Fight for Self-Employment? Or Find an Employer? - The First Since Adulthood

Vejovis

Stability wrote: »

That's actually a really good idea, I know the company as I was looking at various agencies/companies in the area. :beer:

This is basically what I've been trying to work towards, I've spent a lot of time lately brushing up older projects and writing history for them to put together a decent portfolio. I'm definitely leaning towards finding full-time employment and building up the company/personal work on the side. Thank you.

I've declared and stopped benefits for every bit of income I've had unless it's been cash / quick jobs etc. (I often offered bands to do photography at gigs for a tenner/few drinks etc. that wasn't declared).

I agree completely, and it is all a matter wherever I can pass the initial criteria to get into an interview situation. I haven't failed an interview yet (but that's about 5 jobs from age 14-18:rotfl:). The strength will have to come from my portfolio, skill-set and cover letter if I don't meet the criteria. I've designed a portfolio for a friend in order for him to get a high-paid job (yeah, he couldn't code, but lasted there for 6 months) so that's given me more optimism.

That was Northlands Vets, and it was a reduced rate for those with lower incomes. That's both jabs too weeks apart (there's of course more you could get if you're paranoid).

High horse much? As it goes I happen to view our dogs as members of the family, they're loved, cared for and well fed. That was about as useful as Anne Frank's alarm clock... The taxpayer, is me. I've paid far more in taxes then I ever have received in the periods I've been on benefits. I ain't telling you how to run your life dear, so please curb the attitude.

at a full 20 years old :rotfl: and already more than one period on benefits.

LL30

Not much to add, except:

A) I would seriously reconsider the student loan. The terms of repayment have changed since my day (!) but I found it very reasonable when I was paying it back. As it's her last year, I'm presuming it would only be £3K or so anyway (sorry, I'm not up to date with latest figures) but that could be key to keeping your heads above the ground. It's not a debt that will have debt collectors or bailiffs on your door step (unless you're SE and don't pay it, or there may be some other obscure reason that I don't know about, if anyone does know, they'll point it out here!)

and For someone who has not finished school and faced a difficult past, you should be incredibly proud of yourself. I'm impressed by your knowledge, determination and maturity! Nothing wrong with being optimistic about getting a job, I was a few months back after being made redundant and refused to listen to the 'there's no jobs' hype. It's not as well paid, and it's not a move forward careerwise but I'm thoroughly enjoying it, and it will keep me and my daughter going for now (whilst my other plan is being cooked up, I'm SE too and I have applied to do my MA).

Keep going. Keep asking questions and exploring options. Problems are just a bunch of solutions waiting to be found, that's what makes them so exciting!

Caroline_a

Stability wrote: »

That was Northlands Vets, and it was a reduced rate for those with lower incomes. That's both jabs too weeks apart (there's of course more you could get if you're paranoid).

High horse much? As it goes I happen to view our dogs as members of the family, they're loved, cared for and well fed. That was about as useful as Anne Frank's alarm clock... The taxpayer, is me. I've paid far more in taxes then I ever have received in the periods I've been on benefits. I ain't telling you how to run your life dear, so please curb the attitude.

Can I ask you what you mean by the above? Are you saying that you've had them injected for Canine Parvovirus, Canine Distemper, Infectious Canine Hepatitis, Canine Parainfluenza, Leptospirosis, canine coronavirus and Kennel cough or only part of this? And both jabs for £40 per pup? Your pups are (if as you say, 3 weeks old) too young to be vaccinated yet, so that will be £120. Plus the cost of worming of course - you should have been worming your puppies from the age of 2 weeks.

Breeding a litter of puppies is a very costly activity done correctly - I'm not sure how you have afforded all the additional food and supplements for the mother as well as the puppy food for the pups.

Stability

I see where you are coming from. The term "music business" and "trust" do not go well together. You probably are the type of person who likes doing a good job and maybe get relied on by too many people for your own good.

The other jobs you had as when still at school, I would not totally discard. Employers WILL be interested in them.

Indeed, a big factor in moving and redeveloping the company in a different direction (corporate and small business orientated) after I got ill was because of the problems with the music industry. There's good people out there, but it's outweighed by the number of money-grabbing ****. I guess you could be right with your analysis, I'm still owed money to this day, and I did far too much in good will. This is where the question of direction has all stemmed from.

My previous jobs include, Kitchen Porter work for a large hotel/function venue (14-16), running the village newsagents over the summer (16), working in a computer shop (17), butchery for a cash and carry (17-18) and a particular fast food joint I'm most certainly not mentioning :rotfl: Do you think that they should still have a place in my CV?

at a full 20 years old :rotfl: and already more than one period on benefits.

I was forced to move away from home at a young age, judge me all you want for it.

Can I ask you what you mean by the above? Are you saying that you've had them injected for Canine Parvovirus, Canine Distemper, Infectious Canine Hepatitis, Canine Parainfluenza, Leptospirosis, canine coronavirus and Kennel cough or only part of this? And both jabs for £40 per pup? Your pups are (if as you say, 3 weeks old) too young to be vaccinated yet, so that will be £120. Plus the cost of worming of course - you should have been worming your puppies from the age of 2 weeks.

Breeding a litter of puppies is a very costly activity done correctly - I'm not sure how you have afforded all the additional food and supplements for the mother as well as the puppy food for the pups.

Your general all-in-one puppy vaccinations, which is Hepatitis, Distemper, Parvo, Flu and Adenovirus, though I'm going from memory. I could go for vaccinations against Kennel Cough which is seperate (one of my old mans dogs, a 30 year breeder of Alsatians - including for the Police Force I should add, contracted it despite vaccines) and Weil's syndrome should really be taken into account. Though of course, vaccines are only so effective. But the point is simply this, I'm not vaccinating the pups except for my own. Why? Because that is the buyers duty, and if they were being sold it would be written into the paperwork. The pups however are going to family members who are obviously trusted. We've had 15+ people ask about the 3 pups, because my dogs are very well known and respected amongst friends and family.

If your knowledge on puppy worming were a little better you'd know it's advised to worm the b*tch during her last 2 weeks of pregnancy thereby you don't pump newborn pups, fresh into the world, full of chemicals; and they will complete their own course when more developed and mature. I always have Panacur in the house. If you'd read before, I cook for my dogs, homemade food, full of natural goodness, it's strongly not advised to give your pregnant b*tch additional supplements, throwing her balance off during pregnancy, over-nutriment is an extremely common cause of problems with puppy development. I guess people forget that dogs are animals, who in the wild, aren't subjected to the over-zealous hand of man. For the record, our vet stated that we had the largest, chunkiest and most healthy Border Collie pups she'd ever seen. Why? Because I give a crap and I take good care of my dogs. I delivered the litter myself.

Question me all you want, but to be fair, unless you have something constructive to add, your making yourself look bad being so prejudice. Drop it? :think:

Not much to add, except:

A) I would seriously reconsider the student loan. The terms of repayment have changed since my day (!) but I found it very reasonable when I was paying it back. As it's her last year, I'm presuming it would only be £3K or so anyway (sorry, I'm not up to date with latest figures) but that could be key to keeping your heads above the ground. It's not a debt that will have debt collectors or bailiffs on your door step (unless you're SE and don't pay it, or there may be some other obscure reason that I don't know about, if anyone does know, they'll point it out here!)

and For someone who has not finished school and faced a difficult past, you should be incredibly proud of yourself. I'm impressed by your knowledge, determination and maturity! Nothing wrong with being optimistic about getting a job, I was a few months back after being made redundant and refused to listen to the 'there's no jobs' hype. It's not as well paid, and it's not a move forward careerwise but I'm thoroughly enjoying it, and it will keep me and my daughter going for now (whilst my other plan is being cooked up, I'm SE too and I have applied to do my MA).

Keep going. Keep asking questions and exploring options. Problems are just a bunch of solutions waiting to be found, that's what makes them so exciting!

1. I believe it's around £3,500 for a maintenance grant, as I say I her course fees were payed by her mother. I don't think it needs to be paid back until she's earning more than 18k a year, though she's doing her masters after finishing her degree this year. I guess we just wanted to hold off on getting her into debt as long as possible. I already have 4k to clear myself. I'll give it some thought, I'm only entitled to £10 per week for benefits (excluding housing) because of her eligibility for a student loan. I'm going to stop benefits again as soon as I get my Princes Trust course finished.
2. Thank you. I've just had to be self-sufficient for many more years than most who are my age (and perhaps still living at home). I too refuse to listen to the “there's no jobs hype”, as I regularly go into the job centre, I know just how abundant the market is!

I will do, I'm trying to plan everything out as best as possible and make sure the road ahead isn't quite so rocky :rotfl: I wish you the best of luck with your MA!

Interesting_Quote wrote:

Problems are just a bunch of solutions waiting to be found.

I'm noting that one down

Caroline_a

Goodness with that attitude you aren't going to hold down a job for more than a couple of days. You don't need help as you obviously know it all.

Except that German Shepherds aren't called alsations any more.

Stability

People tend to get defensive when without any knowledge of the situation someone makes presumptions and delegates to them. Constructive criticism is welcomed, but announcing what I should and shouldn't do from where you stand is a little far.

EDIT: The point of your additional comment? Did you know what I meant by Alsatian?

Mistral001

Stability wrote: »

My previous jobs include, Kitchen Porter work for a large hotel/function venue (14-16), running the village newsagents over the summer (16), working in a computer shop (17), butchery for a cash and carry (17-18) and a particular fast food joint I'm most certainly not mentioning :rotfl: Do you think that they should still have a place in my CV?

Most definitely yes.

Stability

Thank you, I'll do that then.

PlutoinCapricorn

I am not sure where the dogs come into this, considering your original question! They sound really lovely though. Hint: some people post pictures of their pets on MSE.

I do think that your plan for clearing everything up in the next few weeks is a good idea. I wonder whether you hoped that people would come down very hard on one side i.e. for carrying on as entirely self employed or for getting a job? I would say that in the short term clearing some debts via getting a job seems the best option. I have no personal experience of student loans, debt management etc. so hope that other people's suggestions make sense.

It does strike me that you are the sort of person who is best off with a show of their own, as opposed to salaried employment. Many people have told me that they need the structure, resources and regular income that working for a company provides, and that they would not function well without a manager or overseer. You have done so much entirely by yourself already, overcome a lot of handicaps and met many challenges. You have been out in the world from an early age. This is exactly what is needed to operate independently. I know that it is possible for an unqualified person to take on the lettered brigade and win: I have done it myself. Some employers and clients think more of people like that: Sir Alan Sugar for example. You may need to try much harder than the very qualified people, but that benefits you: it builds the personality muscles. I found that by the time I got around to getting myself some relevant qualifications, I could easily get work on the basis of experience. Now, it all comes from personal contacts.

I hope that you will keep posting: your experiences may help others and it is disappointing when we never hear what happened to someone whose affairs we took an interest in.

Stability

I am not sure where the dogs come into this, considering your original question! They sound really lovely though. Hint: some people post pictures of their pets on MSE.

Don't give me an excuse :rotfl: I'm sure there's an appropriate thread somewhere but for now I can't post images or links (anything containing a URL) as I'm a new member. Thank you.

I do think that your plan for clearing everything up in the next few weeks is a good idea. I wonder whether you hoped that people would come down very hard on one side i.e. for carrying on as entirely self employed or for getting a job? I would say that in the short term clearing some debts via getting a job seems the best option. I have no personal experience of student loans, debt management etc. so hope that other people's suggestions make sense.

I'm slowly getting my plan of action figured out in my mind. I've got a couple of weeks (while the pups are still here, driving course, Princes Trust course ongoing) to brush up as much as I can of the portfolio and get work done on the branding of the company (business cards etc. in time for the Prince Trust enterprise course, I'm starting to think it will be a good networking opportunity). Also to get my CV revamped and then to hit job applications really hard as soon as can be.

I guess I just wanted advice in general, I expected to hear 'get a job', 'get a job', if anyone replied at all (I can be cynical like that). But seriously, the sound advice that was given so far as really helped me sift through everything in my mind, and reaffirm what I guess was already a loose course of action. Income first, pledging business on the side. It's really good to hear opinion from a neutral perspective ...for the most part :rotfl:.

It does strike me that you are the sort of person who is best off with a show of their own, as opposed to salaried employment. Many people have told me that they need the structure, resources and regular income that working for a company provides, and that they would not function well without a manager or overseer. You have done so much entirely by yourself already, overcome a lot of handicaps and met many challenges. You have been out in the world from an early age. This is exactly what is needed to operate independently. I know that it is possible for an unqualified person to take on the lettered brigade and win: I have done it myself. Some employers and clients think more of people like that: Sir Alan Sugar for example. You may need to try much harder than the very qualified people, but that benefits you: it builds the personality muscles. I found that by the time I got around to getting myself some relevant qualifications, I could easily get work on the basis of experience. Now, it all comes from personal contacts.

I've always been a very opinionated and controlling person (I try to curb it) which has led me to be given a lot of responsibilities in the jobs I've had previously, despite my young age. After trying (and for all intents and purposes failing) at building a business up from nothing, with nothing. I guess I actually do want, for the meantime - “the structure, resources and regular income that working for a company provides” - at least until I clear up my debts, build some captial and the company seems viable for regular income. I'm a very independent person, and that could be a problem. I can suffer from demotivation when the sh*t hits the fan and that's another thing to overcome. I need to get my spirit back, but I also need to carefully plan ahead to avoid problems in the future, to sum up, I need to be sure I'm going in the right direction.

“I found that by the time I got around to getting myself some relevant qualifications, I could easily get work on the basis of experience.” - I don't wish to sound over-confident (I'm not), but I know that I can pace and supersede those in my field, I just need to build up the evidence of my experience (portfolio) and work with others to see how they too operate. I know it sounds cynical, but you learn from what others around you are doing right and wrong. I'm an analytical person.

I hope that you will keep posting: your experiences may help others and it is disappointing when we never hear what happened to someone whose affairs we took an interest in.

I certainly plan to, I've read the forum for a long time, and have wanted to take part. If I was to go into full detail about my past it would explain how I got here a lot more clearly. There's things I'd like to help others overcome myself one day.

I'll get there, big thanks for your input, it's benefiting me more than you may realise.