Syo|Pro

I haven’t written much outside of Korean lessons since the summer hit, despite an avalanche of events these past few months. I’ll admit a lot of my hesitance comes from an increasing amount of traffic from prospective clients and employers.  I believe in hubris, so talking about the interviews, the work & the future here felt like jumping the shark. There is also the fact that my last three months of employment sucked, and I’ll get into that later. Still, there’s enough that’s in the past now so I can talk freely without upsetting too many people. Or at least, anyone I care about…

Since I last spoke, I talked at lengths about my desire to get into marketing, and how much I enjoyed it. This is still the case, but more difficult to achieve than I thought. I got what I thought to be an amazing job, a prime catch. An average pay rise but a mega title bump. Sadly, both the job itself and the employer were far from perfect. I’m sure a time comes in everyone’s life, where they work for an individual that gives you your “worst case” scenario. My short time at this company was both as miserable as it was educational. The employer had absolutely no idea how my job would function, and disregarded most of the work produced as unnecessary. Each new approach would be met with a puzzled face, and then anger and abuse. The employer frequently ignored his own advice, had staff in tears & frequently broke the terms of my contract. But the silver lining is that I had to create functions in the company that simply did not exist. They had no internal database to speak of, no way of educating staff on products, no email marketing, no marketing plan & outdated client relationships. During my short stay, I managed to educate and install most of these functions & secure a fair amount of airtime and articles for the companies “grand” opening.

After a reasonable time had passed, I left (unpaid, naturally). I realised, more so then ever, that you need to study hard in life in order to work for the more respectable people out there. Prior to taking the job, I was fortunate enough to meet with a few start up companies in iPhone development. They were filled with smart, gifted and incredibly talented people. I was clearly not at that level, but I knew if I worked harder I could reach them. People who try and fake it until they make it, while pretending to be the boss make for very poor employers, something I hope ever to deal with again.

Rant over, as I quickly found new employment. Perhaps not the job I want, but it could very well be the job I need. I mentioned at the start of the year that I wanted to go to Korea and study. It was not meant to be, events from 2010 creped up and going abroad to study went from difficulty to luxury.

A lot of people were interested in my CV this summer, more so if my language skill had been better. So I decided to restart my Japanese studies and move ahead with advance Korean. Finding full time employment around 12 hours of study is a mission, one thankfully I’ve overcome. A 74hour work week inc lessons and homework is not ideal, but it certainly keeps my 20’s interesting. I’m also glad to be offered some freelance marketing work for the next few weeks, allowing me to keep adding to my portfolio. Overall, 2011 has proved to be a year that has so far had a lot of adversity, but the events of 2010 have better prepared me for it. Hopefully the hardwork this year will pay dividends next year.

Theres been little else outside of this thats worth talking about. I got a new bike, picked up a few name games (Starfox 64 3D & Rage) with photos above. Until university starts in earnest, it’s a little hard to talk about class & the people. Sadly the universities administration is in just as much of a mess this year as it was last year, but its otherwise been a good first week. More articles on the games, TGS & Korean lessons are due in the next week, with the first mini-Japanese lesson up I hope before the end of the weekend. Until then.

/Alex