in a position to kick the new organisation into gear to become my professional swan-song able to put into practice the things I have learned about art, culture and community development without the in 

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