Christ I'm keen to get back to the office even if its just one day a week.

First day of work today, since lockdown began...... Christ, I'm definitely not a morning person!

Trainer was funny though, imagine if you bought Billy conolly from wish, he was pretty much that.

Out in the van tomorrow, I'll be practicing my 'parcel fur ye hen!' voice in the mirror tonight.

Chuffed the first day went well HBJ. Keep on trucking bud.

Can't change it now, so try not to overworry, what's done is done, just affect what you can now

You can self register as shielding if you feel you've been missed off. Either online here, or by phoning 0800 028 8327.  You don't need to want additional support to register. Deadline for registering is 17th July (mainly because support will be stopping from August 1st).  They usually check with your GP, but it doesn't sound like that'll be a problem.

I've now shown my hand. Nobody blink!

Bunch of jobs going at a game dev in Elgin:
https://apply.workable.com/huntedcow/

It’s quite a long way north (for anyone except Unlikely).

Have you thought about crowdfunding a book or pitching one to someone that might be receptive like Bitmap Books? Might not be a viable option but since you've got something published you've got that to point at and it would get a big block of content funded if you could get it to work.

JonB wrote:

I need to stop pitching articles for a while. No one has a budget. It's a waste of time.

I want to try and set something else up by the end of summer. Basically become a freelance copywriter, wirting website content, blog posts, whatever, on demand. Need to sort myself out a website and put together a list of contacts this month.

If anyone knows anyone who might want some kind of creative written content, do let me know.

I don’t want to be super negative, but that’s a really hard gig to pull off.

My brother-in-law was running a copywriting company for a while, but he found that pay per article was so low it wasn’t worth writing. Plus there’s loads of arseholes out there who don’t value that work, who want you do it for free and claim you’ll get experience in return - when you can’t pay the bills on experience.

If you’ve done your research and you can make it work, then obviously go for it. You’re obviously a solid writer, so maybe your experience will be different. Having said that, he’s a solid writer too.

A "promotion" has came up in work, and whilst I have numerous colleagues saying I should go for it, I'm thinking no fucking ta. Quotation marks for the fact it's more stress, being back on nightshifts, and a harder rota overall for work/life, for little to no financial benefit. All I'd get is the "unsocial hours" bonus working on nightshift gets you. And considering how mental the entire "banding" pay grade is in NHS industries, I'd be "above" colleagues and giving them work whilst they collect more money than me. Oh, and I'd be directly under the most lazy fucker in here. I'd essentially be his bitch.

So no, no thanks.

Sheesh. Think yourself lucky that you’ve the nous to see that ‘promotion’ for what it is. Had it come up when you were still new, you might have gone for it.

I also only really went for that last one as, at that time, I didn't have a rota or a full time contract, and knew that either way I'd get them if A- I got that job, or B- oor P got it and I'd get his rota.

Which is what happened. So no, no thanks folks.

Nah. Never go for a promotion just for the sake of being promoted. I knocked back one years ago at paddy Power and my gaffer was fuming, but if it's not the right move, don't do it.

In other news, working as a courier - it'd be great, if I didn't have glass ankles. Been hobbling around like I've been picking up the soap in prison for over a week now.

Fuck, that's where I've been going wrong.