Career Crossroads

Right, so the last post brought you up to date to where I am now really.

I'm situated in Bristol, with 2 months left on my lease here. I've been working a few jobs here and there; an IT assistant in a Learning Resource Centre/Library, a job working for TNT within AXA doing all the post and crap and a couple of jobs last year working for the Diocese of Bristol and the Bishop of Bristol. Nothing exciting but it paid the bills!

I've been drafting, writing & re-writing CV's and Cover Letters like there's no tomorrow. I think I may have applied for in excess of 150 jobs in the last few months! But so far I'm managing to sustain myself fairly well on the money I do make when I do find some work. Since I've stopped drinking so much I have saved a bundle!

So, choices?

EVENTS.

 

Well, as I write this I'm dead set on working in events. I've signed up for every events jobsite I can find, written to every events company in Bristol asking for any volunteer or unpaid positions just to get my foot in the door, I've even created an online portfolio showcasing the events I have worked on/organised in the past. This will go live at some point soon. I'm not sure if it will attract any attention, but it will serve as a place to direct potential employers and also as a memoir to what I've done, I guess. I probably wouldn't have made it if I wasn't so bored of being unemployed!

I've also bought an Events Management book for £30 (though fortunately I had a waterstones gift card and points which brought it down to a sexy £9), and have been studying, revising, note taking all over again. Feels odd to be a student of something again!

I've applied for jobs which are even just remotely related to events in the hope that I might be able to add some diversity and skills to my CV to get a proper events job. I've applied for lots of Stewarding roles at Festivals such as Guilfest in Guildford etc. That's all unpaid work and only 15 hours worth over 3 days - and you get free entry and camping to the event etc. Trying to convince some of the guys to do it with me!

Going to give this a few months and if I can't even get any volunteer positions I may well seek other career choices. It's not like I'm unqualified. I've organised and worked two Fresher's weeks now - that's about 20 seperate events; seperate themes, seperate equipment needed and so forth. Amounting to around 20,000+ guests. I've worked as a club promoter and prepared clubs for events, perhaps 20 events there. I ran my own club night for a few months. I've definately got some knowledge of event work, and just need a company to work for to develop that and further my understanding & skills.

There are degrees and masters you can do in events, but they mean nothing to business witout hands on experience. Whereas I have the hands on experience and still can't find a job!

Eventually I'd like to perhaps run my own events company or be in a managerial role high up in another. Organising prestigous events such as festivals or the olympics or commonwealth games or something. Perhaps arranging launch parties for famous people or something?

Anyway, that's choice one!

MILITARY.

Something which has been nagging for me a few years now is a career in the military. It's always interested me (when doing my family tree I was always mostly interested in finding out about my ancestors roles in war and so forth). It's just something which very few people get to experience these days. Not to mention I love to be active and know I would end up killing myself if I ended up in a dead end office job! You learn some exceptional skills like survival, escape and evade, hunting, tracking, hand to hand combat, first aid up to paramedic standards in some cases and you get paid for it and paid to stay in good shape. I know it isn't all glam and alot of the time is spent cold, wet, miserable, being shouted at, beasted or in dangerous situations but I would like to think I'm up to the challenge. You make some of the best friends ever who you trust with you life because you have to. You see the world. You get paid to do adventure training and alot of other perks.

But the pay is indeed shoddy. And hopefully, with the elections coming up, the new government will see to it that troops get more money and rightly so! They get paid £6,000 less a year than civilian uniformed public services such as cops and firemen. A total outrage! It should be the same, if not more.

I would also like to think I'm more than capable of being an officer - however this voids you from specializing in some pretty decent trades as they're left to the 'other' ranks as your brains are needed to plan missions and so on. But a career can be made through that.

What branch, you ask? The army? Perhaps. I have looked at the 16 Air Assault Brigade with roles such as Air Assault Infantry who are flown in to be the first responders. Or perhaps a Mortarman. Or an Infantry Commando.

But what has taken my interest for the time being is the Royal Marines Commando - the infantry force of the Royal Navy. They are elite and have the longest training of any western fighting unit. Many are trained to special forces standards and they have their own special forces unit called the SBS or Special Boat Squadron - the not-as-famous counterpart of the SAS.

The hardest part of all of it would be the training. Beasted day in day out for 32 weeks. But I appreciate that they have to take an ordinary civilian and make him into a soldier capable of fighting in Afghan etc in a very short amount of time. I've been told by my family that they don't think I'd take well to the authority or discipline, but I think that's part of the training. They break you down and make you back up into a soldier.

Though, my family, especially my Mum are very opposed to the idea. And rightly so! Her baby boy going off to War probably wouldn't be easy to deal with. But consoled by the fact that very few Royal Marines have died over the course of the entire war in Afghanistan.

All in all, at minimum service time, it would take 4 years 3 months - that's from training, through 2 years as a general duties marine, and then 1 year notice to terminate. After those two years though you can specialize in a trade such as sniper, pilot, mortarman, heavy weapons, air assault, mountain leader, weapons trainer, military police, medical assistant, chef, clerk, mechanic, signaller, landing craft operator, physical training instructor, intelligence, communications, armoured support, driver, reconnaisance, swimmer canoeist and others.

Though the worst part about the military is the aftermath. There just doesn't appear to be many places in the civilian work place for ex-soldiers. Even those with skills in management, leadership, so on so forth (you gain actual qualifications in the military for doing certain things).

So it has it's ups and it has it's downs. But it's definately something I'm considering very seriously. I'm not getting any younger either. Cut off point for the Marines is 32 years old but has an exceptional fail rate after around the 25-26 mark. And the application process takes a good year - interview, pre-joining-fitness-test, medical, PRMC (weekend testing you) and then into Recruit Training for 32 weeks. And they are reaching mobility/operational strength at which point I don't know if they'll stop recruiting or put all new recruits into a holding troop until space becomes available in a unit.

But I'm on the Marines forum, talking to potential marines, serving marines and ex marines alike. Getting all the info and all the ins and outs. So it will definately be an educated and instructed choice if I do do it. I am also training as if I'm going to join the Marines. Trying to reach the max scores they mark you on Press Ups, Push Ups, Sit Ups, Running and so forth. So when/if I do decide I'm gonna try, I'll be up to scratch and the application process will be quicker. Genius, huh?

OTHER OPTIONS

None. Not at the moment. Can't handle work in an office! Have messed up the degree and won't have the time or money to go back to university. It's occured to me recently that I'm already cut off from doing a variety of jobs now like teaching, being a doctor, or a lawyer. Not that I wanted to do any of them, but still scary.

So that's the cross-roads. I'm giving Events my all and if that doesn't happen then I might try for the Marines and if I'm not up to scratch with that I might try the Army.

All else fails I could fall back on Modelling. Ha.

As you were, chaps.

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