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I've recently been looking into other employment opportunities, but I don't want to fall into the trap of taking the first thing that comes along. Rather, I'd like take job where I get to be creative as well as productive. To this end I recently applied for a 6 month contract with TVNZ as a 'Creative Producer'. Here is my cover letter:

To The TVNZ Mastermind It May Concern,

Your ad got me excited. ‘Commercial Creative Producer’ is a terrible title, but the role you describe sparkles with possibilities.

Perhaps ‘Edu-Fun Captain’ would be a better way to be known around the office?

That’s what excites me about this role, the potential to devise and execute on creative terms, to collaborate with talented people and facilitate great production.

You’ve been reading my diary again, haven’t you TVNZ?

My background involves all things entertainment and I have thoroughly enjoyed the challenges that have been thrown at me, except swimming. I am rubbish at swimming.

Still, no matter how difficult the situations in which I have found myself, how mind bendingly technically brain pulverising or how socially anus tighteningly awkward, I have always swum. I have always pulled on my togs and jumped in because that is what I do.

And you might think, we’re not looking for some kind of man-fish-boy. And you’d be right. But I bring a lot more than loose metaphors to the table. I bring a mixture of skill, wit and technical proficiency to rival that of any 13 year old with the Adobe suite and a bare bones social life.

I’m not just clever, I’m scary clever.

Synergy, people. Synergy.

“The interaction of multiple elements in a system to produce an effect different from or greater than the sum of any individual effects.”

It’s total wank and completely apt.

I want to work with you because it will be awesome. And certainly not because working for TVNZ will allow me to complete my set of New Zealand broadcast mugs.

I want to bring my enthusiasm and workaholism to our national broadcaster. Be part of a team with a sweet codename that makes me sound like I can never talk about work. To be based next to a casino and wonder, when are they getting my office?

It’s time to combine my vast technical knowledge, creativity and unreasonably high standards to not just work for you, but with you and with the viewers.

Great content is at the heart of any great production and that is what I will deliver.

A dried up manly-fish-boy is just an added bonus.

Call me.

My number’s in the back of my diary.

Jez Brown

Pills

Today I was supposed to perform stand up comedy in Wellington. Instead I did something to which I am totally unaccustomed, I chickened out.

That is extremely difficult to admit, even to myself. Chickening out is not usually available in my lexicon.

Each new challenge is almost always met with taking up arms and I certainly have pedigree when it comes to performance of anything funny.

It was a hard decision to make and given my own goals and standards in regards to comedy and my own work ethic, a very bitter pill to swallow. I can feel it choking me even as I write this.

I would like to think it takes guts to admit when you are not prepared for something. My set it written, but my head space is completely wrong.

I've been under a lot of stress lately and am not feeling particularly funny. I am distracted and bogged down in other matters right across the board, totally unable to give my time to the preparation required to overcome my own negative thinking.

What pains me most is that I had something worthwhile to say. That the set I'd put together was thoughtful, well written and full of research delivered with witty analysis.

Unlike so much current stand up, it made a point. A point I hoped would resonate with the audience, that would be taken home and lead to at least one argument in the kitchen over the validity of what I had to say.

I am kicking myself.

This is the same set I bottled recently and it seems prudent to attest that perhaps the hangover of that failure coupled with the stress of recent events has simply gotten the better of me this time around.

It hurts to admit defeat. It's humbling to admit when you cannot deliver.

Put into context it's a small blip on the radar, a moment that never even was save for what I have written here. An irrelevant nothing which effects exactly zero other people.

It is good to know I have my priorities straight at the moment.

Elements

In between flicking out my feelers, the show must go on. At least until the 9th of September.

A moment ago I realised I had been strapped to my laptop for 14 unflinching hours, ticking boxes, being productive and ignoring the wind as it battered the house.

I have two big matches left on my plate for this season, the Grand Final and the Skate Of Origin. Both are big events and soaking up all of my waking hours. So much so that I lost last Wednesday.

Titter if you will, but I have no recollection of last Wednesday whatsoever, I spent all of Thursday thinking it was Wednesday, then all of Friday catching up on the things I was supposed to do on Thursday. I recall Tuesday quite well, so whoever stole Wednesday from me had better return it, no questions asked.

The budget for these events is basically gone. For the team hosting the Grand Final it is their first time and they have few resources. With the complete re-brand of the Skate Of Origin little is left for promotion.

Some might say this has left me in a tight position with little room to move, but this is when I do my best work. While some squeeze blood from a stone, I squeeze it, bottle it and have enough left over for cheap christmas presents for the family.

One of the challenges I've enjoyed most is overcoming new technical problems with old technical solutions. Why have wifi when you can have mecanno. Indeed it's times like this I think I should have studied engineering and built anthropomorphic animatronic turtles. Ninja ones.

While it's cool to oversee poster art, placement, media releases, video production, social media campaigns and all the hullabaloo, nothing quite beats erecting an aerial where it's not supposed to be.

Like a 12 year old with a VCR clock, I am in my element.

Plans

Recently I had a plan. It generated a path for me to follow based on certain criteria being met, I was happy with it and it with me.

Then life happened and I was reminded not to anything.

It wasn't so much a fork in the road as a Swiss army knife. What had seemed like a clear map to follow was now covered in a matching colour set of children's crayon.

Snakes without ladders, hello square one.

Still I am not defeated and never likely to give up. I just need to burn this map I so painstakingly put together with the skill of an 18th century cartographer and start again.

The most pressing issue to arise from this sudden change in the weather is my employment. It's time to find another job.

This tangent was unexpected, but in many ways welcome as I have been trying to alter the destiny of my career for some time. The thing is I haven't always made the best decisions when I've found myself in this position before. A 'clean slate' + 'capable person' has typically equalled the 'first thing that comes along'.

Something pops up and I say "I can do that" with all the glee of a 10 year old looking to please its authority figures in a desperate search for a pat on the head.

This is something I must now be acutely aware of if my career is to take the turns I want it to, the flipside is of course starvation.

Do I starve and push on through the snow in the hope of finding suitable lodgings not riddled with stabby chattels? Or eat the low hanging fruit?

To me the answer is obvious, starve.

I've starved before, I can starve again. I'm more prepared now than I've ever been thanks to middle age spread. I am sure having survived the harsh winter, spring will be no obstacle. And what a brutal winter it was, I think the temperature even dipped below 15 degrees C the other day.

Sure my grand plan is on the back burner, its ashes smouldering in a heap, but that's not to say I didn't commit the main points to memory before I disposed of the evidence.

I shall return to this plan when the world decides I can, until then I shall continue to join the dots, the first of which entails new found employment.