Tag: employment

Back on the job hunt

Well everyone, after almost a year of full-time employment in digital communications I’m back on the job hunt again. My contract with my current employer has always been fixed-term.

My initial contract was only supposed to be for six months at first, but, by the time it ends on the last day of December, I’ll have been there (as a paid member of staff) for just two weeks shy of a whole year. I’ve actually been there a little long than that though, because I started as a volunteer before that.

I’m trying my best to to freak out too much. This time last year I was in my fifth year of unemployment after graduation, the BBC documentary that I took part in (Employable Me) hadn’t aired yet, and I was in a very strange kind of limbo between knowing that it wouldn’t be far away. My depression was so bad that I found it difficult to bring myself to get dressed every day.

Things have changed so much and I’ve mentally come a long, long way. I like to think I’m good at what I do (mostly social media-based things), and it turns out that I’ve become pretty confident at writing analytics reports, which is something I never thought I’d say. The sight of numbers usually makes my brain cry, so I’m actually, if I can be very un-British for a minute, pretty proud of myself.

There. I said it.

So yes, I’m back on the job hunt. I’m hoping it will be a bit easier this time around, now that I’ll have a year’s worth of experience under my belt.

Wish me luck,

Nic xx

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Employable Me is airing in the Netherlands

This morning I woke up to a comment on one of my YouTube videos informing me that Employable Me is currently showing on TV in the Netherlands! Then, when I got home from work, I saw that people had e-mail this blog’s e-mail address to send their good wishes too.

If you’re here from the Netherland, Hallo and  dank je for taking the time to reach out to me. (I don’t speak dutch, so I’m going to trust that Google Translate is accurate. Sorry if I actually just offended you!)

It’s all a bit surreal. I always knew there was a possibility that something like this could happen, I just really didn’t think it would. Or I didn’t think anyone would be interested enough to track me down online to tell me, although I’m very glad you did.

This is what Employable Me is all about; spreading  the message as far as possible that disabled people can, and do, have jobs. It doesn’t matter where in the world you are, with the right support, it will be possible.

Thank you for taking the time to watch the show and allowing me to share my journey with you.

Love, Nic (and my blue walking frame, called Ivy)

xx

Taking annual leave for the first time

This week I did something for the first time: I took annual leave from work. It was…weird.

I wasn’t originally planning on taking any leave this early into my six month contract; I didn’t feel like I’d really ‘earned’ any yet. However, the end of the financial year was approaching and I needed to use some up – so I booked a couple days off.

The act of requesting leave was an odd mixture of exciting and scary. I was expecting the former but not the latter. It was hard for me to reason with myself that having annual leave is an important part of working life. It isn’t all that surprising, considering that before this job came along, I had convinced myself that I would never, ever, get to call myself an employee.

I’ve adjusted my body clock to working hours; getting up on time and going to sleep early enough that I’ll still be able to function in the morning, but, to be honest, I’m still working on accepting that I’m worthy of a job. I had to fight the urge to check my work e-mails approximately every five minutes.

This weekend is Easter weekend. Here in the UK that means that we don’t work on Good Friday or Easter Monday. I feel completely different about this. The rest of my team are off work too. This feels okay. It feels like I’m ‘allowed’ (by my own standards) to relax this time. I was holding myself back before. I know that.

I also know I need to work on that. This is an important step in my working life. I hope there are more to come.

My first month of full-time work

Can you guys believe it’s been a month since I started my new job? I can’t.

That means I have successfully managed to get up (and start work on time) four Monday mornings in a row. This might not sound like a big achievement, but let’s not forget I’d been unemployed for five and a half years until I got this job. Getting up early on a Monday morning hasn’t been a feature in my life for a loooong time, but I’m adjusting. I think…

Continue reading “My first month of full-time work” →

I have a job!

There’s no denying that lots of exciting things have happened to me lately, but perhaps the most exciting thing of all is that I can finally say I have a job!

A full-time, paid job involving writing and social media and research and newswriting and all the things I love. It’s mine until July.

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Photo shows a mug with a finger pointing and the text ‘you’re hired’.

Nancy Doyle, the career psychologist from Employable Me, accidentally made me a cup of tea in this mug while we were filming the series. I took a picture because it made me laugh at the time, but I guess I have a legitimate reason to use it now!

I start tomorrow (Monday).

I am so relieved.

I have lots of amazing and exciting freelance projects on the go too. I’m still going to keep working on those during my evenings and weekends.

I’ve gone from being the least busy person ever to finally being able to justify buying a diary again, hence my almost crying in Waterstones incident the other day.

I’ve actually been volunteering a my workplace (ohmygosh I have a workplace) for a couple of months, so I already know the people and that the building is accessible, so I’m not as nervous as about my first day as I could be, but the nerves are still there.

I’ll keep you posted!

Nic xx

 

Employable Me: one week on (a mini round-up)

It’s now been a week since ‘my episode’ of Employable Me series 2 aired in the UK and I’m still not sure I’ve managed to get my thoughts in order.

This week has been one of the busiest, longest, and most rewarding weeks of my life. My phone has hardly stopped buzzing with notifications from so many people, most of whom I’ve never met and probably never will, wanting to show support.

Honestly, there are so many things  I want to say about what Employable Me has brought into my life, and probably will bring over the next few months. If I wrote about them all in detail then this would be the longest blog post ever. So, for now, I’m just going to post this little round up. Enjoy!

The Support I’ve received

I don’t think the enormity of the support I’ve been shown has sunk in for me yet and I don’t think it will for a while. But please know that I appreciate every single one of your messages. I’ve even screen-shotted a lot of them to look back on on my worst day, when I’m hurting and sore from my cerebral palsy, or when I feel like I’m worthless.

I’m sorry that I haven’t replied to all of them. I wish I could, but there are just so, so many it would be impossible. I’m still trying to get through as many as I can.

The Support I’ve given others

The most rewarding part of this  whole process (and there have been a lot of them) is knowing that my choice to share my story has helped others. I’m going to include some of their stories here – with their permission.

The following is a DM I received from a lovely person on Twitter –

“Hiya. please may I just say something and I apologise if I come across the wrong way or sound patronising. I’ve had a rough few months and while watching your employable me episode I actually felt motivated to change myself for the better. I too have CP and after watching you and seeing that you went to university and got a degree and how you’ve approached people work experience made me realise that actually despite CP I can do things if I really apply myself and want to do them. Since the episode aired I’ve actually started composing letters to send to employers and companies for work and began making plans to have a meeting so I can attend university after having to defer last year, even looking at alternatives even if that course isn’t the best for me. So thank you.”

 

I had a blog post published on the Huffington Post!

I’ve also been lucky enough to have a blog about my experiences taking part in Employable Me published on The Huffington Post, which you can read here, if you haven’t already.

I also wrote a blog for Genius Within, (career psychologist Nancy Doyle’s website) on the power of the positive assessments which I undertook as part of the filming process.  You can read that here.

 

Thank you so much to everyone who’s taken the time to watch the show, and to all the amazing people who worked so hard to make it happen.

There are so many stories that I want to tell you all in time. Some of them are still unfolding as I write this. I hope you all don’t mind waiting until I can find the head-space (and words) to write them.

Love,

Nic xx

Employable Me continues on Monday at 9pm on BBC2.

 

Employable Me Series Two

If you’ve been following any of my posts on social media for the last couple of weeks you’ll know that I’ve been fortunate enough to have taken part in the second series of Employable Me for BBC2!

It starts tonight by the way (Monday, November 27th at 9pm on BBC2) and I’m so excited for you all to finally be able to see it.

If you’ve never heard of the show before, the best way to describe it in a nutshell is that it’s a documentary series that looks at the barriers disabled people, like myself, face when they’re trying to find employment – and you only have to look back though the archives of this blog to see that I’ve come up against my fair share of those.

I’ve been working on this for so long and I haven’t been allowed to talk about it. It’s one of the reasons why my blog posts have been so few and far between lately – so much of the disability-related stuff that’s been going on in my life has been thanks to Employable Me.

I’ve met some of the most amazing people I’ve ever met in my life, and lots of us are still in touch. I think we’ll be friends for a very long time. I’m not going to talk about what happens over the series (although I might talk about certain elements of it in the future) but I do urge you all to watch it, whether you’re disabled, or an employer or just interested.

I hope it raises awareness and I hope people learn something. I’ve learned a lot about myself and a lot about disability. I hope you all do, too.