Future
In other news, I've got an email here from an enthusiastic recruiter wanting to know some more specifics about my experience, for a job at a company making lithography machines. It sounds like an interesting company and the sort of thing I can do but the email's been sitting around for days unanswered because, well, basically because winter. I was having a good day the day I went and met that agent in person, the sort of day where I reckon I can deal with it with proper use of the daylight lamp and lots of exercise and maybe taking all the year's holidays in December and January, but it's been getting worse since. (I don't know exactly why, but perhaps because Marseille was sunny but thoroughly cold, and also isolating, more so than here, when there on a temporary basis anyway.) So never mind what happens next winter, I don't have the energy / brain-power to tackle that job *now*. Or do anything about getting a job anywhere, which leaves me stuck here in the cold and dark, unable to get up before about 10am and finding it quite difficult to not cry about stupid stuff when I do. Still, hey, it snowed here overnight, and I need to get some food in, so I can go out and walk in it and that'll be a useful *and* effective way to spend another hour ignoring the bigger questions that have needed tackling for months.
(No, okay, somebody I know linked to this SMBC comic, which talks about having several lifetimes in one life, the transitions between phases where we're doing different things. Makes a lot of sense to me, and I could point to the technician years as one lifetime, and the studying / PhD years as another, but then I can't tell where I am right now, and neither can anyone else, it seems. I thought this was going to be the engineering phase, but I'm still getting job rejections that say things like "I'm looking for someone who is really into the business with a mechanical background in the machinery. In my opinion you have more research experience (maybe even over-educated) than the right working experience for this company" and I have no idea how to counter that; I already use terms like 'hands-on' and 'practical' in my CV, and it doesn't seem helpful to pretend I haven't got the qualifications I've got. And anyway, even apart from that, I'm also getting agents sounding sniffy at me for talking in terms of interesting projects and not super-stable jobs-for-life wow-much-settledness; maybe I'm just not Dutch enough. I have had a bit of a wonder about contracting but apparently I'd need to set up my own company for it, which seems a bit drastic, and a bit like it's not going to work if no-one thinks I'm actually an engineer. The obvious thing to do, the thing it's been obvious to do for months, is to see about getting this CEng certification, but hello winter and absence of brain to write the professional review report with (and also deal with Lely HR / my ex-boss about it) and aaargh what happens if I don't get it? What happens if even they don't think I'm an engineer? Because beyond that my options really start shrinking. So, hey, food shopping, right?)
(No, okay, somebody I know linked to this SMBC comic, which talks about having several lifetimes in one life, the transitions between phases where we're doing different things. Makes a lot of sense to me, and I could point to the technician years as one lifetime, and the studying / PhD years as another, but then I can't tell where I am right now, and neither can anyone else, it seems. I thought this was going to be the engineering phase, but I'm still getting job rejections that say things like "I'm looking for someone who is really into the business with a mechanical background in the machinery. In my opinion you have more research experience (maybe even over-educated) than the right working experience for this company" and I have no idea how to counter that; I already use terms like 'hands-on' and 'practical' in my CV, and it doesn't seem helpful to pretend I haven't got the qualifications I've got. And anyway, even apart from that, I'm also getting agents sounding sniffy at me for talking in terms of interesting projects and not super-stable jobs-for-life wow-much-settledness; maybe I'm just not Dutch enough. I have had a bit of a wonder about contracting but apparently I'd need to set up my own company for it, which seems a bit drastic, and a bit like it's not going to work if no-one thinks I'm actually an engineer. The obvious thing to do, the thing it's been obvious to do for months, is to see about getting this CEng certification, but hello winter and absence of brain to write the professional review report with (and also deal with Lely HR / my ex-boss about it) and aaargh what happens if I don't get it? What happens if even they don't think I'm an engineer? Because beyond that my options really start shrinking. So, hey, food shopping, right?)