h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm not usually this un-ironic, but here goes...

Back a couple of years ago, the job I had in the translation department of an academic online database was outsourced - to Limerick. Shame on you, Celtic Tiger. (I forgive you - the home country was due some good luck.)

To get some marketable skills, I bought a laptop, sat down with manuals to teach myself, figured I needed to learn HTML.

Stumbled across h2g2. Ah, I thought: a painless - and better yet with my budget, cost-free - way to learn HTML. Try an entry or two...

Since then I have been able to use my guide entries and short stories as writing samples.

I arrived at one interview to find the editors laughing at something I wrote online. The rest was easy (just talk a blue streak...).

I have got two jobs directly because of h2g2, and got my foot in the door for others due to being 'on the web'.

Of course, having a warm, caring, and above all stimulating community of people to talk to, work with, and foist horrible jokes on is nothing to sneeze at, pace the Great Green Arkleseizure. You folks have given me confidence and a share in this unique window on the world.

Thanks, fellow researchers, for all the fun and enlightenment. And thanks, h2g2, for facilitating a 'midlife career change'.

I'm intrigued by your post. I wonder which jobs you went for.

Writing (mostly online) and gming for an online game.

Haven't been offered an off-world job yet, but this was close...

so you got paid for writing online articles?

what's an off-world job?

Yes, for educational courses. And some other odds and ends.

An off-world job would be like Ford Prefect's - off the planet.

Wouldn't you like to go? (Where's that electronic thumb?)

sounds interesting

I like to have my feet on terra ferma

That's why there's vanilla and chocolate.

confused

You said you liked to have your feet on terra firma. I'd like to go traveling in space...

Just a way of saying, there are many choices.

That's true Problem is it can confuse. I mean theres so many different and too choose from and its the same with jobs I guess. I'm currently confused over doing training or not and at the same time what in. I know what hasn't worked so far.

What kinds of things do you like to do?

arts n crafts, reading, writing for h2g2 to name just a few (but the min ones).

I'd say, find what you really like doing - and be brutally honest with yourself about what you're good at and not good at - and go for the training that will give you a chance to do it.

Also, in this crazy world, don't get locked into one path. Leave options open.

The more interface you have with the possibilities, the less the chance you'll get dead-ended somewhere.

I, for instance, can't draw a convincing stick figure. But I can do visual layout, and I'm a good photographer (and have done it for a job, occasionally).

As a fashion designer, I would be a total bust.

But you know, I write scripts for other people to make flash programs out of, and they work visually, and I've got a good ear for dialogue.

Just an example.

It sounds like you are doing bits and bobs everywhere.

I'm just very confused at the moment with choice and have no idea what I'm really cut out for.

Aha. What do you do for hobbies?

In other words, what would you do for free if nobody paid you for it?

Then find a way to get paid for it...

arts n crafts, reading, writing ...but don't pay well right?

Writing does not pay well, right. Says a writer.

What do you mean by arts and crafts? Some forms of crafts can be turned into careers, others...

Well, I think of those useless things they try to sell you at Headhouse Square in Philadelphia...

Like, picture frames made of seashells, Martha Stewart stuff...

I find enjoyment in writing, whether its paid or not and find reading fascinating. There's so much out there and so little time in which to absorb it. I'm thinking of doing an efl which i can take with me everywhere. Doing arts and crafts with children. Yesterday I found out what mumming is all about, did dancing and pretended to be creepy crawlies within a garden. I think the number of adults outnumbered the children but it was still great fun rediscovering our fairy within us.

That sounds great.

One of our hootooers does re-enacting, and goes around to fairs in costume, demonstrating old music, medieval costuming and fighting techniques, etc.

Lots of good educational stuff in there, too.

Dumb question: What's an efl?

(Oh, I may be posting irregularly this week - I'll be in the Appalachian mountains, reception is poor.)

I'd to do that...but understand its rather expensive

TEFL means teaching english as a foreign language for some reason some people forget the oops 't'