The word came in on that job, and the word was ‘No’. Pity. It would have sent me into all kinds of remote locations, the sort of places a man might accidentally drop some tiny seeds. I’ll just have to visit those places myself.
Well, another job came up. Same deal, one-year contract, not huge pay but better than minimum wage. It’s within easy reach so no travel costs, and with today’s travel costs that seriously reduces the amount I need to earn. This time it’s an office job.
We scientists develop a sort of snobbishness about office work. Yet when you look at the job description – typing, filing, collating information, spreadsheets, databases, presentations – it’s what we’ve been doing all along. The only difference is that the office worker doesn’t generate the original information. Aside from that, once a scientist leaves the lab they’re doing the same thing any office worker does. So, it seems I do have transferable skills after all. I had focused on the specialisation of the PhD but I have accidentally picked up a lot of general skills along the way! This time I hope to be in competition with candidates like this.
The job hunt continues. I could, eventually, make a living as a writer but that is very much a long-term goal. Writing takes a long time, publishing by the traditional route takes a long time and even self-publishing takes a long time because I’m fussy about getting things right. Also, it’s a hobby. I’m not sure if I want my hobby to become my job.Besides, the competition is vast. Mainly because you don’t have to buy a print run any more. It’s free to put a book on Lulu and you only pay for copies you buy. No typesetter these days, someone just calls up a file on a computer and presses ‘go’. So you can buy just one copy.
The trick with Lulu is to sign up and wait for the special offers, the best of which is ‘free ground shipping’ because their postage rates are scary.
Yes, my day job involves typing and my hobby is… typing. Good God, I’m dull!
Well, best stop typing this. I have to type something else. I have a little writing job I need to get back to, now that the tension of waiting to hear about the job has gone, as well as the two books I’m working on.
