Life, death and what happens in between

TW: suicide

Sorry I’ve been quiet again, things have been busy at work and my health has been topsy-turvy, to say the least. (This is only going to be a short post.)
Additionally…I suffered the loss of a close friend. I lost her to depression and suicide. I’ve cried, I’ve been angry. This is the second friend I’ve lost to it, with two tohers (that I know about) who tried and came close). But I’m trying to take things from her life, instead of focusing on her death. But it is difficult and it is something I have to make a conscious choice to do every day.

She was a roller derby player; she was relentlessly trying to improve at it too. She will inspire me to keep pushing, to know I can always get up when I fall down (and it’s roller derby, there’s a lot of falling). She was a crafty person, she enjoyed making her own jewellery and doing crochet. I have a hundred projects I’m either yet to start or yet to finish. I’ll think of her and it’ll remind me to use my creativity, make something beautiful. She found it difficult being around people sometimes, found it hard to make friends. I know what this is like. But she started roller derby to meet people, to make friends. She will be my reminder to step out of my comfort zone. She was blunt; you always knew exactly where you stood with her. Sometimes I need to remember to just say what I feel, to channel her backbone.

I could do a whole post on suicide, on mental illness. I will in the future I imagine, when it’s a little less raw. But let’s just say I have first-hand experience of an illness and can offer some insight on suicide, from a mentally ill person’s perspective.

Things have been difficult with this going on. But the people left behind after suicide have to keep pushing on, going forward. She couldn’t carry on into the future. So we keep the memory of our lost ones with us, so they can continue forward with us.

Next time I’ll be writing about working when chronically ill; it’ll be more cheerful than it sounds I promise!

Any ideas for future blog posts are welcomed, otherwise I’ll just keep making it up as I go along.

I have been writing! Technically…

So this is a new topic for this blog, as I am usually writing more about biology, post-university options and things that interest me generally (books, current affairs blah).

But I have been pretty busy with a different type of writing for the last 7 months now. And that is my current job: Technical Author (well…Graduate Technical Author)

SO. MANY. CHOICES (courtesy of xkcd.com/freedom)

Those of you who know me personally know who I work for but just I figure I should keep it to myself on here. Just in case. The big change for me is that it is within the Engineering Sector (I haven’t left STEM! Just changed letters).

Now, this has come with some brilliant advantages and exciting prospects but with change obviously comes challenges.

I am not an engineer. I am not a computer scientist. Before starting to work here, I could not code (I’m at a basic level of learning Python as part of my personal development, although I don’t need that type of knowledge for my role, it makes me feel more at home with my colleagues).

I have had a lot of people ask *WHY* if I’m a biologist (which I am and always will be, at heart) am I working where I am. I suppose there are three answers really:

• Between working as a Publishing Editor and a tech author, I was working about 30 hours a week at a popular supermarket chain. It was awful, soul destroying, painful (due to the illnesses I have) and paid ~£6.83/hour. Believe me when I say, I was applying for everything out there.
• I love learning. My old job was at a chemistry company and though that is considerably more relatable for a biologist (especially with a lot of biochem in my degree), it was still a change of discipline. And one that I dealt with well and thoroughly enjoyed (despite how it ended). So I didn’t see why the same wouldn’t be true here.

Now onto the main reason…

• I got an interview and the job. Now this seems like I’m not really answering the question but stick with me. I saw who the job was for and wasn’t going to apply. But I looked into it as a job role and thought it sounded like something interesting that would lead me to good places in the future (and also thought, hey, if nothing else, it’s application practice). And then I got the interview. Well, three of them. A writing test to do at home, then a phone interview, then a face-to-face interview with a formal writing test and then an HR interview over the phone. And I got the job. So as nerve-wracking as it was (and occasionally still is) to work somewhere like this, *they* think I can do it. There are people in my department that come from other strange backgrounds for this company (English Lit, Linguistics and Translation, another biologist) and people who are closer to the sector but still, not engineering (couple of physicists). Basically what I’m saying is, not everyone in my department is an engineer. So why wouldn’t I be able to do it? As long as I put in the time and effort, inside work and out, I will pick up the necessary skills and knowledge. Which means I get to do a lot of reading (and coding is fun!)

So this post is about the WHY I am here. But when I tell a lot of people my job title, I get a lot of confused looks and mumbles of “Oh…um…what’s that?”

Which brings me nicely to the end of this post and onto the next:

Technically Speaking – What is Technical Communication?

Hope someone out there cares enough to read these, I am enjoying writing again and am hoping to make this more regular (I’ve set writing reminders now and everything).

Has anyone else had a big change of career, or subject base? I’d love to hear from you and why you did the change too.

Time Away; Job, Loss and the Future

I received my degree last year. It was not what I hoped I would get but I will leave it at that.

I did, however begin my job at a large science journal publishers, which was brilliant. I moved to Cambridge, which I loved, I started the training which I loved, made friends at the company and genuinely enjoyed going to work. 

Seven or so months in and they decided not to renew my contract to a permanent one and said I should maybe reconsider my career pathway. While I respect their right and decision on my contract with them, I disagree wholeheartedly with the latter sentiment. I even said so at the time. 

I loved my job. And despite what they said and what it all implies, I was *good* at my job. I needed some adjustment time, I admit that and it was longer than most (not all, I point out). However, they knew that when they hired me. I have some medical concerns that mean I sometimes will need extra time.

Anyway. This post isn’t about bitterness. It’s about what it did for me. It did give me 8 month intensive experiece or proofing, editing, peer review, team work, targets, multi-tasking, dealing with high stress customers, solving problems with said clients when there were language barriers etc etc. I came out of this with a whole lot more than I went in. 

And not just that. Most importantly, they gave me the grit and determination to know that working in STM/academic/research publishing is what I want. It is my end goal and that is good as it gives m something to aim for. Maybe it’ll take me a little while to get my foot through another company door but I know that is what I want. I will keep finding opportunities to increase my skill set. So although it was not the ideal situation, I am trying to remain positive.

I a obviously working in the meantime and have stayed in my new city as I have friends here and I settled in really well.

I think this is something very important for every young person in their early career (or career hunting). Deciding what you are aiming for, what you want, gives you the will and direction to look for the right experiences to enhance yourself (and your CV)

One final note: I have even signed up with a recruitment company that works specifically in finding their candidates work within publishing; you can even specify the types of publishing, locations etc. My contact there has given me other places to look for help and advice on graduates getting into publishing. Basically then, I think sometimes you need to not only be always looking for your passion but looking for places other than just the average job sites. To get where you want to in life, all help is good help!