Career Nosedive or clearing the air for new opportunities?

If one has to work, one at least wants to have some kind of career satisfaction. Am I right? You bet your buttons, I am.

So how do I predict whether my career is about to take a nosedive or not? Should I stay eternally optimistic and repeat to myself that change is good, new opportunities await, and be patient it will all turn out well in the end? Or should I start looking around for a replacement position (anyone want to pay me to travel and write?)?

Let’s look at the facts (my version of them, of course).

1. I’ve spent several months developing a certain line of planning and strategy, working on policy, asking questions and providing a choice of solutions, etc, etc and so forth. I’ve done such a job of it that instead of being given the work officially as part of my job description, the company is planning to employ someone to do the job. I could apply for the job, but the company chooses qualifications over experience and I don’t like to waste my time.

2. I have been working on, developing/improving marketing campaigns for our events and doing a good job of it. My work in that area now seems to be shared out among other people, which wouldn’t be so bad if I was going to be able to continue developing point number 1… It appears that due to an overlap in job descriptions in the area I now work in, I’m going to be the “fall-guy”. I won’t be out of a job, but I won’t be doing a whole lot either.

3. I’ve been filling in in other areas while we were short-staffed. We will soon not be short-staffed and that work also will be taken out of my hands. Even, apparently, those parts I been asked to, and am willing to, continue with because no one else wants them.

So, if I’m not doing what I was working toward and I’m not doing what I was working on or helping out with, what will I be doing exactly?

I have an answer for that but I do not wish to sound bitter…

I already know what I’m going to do, of course (and this little vent has cleared at least that up for me). I’m going to bide my time (as I always do), and concentrate on the two most important things, career-wise. They are, a) negotiate a full-time position, which has been my basic request for the last six months and b) work on my TAFE course so I will have qualifications at last. Experience counts for nothing without a bit of paper to sit it on.

After that, I’m going to find someone to pay me to travel and I’m nicking off to the Outer Hebrides and similar locales, to write about it.

It will be interesting to see how it all turns out.

 

 

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North and South: is the book as good as the film?

I would like to review this book, but I haven’t read it yet. You see, I was given a copy for Mother’s Day by my youngest Angel. We’ve watched the movie (or is it classified as a mini-series?) several times: there is just no getting past Richard Armitage in this one. Ooh la la! He and Daniella Denby-Ashe do such a good job of swapping hate for love that we are in danger of judging all romantic moments by their kiss at the train station! I love that instant when John Thornton realises Catherine Hale returns his love… <sigh> so romantic.

The moment...

The kiss...

But I’m getting distracted, I’m writing about the book that I have yet to start reading. You see I watched the show… and, for possibly the first time ever, I’m wondering if the book will be as good.

I am very much looking forward to several hundred pages of Richard Armitage, I mean, John Thornton, including all the scenes that didn’t make it to the film. And I do love a good period drama… I’m a big Jane Austen fan – surely it can’t be that much different. However, I’m stalling. I really don’t want to be disappointed and I don’t know anyone who has read it so I can’t ask their opinion.

I flicked through a biography on Elizabeth Gaskell. It was very long though there were several quite interesting bits. I like the Unitarian connections she had with her family and friends, and her belief in the validity and importance of truth in all things. This theme of truth being the most important thing comes across quite strongly in the film so I assume it will in the book (and probably all her others) as well

I suppose I need to stop stalling and get on with it. After all, a tall dark and handsome man in a starched collar and black coat is waiting for me….

Richard Armitage as John Thornton

Images from: http://www.richardarmitageonline.com/index.html

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Jane Austen and the Undead

Where did this trend come from?

An extensive 5-minute internet search produced the concept of mash-ups, which I hadn’t heard of previously, but apparently are the result of combining one song and style with another… I thought these were remixes. I like the word “mash-up” better. It describes quite well what happens to the original song in a remix. Transpose this lyrical concept to literary and we have a whole new range of “throw-away” novels to spend money on.

Is this just a commercial venture to earn a few poor authors and their publishing companies etc a dollar or two? Did the idea for this come only from the desire to stop starving in a garret and have the cash to purchase non-generic brands of baked beans?

I have no idea, but here’s my take on the situation.

Northanger Abbey. Published in 1818. Filmed in 1987 as part of Screen Two and starring Katharine Schlesinger as Catherine Morland and Peter Firth (Harry from Spooks) as Mr Henry Tilney. I hadn’t noticed it with the actual book, yet this film adaptation could easily have inspired a raft of Jane Austen meets classic gothica tales. It reeks with it. (Note here that I haven’t seen the 2007 version as yet).

I don’t recall the heroine’s imagination having her being kidnapped by rogues in her nightgown and carried away to creepy gothic castles so obviously a reread is in order. In the 1980′s film adaptation though it happens regularly. Catherine sits perched in a tree in a country field while her imaginary herioine is off having adventure. You know the kind; assault, rape, held against her will… The innocent damsel eventually enters a dark bedchamber and an oversized bed. The handsome rogue whisks his black cape from his shoulders and unmasks his face. Her lips part in trembling desire; nightdress slipping from one shoulder, bosums heaving she leans into his smoldering kiss…

Carry this theme on a little more, turn the rogue into a vampire/zombie/sea-monster from hell (they are in the seaside town of Bath, after all), and there you have it; a new range of literary follies.

Whole libraries of novelistic classics can be retreated to appeal to fans of the Undead. “Of Mice, and Men and Banshees” perhaps or “Moby Dick and the Sand-Gorgons”. How about, “Watership Down and Out in Hades”?

Now, what can we do with an old “Larry and Stretch” western?
TrishA

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