Work, life and other detours [II]

Sorry to hear that, Brian. Any knock back impacts.

Likely. In any case, 15 min is short. I am sure your talents would take longer than that to describe. :wink:

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Anyway, I did apply for another retail job a month or so ago at a different supermarket (Tesco), but I never heard anything. But I now have an interview for it next week!

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I had a good experience at Tesco and so have a good impression, albeit a superficial one being a visitor from Canada.

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I’m pleased to say I start at the aforementioned Supermarket tomorrow for an Induction, with first proper shift soon after! :grinning:

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That is excellent news. :rocket:
Hope your employee discounts are good. :crossed_fingers:

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Gosh, almost 9 months in the job already! Employee discounts are reasonable, plus free food in the break room :slight_smile:

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That is fantastic!

As for me, I have been in the aforementioned position for 17 months. One more and then I am off to another department for four, with an earlier start time (6:30 a.m.) and longer commute (45 min).

I am at the 300 application mark with this city in search for a permanent position—a mark of insanity. My job competition track record is downright depressing, only ending up on several qualified lists but never an offer. How can I compete with the Type As and those with decades of seniority?!

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I started a new position on 13 January this year; I was blessed :innocent: to have a suggestion appear in my LinkedIn feed last November, because I had previously worked for the manager offering the position when we both worked elsewhere. A phone call :phone: encouraged me to apply, and an interview 5 days later; an offer for a 3-day a week (0.6 FTE) position, which I then changed via negotiation to a 4-day (0.8 FTE) position and negotiated also a higher hourly rate :moneybag:. Revised offer and job accepted less than 2 weeks after first contact.

First time I have worked for less than full-time (apart from some 10 months seeking work back in 1991-2). Gross income down to about 65% of my previous position, but much less stress, and much more job satisfaction.

Unfortunately, this just confirms my repeated experience: whilst qualifications and experience count, who you know often counts more.

On the positive side, cultivating and maintaining professional connections certainly enabled this opportunity for me.

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I understand. Thank you for the encouragement and personal update.

Except people have never been interested in me professionally or otherwise. Even in pickup badminton, people generally do not want to play with me. Life is quite a lonely experience.

I am sure many people are in the same boat. Fall off the face of the world and no one notices. The good thing about this lifelong experience is that it inspires me to be better and be present for other people. Hence, my reason for being active here. Thanks community for the interesting and random discussions on photography and other matters!

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Advance election work has taken a lot out of me this past long weekend. Entire body in pain. The location I was supervising had a posse of noncompliant staff giving this democratic process a bad reputation. Central office would have fired them, but my counterpart was concerned that it would cause more problems.

Today, I have an interview for a position that is a very good fit for my interests, competencies and relevant to this time and place (including the geopolitics rocking the world). It can be hard to stay optimistic and confident when I have already been in 300+ competitions (unsuccessful, or successful without an offer).

My phone also died. Likely the motherboard as the repair store could not determine the issue. Too bad that I am going to lose a lot of information due to encryption. I will see what has actually been backed up… That other thread may come in handy, though I may have to get another Samsung to see what I can recover from non-Google backup.

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So after several years of waiting on appointments, specialists, consultants (who console and insult you), it looks like I finally have some sort of diagnosis of a ā€œFunctional Neurological Disorderā€, with suspect Autism thrown in the mix as well.

Which is all well and good, but the Prof of Neurology who I last saw doesn’t seem concerned about my increasingly weak & clumsy hands.

But at least all the scary sounding stuff has been ruled out.

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Brian,

After several years of suspecting it, also having a daughter with the diagnosis, I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome in 2015. This is nowadays classified within Autism by the DSM-5, but that was not yet adopted in Australia at the time of my diagnosis.

Some folks fear stigma with such a diagnosis. For me it was a relief, confirming why I tended to or preferred to function in the way and the contexts that I did. It was also liberating because it allowed me to ā€œmaskā€ less and this greatly reduced day-to-day anxiety and stress. I have embraced my diagnosis.

The following is courtesy of my (now adult) daughter who has done a lot of research and advocacy - she has a good friend with FND. She also has been a governance board member of a peak body (nationally within Australia) in disability advocacy, and is in the next half-hour leaving for a disability consultancy engagement:

Functional Neurological Disorder (FND) is another highly stigmatised and misunderstood condition, with currently little research into it. It is sometimes used as a ā€œwe don’t know what’s going on so take this labelā€ diagnosis. Self-advocacy and disability advocacy groups will serve you well and I encourage you to look into them, as well as other peer groups with autistic people and people with FND and/or neurological conditions. Don’t be afraid to keep pushing to get more clarity around your neurological symptoms. It’s your life and your body and you have a right to know what’s going on and have your concerns heard.

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Update.

My interview went better than expected. I have been waiting for a response (should be this week; 3-week mark — sometimes, it is much longer), but not optimistic due to my poor track record. Meanwhile, I started a new position, which technically is not a new role per se. My former unit wanted to convert my old position to a senior position and they could not do that without transferring me to another department. Oh well.

I replaced the phone with a Samsung S24 FE. Samsung because I wanted to retrieve as much from Samsung/Google as possible. Have not been able to recover most of the data from the dead phone because I encrypted it all. Apparently, that included files that were saved on the SD card. Oh well. The phone itself is an upgrade because the former was an A class Samsung… Not super snappy being a FE, but good enough… Until the next, hopefully more open, phone in several years’ time!

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Sounds like your former unit are not very kindly disposed towards you: ā€œwe think this position is actually very important, but the guy we have in it ā€¦ā€ Is the new position something that you find at least somewhat enjoyable?

Sorry to hear about the loss of data… phones are not a very helpful platform in many respects … I find that despite cloning options, certain apps will never retain their data correctly, and things like call and message history can generally be kissed goodbye. I’m currently 3 years 6 months into a handset that has defied the odds and still works very well (Oppo A74 5G) but it runs a customised Android OS - very much not open.

Glad your interview went well … maybe a follow-up email or phone call from you is in order?

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My job search continues without success. I am about to meet the end of my current run, as I have been served a layoff notice today for Sept 5. :neutral_face:

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brutal, @afre sorry to hear that!

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:cry:

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I have lost two jobs in the past. In each case, the next job I got was much better than the one before. So, there is hope. I pray that things will work out well for you.

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Fingers crossed :disappointed: