I finished at my job this week just gone. I've been there for 10+ years, moving from general assistant to code-monkey to tech writer. It was certaining an interesting job, and I'll miss some of the more crazy elements, but I needed to try my hand at new things. So after the bank holiday, I spend two weeks being trained up for a job in the Civil Service. As before, though, I won't talk about my employed work here, just any writing work I do in my free time.

Moving jobs did throw up one interesting thing. Like most people, I scoff at Noel Edmund's theory of "cosmic ordering". It strikes me as some kind of materialistic misunderstanding of karma and a classic example of dressing up simple pyschology as something mystical in order to sell something. However, once I had decided to look for a new job I wrote down the points a job had to have in order for me to apply for it. I emailed it out to friends, acknowledging that some elements might be unrealistic (a job based in the SW with some London work, f'instance). Within a few weeks, a job which met all the criteria came up. And I got it. Despite, or perhaps because, I used Sarah Jane Smith as the name of a spokesperson in my practical writing test.

According to "cosmic ordering", I dialled up this job like I would a takeaway curry. However, it's fairly obvious to me that, having defined what I wanted, I therefore had a clear checklist to measure all possible jobs against. I got what I wanted because I knew what I wanted. I wasn't rewarded by the cosmos, I was just logical and structured in my search. It's more akin to using google: if you define the terms clearly, you get the answers more quickly.

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In other news, Sébastian is seeing how many collars he can lose in the garden.