This week I am mostly ...

... training to become a Door Supervisor. I need this badge to carry out my new job, and I was appointed on the understanding that I would train and get the certificate within three months.

That's £295 for the training and £245 for the certificate (renewable every three years), and my employer will neither pay the costs nor give me time off to do it. So I have been working almost continuous shifts to carry forward four free days to so the course. Nights and days; days and nights. My body-clock is utterly scrambled. The upside of that is that the qualification is mine and not the company's, and I won't feel any guilt about using it outside my normal working week.

It's quite good fun, and a long way from the bald, tattooed hard-man-in-a-leather-jacket image of the traditional 'bouncer'. I have no experience of night clubs, so a lot of it is completely new to me, and quite an education.

If this blog has been a bit quiet recently, that's why.

Normal service, etc.

Coincidences

Last week, a regular visitor to this blog was kind enough to send me a couple of satnav cases (for using a car-type satnav on the bike) that were surplus to his requirements. The day that they arrived, I went out to a pub meet with the TOMCC. And there, another member was kind enough to give me a Scottoiler that he had installed on his own bike and didn't like. He didn't want anything for it either.

Anna always says "never two, but three" (she's superstitious like that), so I was waiting for a third desirable-but-entirely-free-of-charge goody to fall into my lap. Instead of that, something even stranger happened.

I went in to my previous employers this morning for an interview. It went reasonably well, but it will be a week before I find out if I was successful. I got home and was having some lunch when I got a call from a friend who I haven't spoken to for a couple of years. He is leaving his job as Regional Manager for a tourism company, and his employers have asked him to suggest someone suitable locally to replace him. He called to ask if I would mind if he put my name forward to them. As this job would pay a lot more, and come with a company car and other benefits, I didn't really hesitate to say yes. It sounds like a great job, but the timescales are wrong and it may not work out, so I'm not holding my breath. But it was nice to be asked.

Two nice bike freebies, and then two job opportunities, all coming just when I needed them.

Now I just need a bit of luck.

The Worst Job In The World

I could not, in a million years, do this. I would starve rather than do this. I would clean out the sewers of Delhi with my bare hands than do this. I would volunteer to bugger a herd of giraffes without the benefit of lubricant daily for a century than do this. Given the choice between doing this and a bullet to the back of the head, I'd take the lead any day.

You may guess that I am not good with heights. In fact, I could only watch 2:44 of this before I had to close it and go for a walk round. I felt physically sick. How these guys do it is a complete mystery to me.

Enjoy, if that's the right word ...

See more funny videos and TBT Videos at Today's Big Thing.

H/t to Obo and, through him, MsGoodhew, who seems to have a strange take on the word 'arousing'.

Resignation

All done and dusted. I went in to see my boss on Friday and told her I was resigning. We had, to my surprise, a very good and positive conversation. I was able to tell her how I felt about certain things in the business, and I felt that this had been heard and understood. Most of the content of my resignation letter was therefore irrelevant, so I took it back. Later, at home, I amended it and emailed it in.

I think it all boils down to the fit of the job and my personality. While the business was new, and I was in the 'building' phase, I could not have been happier. As things grew more complex and the demands of the business as a whole, and my part within it, grew exponentially, I found it harder to get any enthusiasm for what I was supposed to be doing. Eventually, it became clear to me that the job was bigger than I was, and that I was no longer enjoying the work. When I laid all this out on paper for an appraisal meeting (the first in over two years), and I got back the reply: "Well, funny you should say that, as I have been meaning to have a word with you ..." I realised that the feeling was mutual. When I was younger, this situation would have terrified me, and I would have been clinging on to my job for dear life, whatever the cost. Now, I am not afraid to admit that this particular part of my career has come to a natural end, and I am happy to walk away. The good thing about my Friday meeting was that I was expecting a face-off, and instead we had a very useful and positive discussion, and walked away with no hard feelings. I have been promised a good reference, too, which was another major concern.

I have one job application in the pipeline, and another couple ready to go.

Just for now, I'm going to have another Scotch and enjoy the weekend.

Visiting Lecturer - at a University, cor blimey

Blogging has been light-to-non-existent over the weekend, for which I apologise. Work was pretty manic last week, and then this weekend I have been busy. Not just the usual, shopping, cutting the grass, concreting the kitchen floor, usual stuff, but Lesson Preparation.

I have been asked to fill in as a Visiting Lecturer at a nearby University. Someone was due to deliver a course for them in the new term, but let them down at the last minute, and my name was mentioned by an ex-colleague (to whom I owe a large drink) and I was bustled in to plug the gap. It's only two hours a week, and for 15 weeks total, but it fits in well with my free day from my usual employer, and it's a foot in the door to get back into the teaching/training/lecturing that is what I do best. Just a thought: I'm paid for two hours. The hourly rate is £40, so that's £80 a session. Sounds good. Take off the income tax, and that's about £60. The Uni don't pay travel costs, and petrol is about £15. So that's £45. The Uni is 60 miles away, and I am away from home for 5½ hours; also, I must have done at least another 5½ hours preparing for the lecture. Divide by the number of hours I am spending on it, and that's £4.09 per hour. It's not worth it financially, in all honesty. But if it gets my toe in the door, and leads to more work of this kind, it will be. Even a bit of recent teaching/lecturing experience on the old CV will be an advantage.

Havng been a 'teacher' for many years, I always felt that those who could style themselves 'lecturer' were just a tiny bit further up the pecking order than humble 'teachers'. And proper 'University lecturers' were higher still. Well, now I can technically call myself a University lecturer. I might be part-time and temporary. The University in question might be a recently-upgraded Technical Institute. But it is a University. And I am lecturing there. I wonder if I should start calling myself 'Professor' when I am booking a table in a restaurant?

I started last week, and the whole thing went reasonably well. The students were OK with me, the rest of the staff seem fairly human, and I am looking forward to the rest of the 'semester', as I am learning to call it.

Today's catalogue of irritations will be the subject of a separate post.