Serial Seeker of Knowledge

It’s funny how in school I found learning was such a drag as was doing homework and exams. I usually battled to stay awake never mind pay attention in the afternoon session and only perked up in the last 15 minutes or so of the last class of the day knowing that the sweet sound of the final bell of the day wasn’t far off. A trick I perfected over time in the last class of the day was how to rest my elbow on the desk and then proceed with the hand-on-my-forehead-covering-my closed-eyes-catnap while sitting at my desk seemingly paying attention to the teacher. It didn’t fool all the teachers all the time. But I’m sure many of my classmates acquired the same skill and it has stood me in good stead in many situations as an adult as well.

Yet today on my Facebook intro I describe myself as a “serial seeker of knowledge”! How did that happen?

Retrenchment double whammy

Looking back I would say it all started when I was retrenched for the second and last time from a newspaper in 2013. The first retrenchment was from the newspaper I was working at a few years before. Sorry if that sounds a bit confusing, but it’s quite simple actually - I was retrenched from the last two newspapers I worked for. Unbeknown to me at the time my final retrenchment at a sprightly 54 years of age would also signify the end of my 25 or so years of formal career as a journalist. In other words, it would be the last ”proper” job I would ever have.

Retrenchment can be a good thing or it can be a scary thing. On the one hand, it’s great if you have pre-warning which most of the time the employees do know because the company has to inform them. It’s part of the “restructuring” process. It gives you time to start looking for another job and if you have one lined up by the time you are finally retrenched, you have a decent lump sum of cash to play around with if you worked there long enough. Pay off the car, square your credit card and one or two other bills, put the rest into your new company’s pension plan, and maybe have a small break before you start working again.

On the other hand, it’s scary when you haven’t got anything lined up after the chop, especially if you haven’t worked there long enough to get a decent payout. That’s a break from work that you don’t need. And even scarier when the reason you can’t find another job is because of the color of your skin and your age, as is the case if you happened to be a pale male in South Africa aged 54 as I was at the time of my final retrenchment in 2013.

But that’s a story for another day.

Money doesn’t last long when there is no steady income and the bills still need to be paid. You are stuck somewhere between the brandy bottle label and the bottle. Some just keep on trying for that elusive job, sending application after application and eventually applying for jobs outside their sphere of expertise, as I did, while trying to survive. For others, as hope dies it can be the start of the slippery slide off the bar stool into alcoholism, drug addiction, the pavement…

Learning curve

Today, more so than ever before, there are online learning and upskilling options available that may not necessarily ensure you a job, although they can, but will add arrows to your bow and give you more of a fighting chance. At the very least learning keeps you busy and adds to your store of knowledge and who knows, maybe one day make the small difference needed between “we are pleased to inform you that your application for the position of … has been successful… and” or a “thank you for applying for the position of…, but unfortunately…”.

Today there are numerous online learning platforms available worldwide at the click of a link on your laptop or phone.

A few months ago I discovered an online higher education platform that ticks all the boxes for me. I have completed a number of courses and am still busy with others. With over 5 million graduates and more than 4000 internationally accredited certificate and diploma courses, it is recognized as one the largest certifying organizations in the world. The fact that all courses are free has made it easy for me to transition from a reluctant “learning is a drag” schoolboy to a “serial seeker of knowledge” and constant upskiller.

More about that in my next article.

In the meantime check out the homepage to see what’s on offer and judge for yourself at: https://alison.com/?utm_source=alison_user&utm_medium=affiliates&utm_campaign=25464212

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