Haircut

By one o'clock this afternoon I had applied for five jobs.

That brings the total number of applications for this week to 20.

To save you all the trouble of scrolling down a bit and looking at my graph, this number is a record for the current period of job hunting.

And I received one bite bringing the total number of bites for this week to six.

I also received a nibble from an agency who said I was too senior for the role they were advertising. But she - a Polish woman now working in London - liked my c.v. and is going to consider me for other roles. Definitely a nibble rather than a bite and as you know, I don't count nibbles (but if I did it would be two for this week).

Quite a week then.

And to cap it all I had a haircut this afternoon.

Then I went to the opticians and tried to put contact lenses in my eyes again. I did much better than last time but I'm going to go along for one more training session so I'm absolutely confident.

This time my eyes don't look like someone has poured acid into them.

Just as well

I had booked my haircut a few days ago. Which was fortunate as on Monday I have an interview. This was arranged by an agency who responded positively to my application yesterday. They called today. The job in question is not the best paying job going at the moment. But I should break even, it's only for six months, and it's better than sitting here searching for jobs all day.

Why?

I'm very positive about jobs and job hunting. Often I visualise about what I could do in a certain role for which I'm being interviewed. It's not pathological enthusiasm. It helps me focus and think about what I could do in the roles. I believe it's healthy.

Today, however, I was contacted by two friends for whom work is not going well. They're senior managers and have done well. But office politics gets in the way. It's not even politics sometimes, it's just office crap.

And that's the reality of work. I mustn't dwell on this or my application rate will drop alarmingly.

At last

Whereas working people often look forward to weekends I don't usually. It's just less of the same for me. I don't meet up with people and have to be reasonably careful about retail therapy. Worse, apart from half-hearted attempts at studying and business development, it's the two days I can't do anything to rectify the situation.

I also quietly resent the fact that my non-working life still has to mirror working life. I can only really job hunt during the working week: that's when most jobs are posted and recruiters are contactable.

This weekend is different. I've had a busy week and I'll think I'll have some positive things to do:

- learn some XP, too busy to study this week so it'll be good to get back to it
- do some business development, this is a must
- maybe add some more to this blog site, possibly including Google's Adsense - well, why not?
- get my own domain name and tart up my web site.

I've kinda given up on German and Finnish for the time but you never know.

Let's see how I get on.