Samuel's Blog

As we approach the terminal period of the year, calendar of course, not financial

December 26th, 2008 at 04:37pm

If the title sounds familiar, it should, it’s a quote from Sir Humphrey Appleby’s Christmas message.

It seems an appropriate title for a post which is a bit of a reflection on the year that has been and the year that is ahead (although I’m not convinced that it is possible to reflect on an event which is yet to occur). I started to think about this a couple weeks ago when I noticed that Mark Parton was trying to get people to give their year a rating out of ten…I’m not really convinced that such a thing is possible as a year is such a long time and so many things happen that I just don’t think that I can really weigh them all up against each other to come up with a definitive number.

It has been such a strange year with a number of ups and downs along the way including a few points in time where I nearly didn’t see the year out (well, I still haven’t, but I think you get my drift). The latter half of the year has probably been better overall than the first half, but the highs and lows have been much more pronounced.

If I remember this year for one thing, it will something that I don’t want to write about for fear of incriminating myself…at least I don’t have to worry about it any more. I might feel like writing about it in a couple years…three years sounds like a good number, and I’d be interested to see the resident conspiracy theorist who thinks I don’t exist try to work this one out…the clues are all there if you look hard enough.

Anyway, as I mentioned at the end of the breakfast show on 1WAY FM this morning, and alluded to yesterday on this blog, the year ends for me on a tentative note. The brief summary of it is that I have somewhat willing become unemployed, although the longer version is much more interesting.

Regular readers would probably recall that in June I resigned from my job with AussieHQ. What is less well-known is that I took up a similar job with AussieHQ in late August, a move which, in hindsight, may have been a mistake. It was definitely a mistake to ignore my option about a week later of submitting an application for a journalism job at Capital Radio, although a number of bridges would have been damaged beyond repair had I been successful with such an application.

I should make it clear that I don’t have any problems with the people at AussieHQ. They are a group of thoroughly decent people…you would have to be decent to take somebody back a short time after they resigned. When it comes down to it, I’m sick of technical support. I’ve convinced myself that I’m not sick of it enough times to know that I am completely and utterly sick of it (he said as he publicly killed any possibility of a last resort job in some other technical support position with another employer)…there is only so much of dealing with other peoples’ problems that I can take.

Last week, the week that I spent in Deniliquin, proved to me just how much I was deluding myself to think that I was making some sort of wise decision by staying in technical support. I absolutely loved my week at 2QN, and I recall saying that, if they would have me back, I would love to come back.

Things became a bit difficult on Monday afternoon when I was asked to come back. I knew at that time that taking another week off from my stable, if boring by comparison, day job would be damaging to my chances of retaining said day job, so I initially turned down the offer to go back to Deniliquin on the grounds that it just didn’t look like it would be workable. At the same time, I was being offered a change of pace in my day job…A PR role, seemed interesting and deserved consideration, and I was reasonably excited about it, but I wasn’t comfortable with the reasoning behind my decision to turn down the time in Deniliquin.

My options, as I saw them, were to accept the Deniliquin offer, or accept the PR offer…continuing in tech support was not an option, and to compound matters, I needed to make the decision by about 6am.

I consulted with some people for “external advice”, including Tim Malone who happened to relieve the other difficulty in the consideration, the small matter of the 1WAY FM breakfast show. I received some useful advice, but ultimately I had to make the decision for myself, and when I came to the conclusions that:
1. PR isn’t a role that I can see myself enjoying for an extended period of time, and
2. Radio is where I really want to be

The decision became obvious. The only remaining concern was that the Deniliquin job may have been filled by one of the casuals who live a lot closer to the town that I do. By 9:30am I had an answer, I had the job.

That afternoon I was asked to resign from AussieHQ, a request which was more amicable than I was expecting. Refusal would have been an option, but I doubt that my application for unpaid leave would have been granted, and I would probably have been fired for failing to attend work for a week, so the resignation is probably the better option. It also means that AussieHQ can employ someone else who will hopefully enjoy the job more than I did.

I enjoyed the job for a while, quite a while in fact, and I usually found something to enjoy each day, but the days of going to work and enjoying most, if not all, of a shift are long gone. The opportunity to move on is a welcome one.

So, moving in to the new year, I find myself in a bit of a pickle. As of the close of business on Friday the 2nd of January, I don’t have a job. I have about a week and a half of leave to be paid out, and the few days of work in Deniliquin to be paid, and of course the week just gone in Canberra as well. What happens after that is a mystery.

A heap of radio jobs were advertised just before Christmas, so I will have to follow those leads, although if I’m lucky I might find that an existing contact has a position, even if it’s casual or part-time.

At this time I’m more than willing to move if a full-time position is available. Moving for a part-time job would be a decision to be dealt with on its merits. Ultimately it’s a great opportunity to move on, without needing to worry about the stability of an existing job.

I’m approaching the new year with cautious optimism…for all I know it could come crashing down in a big heap, but with any luck it will turn out better than before, and everything will be good. “Bring it on” I say!

Samuel

Entry Filed under: Samuel News,Samuel's Editorials

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