I have a friend, well I say friend but he has become more of an acquaintance these days, who has recently decided to become a writer. This is his third career choice in the year since he has left university, with his previous efforts confined to the bin for being too time consuming. He is in essence looking for a job where he can sleep late everyday and only spend only 10 minutes doing actual work, and it shows.
I am currently being bombarded with links to various articles that he has written, hidden in the depths of 'knowledge share' websites that no-one has previously ever heard of. His hope is that an industry person will stumble upon his rambling prose, and be so bowled over by his work that they will hire him on the spot. I know people working in this industry and therefore know that the chances of this happening are the same as the chances of me winning the lottery tomorrow -pretty damn slim considering I don't enter. I know that even short 500 word articles are written and re-written several times of the course of a few days, not churned out in the 5 minutes between brushing your teeth and bedtime. I also know that in order to get published, and that is properly published not just submitting yourself to some obscure website, you have to start at the bottom. Journalism is very much an old fashioned industry in that regard, people come in at the very bottom and work their way up to the top.
The worst part of this is not his unrealistic idea of what it takes to become a journalist, it is his poor quality of writting. Every article is littered with spelling and gramatical errors (I am guilty of this as well, but I am not trying to become a journalist), how does he expect anyone to take him seriously when he can't be bothered to spend 5 minutes reading through what he has written?
This entire situation bothers me for one main reason; in the time he has managed to go through all sorts of jobs that he acquired through friends and family, I have been struggling on through the 'normal' channels. The recession is starting to bite and competition for jobs is on the up, the last post I applied for had 2000 applications, yes 2000. It is no wonder it is so hard to find lasting employment these days. Yes I could sit here and write articles for $10 a pop, and properly at that, but unlike him I have bills to pay and can't rely on the generousity of others to put food in my mouth.
Wednesday, 3 December 2008
Sunday, 9 November 2008
How well can you ever know someone?
Earlier today I stumbled upon a blog belonging to my girlfriend of 2 years, and I was completely flabbergasted by it. It wasn't that she was making comments about me or that I found out she had been engaging in some less than salubrious activities, it just seemed like a completely different person writing than the one I know.
My girlfriend is not the most articulate person in the world, and often has a lot of trouble expressing herself in meaningful ways; sometimes I have hour long conversations with her about things her dog has done today, because she isn't confident in expressing her thoughts. However the blog entries I found, as well as a few emails to various fan websites, showed a depth of intelligence and emotion I had not seen before.
This led me to question exactly why she has never shown me this side of herself, and left me wondering how well I really know her at all.
NB. I found the blog because I was trying to find the meaning of an online handle she uses (it is a Japanese name I think), and I know it is her because posts she made correspond to events in real life.
My girlfriend is not the most articulate person in the world, and often has a lot of trouble expressing herself in meaningful ways; sometimes I have hour long conversations with her about things her dog has done today, because she isn't confident in expressing her thoughts. However the blog entries I found, as well as a few emails to various fan websites, showed a depth of intelligence and emotion I had not seen before.
This led me to question exactly why she has never shown me this side of herself, and left me wondering how well I really know her at all.
NB. I found the blog because I was trying to find the meaning of an online handle she uses (it is a Japanese name I think), and I know it is her because posts she made correspond to events in real life.
Thursday, 23 October 2008
Job hunting
Four years ago I walked into a local employment agency and told them I wanted a job, within two hours they had given me a choice of vacancies and sent me on my way. I worked one year in a menial office position before deciding to improve my life chances and get a degree from a decent university.
Now I have emerged into the harsh world of employment once again, only this time armed with a years experience and a single sheet of A4 to show for my last three years. Only this time the employment agencies are not ringing me at all hours of the day to ensure my services, and in the last 3 months I have had only a handful of serious chances at employment.
Some might say that this is the result of the global downturn, however I believe I have found the real reason for this drought of opportunity - laziness. Four years ago the employment agency I used relied on humans searching the books for their most qualified candidates and calling them up, now the same people are content to just press a button and have the computer email a vacancy to every person who has mentioned a specific keyword in their CV.
If these people were to tear themselves away from their facebook windows and msn chats and read the CV's that had been sent in then they might be able to place people and earn their comission, instead of sending them another email asking them to apply for a job that needs an engineering degree and 5 years experience.
Now I have emerged into the harsh world of employment once again, only this time armed with a years experience and a single sheet of A4 to show for my last three years. Only this time the employment agencies are not ringing me at all hours of the day to ensure my services, and in the last 3 months I have had only a handful of serious chances at employment.
Some might say that this is the result of the global downturn, however I believe I have found the real reason for this drought of opportunity - laziness. Four years ago the employment agency I used relied on humans searching the books for their most qualified candidates and calling them up, now the same people are content to just press a button and have the computer email a vacancy to every person who has mentioned a specific keyword in their CV.
If these people were to tear themselves away from their facebook windows and msn chats and read the CV's that had been sent in then they might be able to place people and earn their comission, instead of sending them another email asking them to apply for a job that needs an engineering degree and 5 years experience.
Thursday, 27 March 2008
Worst electronics I have ever bought in deciding to work shocker!
It appears as though the top up tv anytime box I paid £80 back in january has finally decided to work.
This box feels like the like an alpha version rather than an end user product, essentially the box crashes constantly, loses channels whilst you are watching them and fails to record anything.
Today a new firmware has been released and now the box works, sort of. Once it is on it works, but if it goes into standby its 50/50 if its going to come back on properly. The solution to this is to leave the box on, forever, but I don't think the hippies would agree.
The box is also noisy, it has a whiny fan that stays on when it is off so you can't sleep with it in the room.
I hope they one day fix this box for good, before I fix it with a hammer.
This box feels like the like an alpha version rather than an end user product, essentially the box crashes constantly, loses channels whilst you are watching them and fails to record anything.
Today a new firmware has been released and now the box works, sort of. Once it is on it works, but if it goes into standby its 50/50 if its going to come back on properly. The solution to this is to leave the box on, forever, but I don't think the hippies would agree.
The box is also noisy, it has a whiny fan that stays on when it is off so you can't sleep with it in the room.
I hope they one day fix this box for good, before I fix it with a hammer.
Friday, 14 March 2008
Anonymity and the internet
Why oh why do people seem to think that just because it is the internet that they can be rude to everyone else?
I post on a variety of different forums, on of which is particular to a certain product. Now there is a longstanding member who peoples rude messages into any thread that has a complaint regarding the product.
On several occasions he has been proven wrong by users in the thread after rudely stating some armchair fact that has no bearing on reality, only to dissapear and wait for the next opportunity to be an abusive penis.
I did wonder if he worked for the company in question, but his stated location doesn't match in which case he would appear to be just another keyboard warrior.
I post on a variety of different forums, on of which is particular to a certain product. Now there is a longstanding member who peoples rude messages into any thread that has a complaint regarding the product.
On several occasions he has been proven wrong by users in the thread after rudely stating some armchair fact that has no bearing on reality, only to dissapear and wait for the next opportunity to be an abusive penis.
I did wonder if he worked for the company in question, but his stated location doesn't match in which case he would appear to be just another keyboard warrior.
Thursday, 13 March 2008
Stupid adverts!
Who honestly texts all these stupid services who 'put you in contact with the guy/girl of your dreams?'
How desperate do you have to be to spend £1.50 per text to get in contact with a most likely fake person?
If you phone a sex chat line at least you get to hear someones voice, and it doesn't particularly matter that they might not be the person that they say they are. With these text services you spend £1.50 to receive messages (probably from a computer) and end up with low res soft porn pictures of women you could find for free on the net!
The worst part of it is BENT chat, they have been advertising druing late night Scrubs recently, what are they trying to say about people who watch Scrubs???
How desperate do you have to be to spend £1.50 per text to get in contact with a most likely fake person?
If you phone a sex chat line at least you get to hear someones voice, and it doesn't particularly matter that they might not be the person that they say they are. With these text services you spend £1.50 to receive messages (probably from a computer) and end up with low res soft porn pictures of women you could find for free on the net!
The worst part of it is BENT chat, they have been advertising druing late night Scrubs recently, what are they trying to say about people who watch Scrubs???
Finally Finished Mario
Well I finally finished Mario Galaxy after months of inactivity. I started it the day it came out but got caught up in essays for university, and then had to do my dissertation.
My Mario-ing was also interrupted by PGR4 and CoD4 on the 360, so I finally picked up last sunday on 50 stars and set about finishing the game. By monday I was at 100 stars so decided to take a break.
Today was mostly spent sat around doing nothing until midnight when I decided to take on Bowser, didn't take long but it was fun regardless.
Galaxy was a real return to Mario form, I could not stand to finish Sunshine, because the whole cleaning thing bored me, and I was worried I wouldn't enjoy this one either. But the short levels and the light hearted funness of the whole game kept me playing and enjoying it.
It's really one in the eye for all those people who need the latest games to have the best graphics, when you think about it graphics don't equal success or there would have been an original Xbox in every household.
On a side note about Xbox's, am I the only one with a working launch 360 left?
My Mario-ing was also interrupted by PGR4 and CoD4 on the 360, so I finally picked up last sunday on 50 stars and set about finishing the game. By monday I was at 100 stars so decided to take a break.
Today was mostly spent sat around doing nothing until midnight when I decided to take on Bowser, didn't take long but it was fun regardless.
Galaxy was a real return to Mario form, I could not stand to finish Sunshine, because the whole cleaning thing bored me, and I was worried I wouldn't enjoy this one either. But the short levels and the light hearted funness of the whole game kept me playing and enjoying it.
It's really one in the eye for all those people who need the latest games to have the best graphics, when you think about it graphics don't equal success or there would have been an original Xbox in every household.
On a side note about Xbox's, am I the only one with a working launch 360 left?
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