Jack Of All Trades…

Following on from my rather depressing post the other night I’ve been thinking about what I’ve done and what I can do. Partly to make myself feel better about the fact no one will employ me, partly to see if I can see any ways to leverage my skills to make a living of some sort.

Work wise I have done all kinds of things, from working in a Freshwater Ecology Laboratory as a general dogsbody, where I learnt how to wield a mouse in Photoshop amongst other things, to being a phone monkey in a call centre, where I learned to talk to people. I tested, then engineered and designed circuit boards using CAD software for about three years, swiftly getting moved up the ranks because, frankly, I was a damned quick learner and good at whatever I was asked to do.

I worked in a telephone company for a couple of years, again doing all sorts of rubbish jobs like cleaning phone handset pieces, although formally my role was as a storeman, stocktaking, replenishing and keeping tabs on a bunch of unusual telecoms equipment. This was also where I had my break into computing, installing servers for clients and setting up and fixing desktop machines.

I worked in a couple of different capacities for the NHS , on a service desk, again talking to people, and learning how to calm them down when their computing world had just fallen to pieces, then as an IT technician fixing up and configuring computers in doctors’ surgery’s. This was interesting because the government decided it would be a great idea to give doctors a budget without overseeing what technologies they should be using in their practices. So one would be Windows, one MAC, one Linux, one DOS (yes, DOS!), one would have servers and networking kit, another ould have a dial up modem. It was an education!

I worked for a company fitting wireless broadband systems for remote villages. The job was awful but again I did all kinds of stuff I hadn’t done before, like configuring Cisco routers, driving movable platforms and drilling aerials onto people’s chimneys. The best thing about it was getting to sit on top of a roof at a lunchtime, eating my sandwiches while looking out across the East Midlands scenery. I worked on my own in this role so had to be completely self-reliant.

Then I got a job for NTU, a team leader role where I looked after a good percentage of the departments around the University. I looked after five techies, giving them work to do and ironing out any issues. This is also where I learnt to write procedures and started to figure out that I like writing. Next up was being a Change Manager, this job was all about process, process, process and I not only set up Change management from scratch, I also wrote the rulebook and threw it at people who weren’t following it. I really enjoyed that role and it’s probably the sort of thing I am really looking for in Perth, sadly there don’t appear to be any such jobs going!

Finally I worked in Information Security. Policies, processes, procedures, user disciplinary investigation, data recovery, encryption, auditing, card access You name it, I did it in this role.

Outside work I kept up my skills in photoshop, program websites, have written a 99,999 word novel, refurbished a house, played volleyball to national league division three levels, I can cook, I’m good with kids, I’ve done presentations and talked to big groups of people, I can play guitar, sing and write music. I know a lot about dinosaurs, physics, evolution, computing, chemistry, environment, ecology and biology.

Truly I am a jack of all trades, and a master of whichever I happen to be interested in at the time!

So why can’t I get a job???

Any hints or tips gratefully accepted!