My baby turned blue as an iceberg do and I sank to the bottom of the sea.

[reddragdiva]

• Wikipedia London meetup, Easter Saturday, 26th March, lunchtime, Central London pub to be determined.

I've yet to find this alleged existential ennui of unemployment. When's the boring bit? Please?

The job search is ticking along nicely. I've been applying at £35–45K, up to £55K in some cases. (The effect of adding L*n*x to a CV with four years' Solaris.) Yesterday I conducted a job interview by phone in Hoe Street while snow blew up my nose. (The water-based kind!) Years of tech support, of course, having given me the superpower of perfect voice modulation under all circumstances. Today I have spoken to pimps and pottered about the house. Tomorrow I have my first face-to-face interview of this round.

I'm currently going through things I actually like doing and working out how any of these could be monetised. It's disconcerting in this context that one of my favourite things is demonetisation of these areas. Obviously a victim of communist Open Source propaganda.

There are many things my brain enjoys. No-one will yet pay me to edit Wikipedia sixteen hours a day. No-one will yet pay me to read and comment on LiveJournal.

The real goal has always been to reconcile keeping my brain with eating. Keeping my brain is the primary goal. It took till my thirties to cope with working for a living at all. Working a job has always been selling chunks of brain tissue.

Can blue men sing the whites? Whoredom for a while is one thing, for a life is another. The wear and tear shows on my body. See that bald patch? Feel the tension in my scalp. Ask Liz how I look after a hard day's pounding. There's good reason sysadmins call recruiters "pimps."

"What did you do before the Singularity, Grandad?"
"Uh, just worked a day job."
I DON'T FUCKING THINK SO.

Comments

[horngirl.livejournal.com]

I would so love to toss my day job. I've got my first paid gig in ages coming up and I'm all excited ($100 for about an hour's work).

Not to mention that I loathe getting up early. Puts a real cramp in one's social life.

[reddragdiva]

Would you get up early to get paid to tootle on horn for a living, though?

[horngirl.livejournal.com]

I would, yeah. But I also know the usual hours that the pro orchestras around here work (which is my ultimate job) and it's mostly nights, and rehearsals start no earlier than 10am.

I'd say even freelancing wouldn't require early starts either.

[tintintin.livejournal.com]

"I've been applying at £35–45K, up to £55K in some cases"

*cries*

[reddragdiva]

At your age I was still a student/unemployed parasite bum. And PROUD!

[steer.livejournal.com]

No-one will yet pay me to edit Wikipedia sixteen hours a day. No-one will yet pay me to read and comment on LiveJournal.

I expect lots of people will, until they realise that's what they're paying you for at least. Pay will stop soon after.

[vatine]

Well, there's a whole slew of exciting career paths to head down. UNfortunately, before I try any of them, I need to either (a) brush up on th related skills, they may be good enough for the occasional foray in the area but I am not sure they're good enough for getting paid for or (b) be independently wealthy, since it'd require start-up-type activity and paying wages.

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

> There's good reason sysadmins call recruiters "pimps."

Not just sys admins.

> The effect of adding L*n*x to a CV with four years' Solaris

Are you any good?

[reddragdiva]

At least moderately, I think. "Experience" here meaning "shit broke and I got it fixed." Much more of that with Solaris than Linux. I have also gained enough "Experience" with FreeBSD 5.x's stupid little ways to CV that. If you think you have a use for it I shall certainly email you a CV.

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

A cv would be welcome - and perhaps a chat via email. Do you have mine?

Although we have a lot of real life friends in common I don't remember actually meeting you.

I have to warn you though that I am always on the look out for people to work for me - or for institutions like banks. I seem to get the impression that banks are "personae non grata" right now.

[reddragdiva]

I don't have yours - please do drop me a line at dgerard at gmail dot com!

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

The only boring thing about unemployment is having to stop doing fun things in order to spam Jobserve, talk to pimps and otherwise prostitute oneself.

If you find someone who'll pay for messing around online, please pass on my details!

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

The ennui doesn't hit until after 4-6 weeks, in my experience.