Unemployed again

I quit my casual hospitality job yesterday. Going in tonight for the last shift, and that'll be it...

It's been an interesting experience, especially the Kosher shifts. Watching a rabbi cleansing a kitchen with fire (blowtorches) is one of those experiences you tend to only read about, unless life somehow finds you in the weird position of being able to witness it for real.

Other than this, it was generally a regular casual hospitality job. I stayed in it longer than most do. Most of the other kitchenhands of my time passed through within 1-3 months or so. I was one of the main guys for nearly 7 months, until recently when the roster became a bit saturated with casuals (who were taken on for the end of year "function season") and then business dropped off for the summer break.

I thought hard about this - whether to stay on or leave. But after getting no shifts for three weeks, I realised it wasn't working any more. I was holding back from making plans (especially weekend plans) and living life because of the possibility of being called in at the last moment at any time. It's just the nature of the business of a function centre - they can only really know how many staff they'll need when the numbers are finalised and exact meal configurations organised. If it was only going to be the odd shift per fortnight or so, living with this uncertainty wasn't worth the little bit of extra income any more, so I decided to cut loose.

Being fully unemployed is a great motivator for getting serious about the job hunt. There's that nervousness watching your savings falling when absolutely nothing is coming in. At least now I know exactly what I want to do. When looking for work last time, I was literally looking at anything I could get. Now I know that I want a driving-based job. And pretty much any will do for a start, because any experience in this area counts for moving up.