Michelle's job log: 8

The story so far... Michelle left university last year and found a job a few months later as an assistant to lecturers at Manchester University. But her interest is elsewhere - in fashion.

No standing still

Right, so last time I was joking about how maybe I should consider going into HR, and now that is actually what I’m going to do. I knew that I wanted to go back to uni after having a bit of time out and realising that my 2:2 was getting me near enough nowhere, but I didn’t know quite what I should study. I want to do something which could almost guarantee me a job at the end, and seeing as every organisation has a HR department I think it may be a good career to get into. Not only that, but the fact that it is an evolving profession and is classed as being one of the recession-proof jobs, but also because there are so many areas that you can specialise in. My idea would be to combine this with my interest in fashion and retail and try and get a job as a training and development manager in a retail company on a regional basis where I could travel from store to store training staff members; I think that would be my ideal kind of ‘realistic’ job, as I don’t think I could be in an office for a solid 35 hours a week, so that bit of travel would keep me going.

Busy at work

Back in the real world at work things are ridiculously hectic. It’s one email after another, door knocking, phone ringing, I haven’t even got time for a quick sneak peak on Facebook. Even writing this blog, which I would usually do at work has had to be put on hold until home-time. I can’t even put things off until tomorrow, as these are actual urgent matters; I’m wondering why someone didn’t warn me that there was going to be a sudden busy spell. I thought I would enjoy being kept constantly occupied but I’m not prepared for it, I’ve become too used to the laid-back lifestyle and slow-pace of work - I hope this doesn’t last too long. It’s quite strange actually, I was reading one of the other bloggers blogs, where she mentioned how she loved her job but not so much the people, well I’m the complete opposite, the people here are the best but the job is a whole other story, I’m wondering if there is ever a happy medium? I suppose everything happens for a reason and I believe something good will eventually come out of my experiences here in the future.

eBay trader

The job search obsession that I had a few weeks ago is over, because if I’m going to go back to uni in September anyway I might as well stay where I am. I now have a new obsession - eBay. I’ve made hundreds of pounds from the junk in my room, I had clothes I hadn’t worn with tags on, shoes still in boxes and items that I could never wear because they aren’t actually my size, I just bought them because they looked pretty and I wanted them in my life. The first two items I sold had a few logistical problems as I sent them to the wrong buyers. The buyers then had to send them back to me so that I could send them to the correct addresses, but this time, both packages went temporarily missing in the post and so they didn’t get their items for over two weeks, as you can imagine they weren’t best pleased. There was a marathon trail of emails between myself and the buyers which as time elapsed seemed to get more heated. I’m just glad their purchases eventually arrived as otherwise that would have meant the rigmarole of a compensation claim through Royal Mail and continued communication with the buyers throughout the process. I’m just glad to no longer be seeing any frenzied emails in my inbox. I now have almost enough money in my PayPal account to buy 50 dresses from a wholesaler, risky business I know, but I’ve done my homework and these are dresses that are actually in demand and even if I only sold each one for £10 I would still make a good profit - I love the buzz of selling things, especially clothes. I already have a mannequin in my room so I can take some good pictures of the garments, so hopefully in a few weeks I can get my job-lot of dresses and we’ll see how it goes.  

Read my earlier job logs 

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