by ·Comments Off on The Writer’s Quest Continues

When this blog goes for any length of time without an update it’s normally because I have succumbed to my tortoise-like nature and become incredibly lazy, but this time it’s mostly because I have been incredibly busy.

What follows after the jump is a brief summary of my last five months or so, what I have learnt about myself, what I have done and what I am doing.

I am earning money as a freelance writer

If you want to employ a freelance writer, please drop me a line on davidDOTofDOThingATgmailDOTcom, replacing the capitalised DOTs and ATs with their relevant symbols.

At the moment I’m probably not quite earning enough to give up the day job, which is a shame, because I gave up the day job, but that just means I need to find another day job in the near future.

I am now (results pending) a fully qualified NCTJ journalist.

I did a full time course set by the NCTJ (National Council for the Training of Journalists:  An acronym that I still embarrassingly enough get muddled up whenever I say it) that finished a couple of weeks ago.  I met some fantastically talented people there, some of whom will undoubtedly be the next big thing in your favourite paper, on your favourite website or your favourite news broadcast programme.  The rest are probably sick of journalism right now and will need a break because the course is rather intense, unrelenting and tends to beat the journalism into you so hard that some of it will occasionally go right through and come out the other side.

Incidentally, if anyone reading this is interested in a career in journalism, do an NCTJ.  You won’t realise how little you know until you do.  I did mine at News Associates, who have centres in London and Manchester and although they are pricey by comparison, it is the first piece of education that I have paid for that I feel I not only got a good deal but probably didn’t pay them enough for all the work they put in.

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by ·Comments Off on Process Maps

A process map is meant to make a process more obvious by displaying it in a visual form.  I occasionally have to do this in my current role.

Things like this baffle me:

A process map apparently can't just have two boxes. That's less of a process and more of an event I suppose.

This is not from my company and I’m not saying who it’s from, other than it’s from a regulated financial services firm, all of which are potentially facing some slightly stricter complaint handling requirements fairly soon.

 It seems mostly unnecessary.  The obvious diagram for me would just be “complaint received” followed by “log complaint”, but maybe that’s just me.

I see this quite a lot at the moment.  Documents that have a purpose and are a business requirement often take so long getting to the point and so much longer talking around the point that by the time they’re finished and published, nobody in their right mind is ever going to read them, much less update them.  In fact, the only people that will read them are going to be regulators inspecting a business, by which point you have provided your own noose by producing process documentation that nobody has read, nobody updates and most likely does not reflect your current business practises.

All the same, inexperienced staff like myself look at these things for inspiration on how they should be doing things and feel their productions are inferior if they don’t have a similar word count, so the cycle repeats. 

 

by ·Comments Off on Don’t Mention the Misconduct!

From City AM this morning, I picked up this little nugget under their “Marketing Campaign of the Year”:

 “Celebrities do it all the time,” said Norwich Union when it changed its name to Aviva. It argued that the old name – which dated from 1797 – was due a change in a world where it operates in 27 countries, and that one name should be used across the group.

Of course, the name change from Norwich Union to Aviva was nothing to do with the £1.26 million fine levied against them by the FSA for being incompetent when it came to protecting client data and protecting against fraud that was so damaging to their reputation that they had to distance themselves from their own name.  Of course not.  What a crazy suggestion that would be.  It’s because the name was old.  And they work in countries that don’t know what a Norwich is.

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CYOA

The cape is obviously optional.

Today, davidhing.com brings you a “choose your own adventure” post.

Your name is <yourname> and you are a struggling writer.  This is a very true statement, as you are truly struggling to write.  You currently hold down a pedestrian 9-5 job in an office which demands nothing of you but your time and occasionally semi-conscious thought.  However, when you get home, you often find that you are unable to do what you want to do.
Your quest is simple, <yourname>, you must write something by the end of the day.  Prepare to embark on your Writer’s Quest!  Start at section 1.

***

  1. You have been at work all day.  At lunch time you had a sandwich with chicken in it.  It made you feel stuffy, but full.  In the afternoon, your mind drifted off and you started day dreaming about what you were going to write when you got home.  You have decided that you will work on <yourproject> this evening.  It gets to 5’O’Clock and it’s time to go home.  If you chose to walk home, go to section 2.  If you choose the bus, go to section 3.
  2. The walk home passes without incident and takes you about half an hour.  As you walk up the stairs, approaching your flat, you feel a little out of breath.  Upon opening and walking through the front door, you are unable to feel the enthusiasm for your project that you initially felt.  If you chose to fight through the apathy and go to your computer, go to section 4.  If you decide to sit on the sofa and watch some television, go to section 5.
  3. The bus journey takes about half an hour.  The high street is busy and the bus has to repeatedly stop and start.  Some “intelligent individuals” attempt to argue their way onto the bus without buying a ticket, apparently finding the concept of public transport too low for their tastes.  The journey makes you feel grumpy and resentful that you didn’t walk.  As you walk through the front door of your flat,  your enthusiasm for <yourproject> has been significantly compromised.  You decide to sit on the sofa and watch some television.  Go to section 5.
  4. You enter your newly acquired office-room and throw your bag and jacket off on to the bed.  Stalking over to your computer, you hit the power button with your toe and hear the beast roar in to life.  The computer is fast becoming an uncooperative Frankenstein of a machine and so take a long time to start up.  If you chose to go and get a glass of water whilst you wait, go to section 6.  If you chose to sit it out and wait for the machine to boot up, go to section 7.
  5. You fall on to the sofa and jab the remote until the picture shows on the screen.  You find a show to watch on your magical watch-what-you-missed-last-week box that you missed last week.  It makes you laugh.  You decide to catch up on a few other things as well, reasoning that you need to chill out and you’ll get around to <yourproject> later.  You’ve only just got back from work anyway.  You realise that you’re thirsty and should probably get on with <yourproject> after all, but you’re not sure.  If you continue to watch TV shows that make you laugh, go to section 8.  If you chose to get a glass of water, go to section 6.
  6. As you go to the sink to pour yourself a glass of water, you glance over at the television.  You remember that there was a show that you wanted to watch last week that you missed.  You really wanted to see it, and if you don’t, that bloke at work that talks all the time will probably ruin it for you.  If you chose to watch the show, go back to section 5.  If you proceed in satiating your thirst, go to section 9.
  7. The computer has finished starting up.  As you look around your workspace you notice a few unfinished projects on your drawing board but pay it no further attention at this time.  You look at your desktop and find one particular icon in the middle triggering off an instinctive drive for you to click it.  If you click the icon, go to section 11.  If you do not click the icon, go to section 13.
  8. You watch another show, and then another show, and then you find yourself watching repeats of Mock the Week on Dave, which is odd because most of the news-relevant material has long since lost it’s humour value or relevance.  You are confused as to why you are so hungry until you realise that it is actually getting rather late.  Go to section 12.
  9. You start to pour yourself a glass of water, and then you remember there’s beer in the fridge.  You would quite like a beer, but you’re not sure.  If you chose the glass of water, go to section 7.  If you chose the beer go to section 10.
  10. The beer goes down well and with can in hand, you say to yourself “screw it.  I’m going to get on with <yourproject> right now” and storm out of the kitchen and into your office.  Go to section 11.
  11. You start up World of Warcraft.  Your mouse hand flew to the icon and you finger shot down in two sharp movements as if drawn by some dark force.  After playing for a while, you quit the game and you decide that a beer would be a good idea, to get you going on <yourproject>.  Go to section 10.  If you have already had five beers, go to section 12.
  12. It is now midnight and your evening has finished.  It’s time to start thinking about going to bed as you have work in the morning.  You Have Failed Your Writer’s Quest.
  13. You resist clicking on the icon and instead find Microsoft Word so that you can work on <yourproject>.  You open up the program and are greeted with that really annoying paperclip.  If you ignore the paperclip, go to section 15.  If you chose to attempt to destroy the paperclip, go to section 14.
  14. You right click on the paperclip assistant to send him to oblivion but before you chose to get rid of him, you notice that you can chose a different assistant.  You spend a long time cycling through the options and even longer agonizing between the cat and the robot.  You finally settle on the cat and ask it the question “does anyone actually chose the windows logo?”  but the feline is unable to sufficiently answer your query.  After this rather major distraction, you realise that you are thirsty.  You remember that there is beer in the fridge and that would be just what you need to help you get on with <yourproject>.  Go to section 10.
  15. Ignoring any distractions, you finally start writing.  You get a sentence done when your phone rings.  It is a friend of yours that you haven’t seen for a while inviting you out for a drink down the road.  If you go out for a drink, go to section 16, if you decide to carry on with <yourproject>, go to section 17.
  16. You have a good time at the pub, but one drink very quickly becomes two and then you go and find a pub with a pool table and then end up marching off towards central London before realising that it’s getting late and you should be getting home.  You say farewell and head home.  Go to section 12.
  17. You feel guilty for turning your friend down and resolve that you’ll make it up to him in good time.  To soften the blow, you decide that you’ll have a beer from the fridge, so that you can say “I was drinking with you in spirit” when you meet him again at a later date.  Go to section 10.

by ·Comments Off on When Training is Not Training
FishVQ

This fish has been recently upskilled.

Last week I turned down an opportunity to do a government funded NVQ Business Administration training programme.  My reasons for this stretch beyond laziness and arrogance.

First of all, weighing in rather close to the arrogance side of things, I would feel sorry for the NVQ level 2 when it had to hang around with some of my other qualifications that are bigger and meaner and would pick on the poor thing.  However, this was not my only reason.  Any qualification is at least a qualification, it could look ok on a CV, and free training is after all free training.  Of course, in this case, it wasn’t really training.

I did sign up for the programme after seeing the list of modules that were available.  Some of them were ridiculous affairs like a module in “complying with health and safety” or “Being punctual:  Getting up that five minutes earlier”, but some of them looked quite useful, such as modules on the more advanced features of Microsoft Word or Excel, with which I sometimes find I have gaps in my knowledge.  However, the main reason for me deciding to abandon the venture was that I’d misunderstood what was meant by “optional units”.  What happens is that an assessor comes and follows you for a few days whilst you’re doing your job, works out what you do, and then signs you up for the modules most relevant for your work, or rather, signs you up for modules that you can not learn anything from as you do the content on a daily basis.  This to me sounds like a reversal of the basic premise of education.

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