Employment Tips

Because I am a lazy person, I am still signed up to receive assorted useless job opportunity updates registered in 2008.

It would make sense if they ever sent me stuff I could do, but they tend to disregard my knowledge and experience. “Why not manage a shoe shop in Livingston for minimum wage?” they suggest, “or apply to be Communications Manager at an enormous finance company in Leeds?”

“Because I am not qualified to do either,” I respond. “Also I have been in steady employment since January 2009 and should have unsubscribed from these alerts ages ago. Delete, delete, delete.”

I receive these emails because I once ticked some boxes confessing to retail experience and an interest in communications. This does not make me manager material, as I’m sure a summary googling of the job description would testify. Still, it’s nice to be asked.

Having said that, Totaljobs have evidently got wise to the “get lost, I couldn’t go for that even if I wanted to” response, because this week they sent me an email urging me to complete a managerial qualification at the University of Liverpool.

They were always prone to sending me messages suggesting I consider improving myself, preferably through distance learning (they aren’t to know about my aborted attempt to do that CTJT course last year). But the courses they suggest are always totally inappropriate for my existing skillset (writing, journalism, drawing) and career aspirations (writer, journalist… drawer).

I’ve taken umbrage at the latest in the series for a couple of reasons. One is that I haven’t taken umbrage for a while and this seemed as good a time as any. Another was the content of the subject line: “Alison, stay ahead with a quality online degree.”

Quite apart from the fact they’ve apparently got Lee Nelson in to do their marketing, this sentence seems to imply my existing degree is somehow not of sufficient quality because I didn’t get it online. What kind of backwards technophobe gets a degree by reading musty old books for four years?! I’ll probably never get a job, and serve me right.

The other way to read it is that they know some people think an online degree isn’t as good as one obtained by attending actual classes and secretly they agree, so are trying to fool me into thinking this particular course is the exception to prove the rule. Don’t get one of those crappy online degrees you sometimes hear about, have this proper good one.

The other thing that grates here is that having a degree, online or print, is unlikely to put you significantly ahead in a world with bugger all job opportunities. A management qualification might help if I had even a passing interest in managing other people, but I suspect my lack of experience would show me up. Furthermore, given my main aim in life is to subsist as a freelance creative type, it feels like a strange way to channel my energy and time.

Then there’s the fact I already have a quality degree (2:1 MA Hons from St Andrews, thanks) deliberately chosen to help me get ahead. I’ve lost count of the number of journalists who advise wannabe hacks going to university to study a subject and work on the student press rather than going for a journo-specific course, which is exactly what I did.

In social terms this was fantastic, but in career terms all it’s done is get me rejected for some things on grounds of over qualification (although to be fair I get rejected from journalism jobs because there are only about three in Scotland at any given time, with hundreds of applicants).

The moral of this story is that I should unsubscribe, but if I do that the blog will be bereft of updates like this…

I’ll probably soldier on.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day Seven

A song that reminds you of a certain event.

The hardest part of this was thinking of an event, oddly. My first instinct was last Hogmanay and the song would be Justboy by Biffy Clyro, but it's already been done over on friendface. I also considered Yes by McAlmont and Butler, which reminds me of APRIL THE EIGHTEENTH - a night out that has gone down in history amongst my friends for being one of the funnest things ever to happen to us.

But I think I will choose the Orbital version of the Doctor Who theme, which reminds me of the first time the alternative music society at uni DJ'd the main venue in the students's union, and got a crapload of people dancing to it. Which was awesome.

Blardy Stewdarnts

I was interviewed by STV journalist Cara Sulieman about my 12 Books in 12 Months project yesterday, and her report is here. Whilst looking at that, however, my eye was caught by the arguably far more interesting headline story on the Edinburgh and East page, namely "Pie thrown at Scotland's only Conservative MP."

The headline alone is brilliant. But how Scottish is the sentiment?! We don't fling rotting fruit and veg at our hate figures, oh no. We throw PIES. This one was probably bought at the end of a night out, deep fried in batter... discarded when the owner realised they weren't that drunk, and picked up in the morning as a hangover cure on the way to the protest.

Or perhaps not. To my utter delight, the article went on to say that this incident took place in ye olde university town of St Andrews. Ancient, organic, so-posh-nobody-local-can-afford-to-live-within-a-ten-mile-radius St Andrews! Home to some very Conservative people, certainly within the student population (who account for a third of residents). Presumably they were over at Fife Park* harassing poor people and were unable to come to Mr Mundell's aid on this occasion. Tellingly the piece continues, "It is not known who threw the pastry."

That's the St Andrews I lived in for four years. They don't throw pies, they throw pastries. OooOOooOOoo, hark at them.

Damn, I miss the cut and thrust of student debate. Although to my eternal regret, nobody threw baked goods at any MPs when I was there.

*Fife Park is one of the only two student halls of residence that falls somewhere near the line of affordable housing provided by The University of St Andrews. The walls are made of paper and it always smells of supernoodles. But it's OK, they're knocking it down and replacing it with the most expensive flats in creation, to encourage more princes to live there.

Student Protests

Captain Tact was texting me at my temp job earlier today to register his disgust at the way the press have covered the London student protests. Prior to hearing from him, all I’d read was part of a statement from the head of the MET describing the trouble makers as “a small but significant” minority, although the attack on the royals had filtered through my caffeine deprived senses to a certain extent.

“What are they saying,” I texted back, looking through old biology papers to see if the diagram I needed to do had been drawn before. It had not.

“Mainly banging on about the desecration of war memorials and attacks on the royal family. Nothing about the people stuck on the bridge.”

It transpired that one of the captain's friends, currently studying in London, had gone along to the protest at 3pm but on seeing the violence he decided to leave. He was prevented from doing so, detained on Westminster Bridge for over four hours without access to food, water, or the other accoutrements to which he has become accustomed.

“That’s what they always focus on,” I responded, adverbally. “Good news isn’t news, hence no mention of the protests in Scotland [which have all been pretty peaceful]… This is where social media helps because we can hear the other side to it almost as it happens. Sod the press. We know the truth and can pass it on.”

Having said that, not everyone in the world is using social media to follow the likes of Laurie Penny and Shiv Malik as they take to the streets of London. Especially not when they’re supposed to be working. And even fewer are aware of intrepid Edinburgh journos tirelessly following the boringly peaceful events up here. In which case, I suppose the captain has a point – the vast majority of people are presumably only getting the headlines given them by the national papers.

I thought I’d use my lunch break to find out what those were. Everyone said the same thing.

The Guardian had - “live coverage of all the latest news and reaction to the protests, in which the Prince of Wales’s car was attacked.”

The Daily Telegraph – “Prince Charles and Camilla attack: someone could have been shot”

The Mail – “Rioting mob who attacked Charles and Camilla were lucky not to be shot.”

The Sun – “Royal Car Attacked – Charles and Camilla stunned as demo yobs wreck limo.”

The Daily Mirror, meanwhile, came up with the restrained, “CAMILLA ATTACK TERROR”, but sadly I can’t actually get on to the News of the World website at work to see their thoughts because it is blocked for being ‘tasteless and offensive’.

Scottish papers joined in too. The Press and Journal went with the boring but accurate “Charles and Camilla caught up in riot over tuition fees”; The Herald opted for the musical sounding “The Fire of London”; whilst the Scotsman website posted “Royal Car attacked as student rioters run riot in London.” Darn those riot-running rioters.

This one headline – PAINT THROWN AT CAR, NOBODY HURT – is arguably not the most interesting part of what went on in Parliament Square yesterday. What about INNOCENT BYSTANDERS TRAPPED ON BRIDGE or Laurie Penny’s afore-linked eyewitness account which can be partially summarised by, POLICE BATTER CHILDREN.

Presumably those headlines aren’t dramatic enough? They mainly involve good for nothing students who want the government they voted for to honour their pre-election promises, which is boring. And nobody can empathise with students, they’ve all got ideas above their station and smell of toast. Meanwhile the story everyone went for in the end (that was Charles and Camilla getting a horrible fright, lest we forget) had violence worthy of caps lock. And celebrities to boot! Kind of…

Coincidentally, right after having this conversation, filmmaker Chris Salt aka @oblongpictures reiterated my initial point by tweeting:

Why protests turn bad: 5live yesterday “All very calm at the moment so no real story yet. We’ll cross live if there are any developments.”

‘Developments’ meaning bad behaviour from protesters, or the involvement of famous people.

I am curious to know why people in a creative industry like the media can’t find an attention grabbing headline in the fact that 30, 000 odd people turned up to protest in the first place. Surely that’s interesting? Isn’t it indicative of something? Nobody thinks they all turned up to chuck flares at police horses – but why were they there? Have any of them examined the new policy in detail? Is it really as bad as all that?

Edinburgh Students Upset Locals (Again)

A mere two days into their freshers week, first year students at Edinburgh University have incurred the wrath of local townsfolk not for decorating the city centre with traffic cones and vomit, but for being some of the most pathetic drinkers Auld Reekie has ever seen.

“S’ridiculous,” elaborated a member of bar staff from popular Newington drinking establishment The Grapes. “The students come by, they actually read the signs in the window – nae fitba colours, nae under 25s – and they go ‘oh, dreadfully sorry,’ and piss aff! Nae arguments, nae nuthin.”

“The drinking culture in this year’s intake would appear to be decidedly pussyish,” agreed a member of student services. “You hear them saying stuff like ‘oh my god, I had like three beers last night, I thought I was going to pass out,’ and you know you’ve got some proper lightweights on your hands. It’s not like when I started uni. Back then if you didn’t drink your own body weight in shop brand vodka on the first night and proceed to spend the whole of freshers week in a bag full of your own sick… well I don’t know what happened if you didn’t do that. I went with the crowd, personally.”

Local pubs and businesses are suffering from students' alcohol intolerance and propensity for study, with the result that they are encouraging ordinary people with jobs to drink more in compensation. One bar is offering free food when you spend a certain amount on booze, whilst another has been perfecting an alchemical formula to put in all its drinks that makes people physically unable to buy anything other than expensive cocktails.

"Fuckin' schtewdentsh," a hungover victim of the situation was heard to exclaim whist waiting for the bus to work on North Bridge this morning. The sentiment of a dehydrated city in need of a pie and some irn bru.