Sunday, March 18, 2018

A real job isn't all it's cracked up to be

Firstly, behold! New blog name!

Someone asked if I was going to blog the writing process of a project. And as I've long felt it was time to move on from the 'PhD' label, this seemed as good a place as any. This blog has long been an online diary/dumping ground for things that don't fit elsewhere.

Anyone looking for 'proper' theatre reviews go to The Nerdy Theatre  anyone looking for Angels in America work go to Bless You More Life  And anyone who wants to offer me a job please ignore all these and go to my website. 

So the archive of PhD related posts will stay up but moving forward I'm no longer writing about Academia, or post-PhD life directly. There comes a time to draw a line in the sand and move on.

Why now? Well firstly let's be honest, that ship has well and truly sailed. I can't say I'm honestly fully at peace with it- the scars of academia run deep after all- but I do feel like I am moving on. I adore teaching, and I really hope some form of it remains in my future, but for now, to quote a 90s classic 'It's not right but it's ok.' 

And instead of chasing the impossible dream of academia (please for your own entertainment imagine Michael Ball singing that) I have found myself chasing equally impossible dreams around theatre and writing.

It's a terrifying thing to give yourself over to actually doing it. I have spent the last 10 years fighting to be able to do it. But I've also spent the last 10 years fighting to have a job after job after job. And it's really hard to give up that mentality. It's really hard to acknowledge that writing is also your job.

This past Friday I was explaining, in my little spiel I've got down that I was 'taking a break' to write the book, and the play and that after that I'd get back to looking for a 'Proper job'. And for the first time I got a different answer. Instead of an 'oh good, you understand you still have to find a proper job once you have your little writing break dear' instead the person said 'What is a proper job' and 'What if this is your job now'.

And that was a revelation. To have someone also say 'I think you're doing it' is both a revelation and a terrifyig prospect. Really? because my blind panic in the dead of night says otherwise.

Before anyone thinks I'm getting ahead of myself, I certainly don't think I'm going to be supporting myself with writing overnight. I don't think I've "made it" in any sense of the word. Or that I ever will.  But maybe, just maybe I've managed to let it get enough traction that I can let it take priority. For a bit.

Whereas before I was doing writing 'on the side while I looked for a proper job.' Maybe now I do my job 'on the side' while I do my 'proper job of writing'. It sounds like tiny shift on paper. But to wrap my head around it has been huge. And difficult.

Even when given a contract to write the book I've dreamed about writing (and the dream of writing a book) Even when someone approached me, to ask if they could commission me to write the play I'd always dreamed of (and the dream of writing a play). I couldn't let myself believe it was real. Years of being beaten down, told you're not good enough. And hell surviving academia where the default setting is 'You are never good enough'. Surviving academia where anything but academia isn't good enough, made me think I still couldn't acknowledge these for the successes they were. I had to keep thinking of them as 'hobbies' or 'side projects' rather than giving them the time, focus and energy they deserved. I felt that 'well what's the point, because afterwards you'll be back to square one'.

But slowly, I'm starting to think. What if I'm not? what if these are a stepping stone. That lead to other things.

And even if not. Do I want to look back and think I didn't give it my all? Do I want to look back and think the book and the play weren't good enough because I was too concerned with chasing some 'proper job idea' to give them the space they deserved.

As much as neither pay the bills I am still determined to give these projects the professionalism and dedication they deserve. After all,  I have been professionally engaged to write those. And yet I can't shake the idea that it isn't the thing I actually do. That it is part of my job. Part of this I blame on academia (as I do many things) where a myth dominates that we should be able to pull a book out of our arse while holding down a demanding full time job. Well that's all well and good but I can't job hunt, write a book and work a job to pay the bills all at once.

In the first three months of this year I was trying to: write a book, job hunt, hold down a full time temp job, write a play, start up freelance work, keep up with the freelance work I was already doing, keep up my theatre criticism all the while trying to figure out what my 'Real' job should be.

All that. That's my real job. The other stuff is just what pays the bills.

I'm lucky, I've settled into a job that pays the bills (just) but gives me time to write. Physical time and mental time. So I'm hitting pause on the 'real job' hunt for real this time. A 'real job' will always be there. But if someone hands you your dreams, after so long fighting, you'd be stupid to mess it up right?

It's taken me a while to realise that. But I'm determined not to mess it up.

All of this really was tipped by the fact that actually I have not one but two plays in process now. The wonderful people at Clocktower Theatre are producing my play 'Don't Send Flowers'. And so I have a  book to write, a play to write and a play to re-write.



Damnit, I don't have TIME for a 'proper job'.

This blog then is now given over to those plays (the book is blogged over on the Angels blog here). If you're at all interested in the process of dragging those things from the depths of my brain, to the stage...I'll be writing about them here.

Also if anyone is interested in coming up with a title for my other play so I don't have to refer to it as 'Untitled project of AIDS and Gayness' on here I'd be super grateful...

Tuesday, March 6, 2018

The worst temp job ever (and I don't say that lightly)

Having now been paid for, and sent a letter of complaint to the worst temp job I've ever had (a crown previously held by a reception job for the biggest asshat I ever met in 2008). I've decided to share the story of this January. And perhaps explain why job hunting has now finally broken me a bit.

I found myself in an interview for a job I had been told was 'generic admin' in a team called 'resources'. Fine I thought, sounds suitably generic. I can do that. It's a temp job after all I'm not expecting it to change my world.

Firstly, my interview is delayed. The manager isn't in today. She's called in sick. I later found out I was interviewed by a different manager, whereas everyone else was interviewed by the 'real' manager. Well that's not an equal playing field, and while I was offered it, that isn't fair to- well anyone.

In the interview. First question 'What do you know about this position?' I trot out the description the agency has given me.

'Ah that's not entirely correct. And that might be a problem.'

Thinking I'd mistakenly been sent for some highly technical job instead of an admin one I was annoyed, but prepared. Nothing could have prepared me for the next words out of his mouth:

'You'd actually be working on Domestic Homicide. What do you think about that?'

Well firstly let me tell you there is no good answer to that question "Great I love a bit of murder!" or a straight out running for the door aren't going to do you any favours are they? So I went for a safe 'well I'd be interested to hear more about the job' while I hope subtly implying that this might have been useful before I got in the room.

Now some of you will have read that and thought "Oh my god COOL so interesting" and yes, I'm sure it is for the right person. But remember I was a temp sent to this interview with zero expectation that it would involve this. Imagine if I'd had some direct experience of that, what a horrific experience that moment would have been.

Secondly in a job that deals in Domestic Homicide, they're willing to put a temp.

That's fine, there'll be training and support right. Nope. Just thrown in to do it. Because as this blog suggests, I got it.

I assumed, based on the interview information, it would be generic admin around the team that worked on that. In that I'd just be doing things that generally related to the team- booking meeting rooms, coordinating meetings etc. And that of course, there would be training and support for the more challenging elements.

My second day my manager took annual leave (for two days) and left me with the instructions 'Read all the files you'll need to be very familiar with all the cases'. And so I was left to read several cases of police, hospital, coroner, family interview based reports graphically detailing murders. Some of which had been high profile.

Again, I had no training. No support. I am an arts person, with an education background. As it happens I'm used to challenging, often distressing work from my research and my work in disability support. I'm a tough old broad in general. What I am not is trained in dealing with- in any sense of the word, what amounted to the stories of many many dead women.

I'll pause and say I still 'see' those women today. Within days I made the conscious decision- despite pressure from my boss- to not google the cases. I didn't want to see the press reports. More importantly I didn't want to see their faces. That isn't me being inhumane it's self preservation. After what I had to read, I had to keep one fragment of distance between me and them. But still for all the time I worked there every night when I went to bed I had flashes of their lives springing into my head. One particularly windy night I became CONVINCED someone was in my house. And I'm not by nature a scared-y person, but I know that having my head in those cases did that to me.

Let me also say that for some people I appreciate this would be a job they'd thrive on. But those people would have chosen that work. That sort of role. I didn't. I was sent somewhere expecting to do a bit of filing and I got this. Above all I felt GUILTY I felt guilty that I just wanted a temp job and I couldn't commit my heart and soul to helping these women. I felt guilty that I was keeping someone who could do that from the job.

And then there was the context. I wasn't interviewed by my manager. My manager took 2 days off the day after I started and nobody else on my team was in. The entire floor bar, I'd say 3 individuals, were openly hostile to the point of following me into the kitchen to watch me (don't steal any milk now!) and deliberately offering everyone next to me a drink by name and ignoring me. I've been a temp, I've worked in some terrible offices but this one was up there.

Ultimately they got rid of me. They declared that someone with my 'Social media presence' could not do that job. Firstly, a bunch of nerds who follow me on twitter because I sometimes write about Andrew Garfield is not a 'following'. Secondly, these nerds do not care about my 'Day job' neither will I be sharing it with them. But apparently my 'presence' was not compatible with the role. This is maybe something to highlight before taking someone on? I joke here but my social media is a big part of how I get 'real' work. So I would have politely declined any job that said I couldn't maintain my public profile. They also told me I'd tweeted about the nature of my work. Dear reader do you want to know what I said? "Photocopying with Hugh Jackman and The Greatest Showman for company"

Obviously photocopying as an act is top secret and nobody but them does it...Hugh Jackman you've got a lot to answer for.

Ultimately it was a blessing to be let go. And I can recount it with drama and copious sarcasm now. But it was a dark time (I mean that literally it was January...) But while I was a throwaway temp to them, people have little idea what the employment search does to people.

I've got a longer post on the whole of the last six months. But after that job, I spent a month out of work. In all honesty I was scared to call my other temp agency, and scared to go back to work again fearing another experience like it. When I got a placement (with another agency) I cried all the way to the first day. Luckily I didn't need to worry. It was like a revelation. People were kind, they were training me, they were interested in chatting about my life. They made me tea.

A friend described it as when you come out of a bad relationship, and you can't understand why people are so nice. They aren't so nice, they're just normal. It's the other thing that was the problem. I also know now that I can survive in the temping wilds again, because not all places are like that.

I share this because I think people should know the utter shitstrom some of us go through out there in the name of just getting by. I was scared to walk away from that job because of the fear of "throwing away" a perfectly good job. But it wasn't a perfectly good job. It was a terrible job. And in the employment search people start telling you the job is all that matters. It matters a lot, but not if it does all that to you.