Experimenting
Last night someone was talking to me about a 1.5-month temporary job when I leave this company; the night before, someone else was discussing the possibility of offering me a 4-month temporary job which will last till April next year.
Interesting possibilities are opening up. And I have a job interview next week.
You know, I sort of view times like this as an opportunity to try things I otherwise wouldn't have tried. Around this time last year, before I joined this company, I spent a short stint holding one-hour storytelling sessions in toy stores and department stores with a talking bear. It was tiring, but it was also fun; I like interacting with children.
I did it partly because it seemed to offer quite good returns for the amount of work I'd be putting in. They weren't paying me based on any sales I might pull in -- which is good, because, like I said, I can't even sell myself. If I had to survive on commissions from sales, I'd most likely starve. Heck, I can't even bargain. When I went to Bali in 2004, my friends laughed at me coz I was so hopeless at bargaining. "Your face gives you away," they said. "You looked so sorry for the seller when he was telling you his hard-luck stories!"
It's refreshing to try something so different. I'd never been a sales assistant or store attendant before. I'd spent my university summer hols helping Dad out at his clinic, but apart from that hadn't had any other jobs apart from office-based jobs (even journalism was, to a large extent, office-based -- you were expected to be in the office when you weren't out on assignment, attending an event or interviewing someone).
If you're a salaried employee in an office-based job, there are powerful incentives to continue staying on in that job or to move to another office-based job. For one, the pay tends to be higher and it is a more contained environment -- it sort of becomes your comfort zone. Also, although the work is still demanding, it's demanding in very different ways. And there is more job security, more employee benefits (I think -- I'm quite sleepy and not sure if I'm thinking straight. I'm sure my loyal readers will correct me if I'm not making any sense!).
So I see this period as a chance to break out and step out of the box for a short while. Graduates are generally expected to end up as white-collar workers in office-based jobs; I always took it for granted that I'd be one of the same. Maybe some uncertainty and exposure to different kinds of work wouldn't be a bad thing.