Ugh, work. And other things.
Jun. 8th, 2020 03:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yuuagoI spent today job-searching. I want my job back! But it doesn't hurt to know what's out there.
The available options all seem to fall into three categories:
-Essential retail/food service sector
-Professional building trades work
-Higher-level administrative stuff that I am not qualified for (and do not find appealing)
Now, if I had to make rent and whatnot, I would take one of those grocery store jobs until work calls me back, sure. But that's not a concern right now, so. There doesn't seem to be anything that fits what I'm looking for. Well - there was one administrative type job at the health centre that was almost perfect, except that it required (absolutely required) a certificate that I don't have.
And now I'm wondering... Maybe it would be worthwhile to like, take some online courses through NAIT, or something. I'll need to do some research on whether this is feasible. And whether taking online courses would interfere with receiving EI (?).
When I give it some thought, even if I was called back to work tomorrow, this wouldn't be that bad an idea, as long as I made sure to keep the workload reasonable. And doing some training in Excel and MS Access, for example, would have practical application for my regular work. I use those every day at work, but the only formal training I got in them was in high school, and that was so, so long ago and everything that I know aside from what I do during a regular workday is woefully out of date.
If I were going to go crazy and enrol in a whole program, NAIT's certificate program for medical office administration is looking reaaally good... It has the stuff required to work in a medical office, so I could get an office job with Alberta Health Services if I wanted to, and also it has the regular office stuff that I've done but never had formal training in - bookkeeping, payroll, Excel, Sharepoint (which I've used at work and hated, but maybe I just didn't have a good feel for that application). No Access, though, but I could probably take that separately.
The only sticky point for that certificate is that it isn't entirely online; there are a few courses that need to be taken in person. BUT, the good thing is - the in-person courses are all first aid courses! There are three of them, and they take two days each to complete. So theoretically, even if I happened to be working, I could take vacation time to go to Edmonton, do those courses, and then come back. (Some of them are even on the weekend, so like, it might not even require taking time off....)
[Edit: It looks like the first aid courses aren't actually a requirement; you can get enough hours without it. But since I'm interested in those, I would want to take them if possible, yeah.]
I've actually wanted to take a course in first aid for years. My workplace kept bringing up the possibility of footing the bill to get me the training, but ended up cancelling every time because there were not enough people interested, or some kind of disaster happened, or whatever. So, I mean... since that's something I would want to do anyway, it'd be a good use of my time (and it seems like the NAIT options are more advanced than what my workplace wanted to sign me up for, anyway.)
The more I think about it, the more I like the idea. So, I guess I'll have to take a much closer look at this, and see what my options are, how feasible it all is. Obviously, with the pandemic on, I'm not going to Edmonton any time soon, but the online portions of that are another story. ...And meanwhile, I'm sure I can find some free self-directed training for Excel on the internet that I can do in order to upskill myself for now, until work calls me back.
The available options all seem to fall into three categories:
-Essential retail/food service sector
-Professional building trades work
-Higher-level administrative stuff that I am not qualified for (and do not find appealing)
Now, if I had to make rent and whatnot, I would take one of those grocery store jobs until work calls me back, sure. But that's not a concern right now, so. There doesn't seem to be anything that fits what I'm looking for. Well - there was one administrative type job at the health centre that was almost perfect, except that it required (absolutely required) a certificate that I don't have.
And now I'm wondering... Maybe it would be worthwhile to like, take some online courses through NAIT, or something. I'll need to do some research on whether this is feasible. And whether taking online courses would interfere with receiving EI (?).
When I give it some thought, even if I was called back to work tomorrow, this wouldn't be that bad an idea, as long as I made sure to keep the workload reasonable. And doing some training in Excel and MS Access, for example, would have practical application for my regular work. I use those every day at work, but the only formal training I got in them was in high school, and that was so, so long ago and everything that I know aside from what I do during a regular workday is woefully out of date.
If I were going to go crazy and enrol in a whole program, NAIT's certificate program for medical office administration is looking reaaally good... It has the stuff required to work in a medical office, so I could get an office job with Alberta Health Services if I wanted to, and also it has the regular office stuff that I've done but never had formal training in - bookkeeping, payroll, Excel, Sharepoint (which I've used at work and hated, but maybe I just didn't have a good feel for that application). No Access, though, but I could probably take that separately.
The only sticky point for that certificate is that it isn't entirely online; there are a few courses that need to be taken in person. BUT, the good thing is - the in-person courses are all first aid courses! There are three of them, and they take two days each to complete. So theoretically, even if I happened to be working, I could take vacation time to go to Edmonton, do those courses, and then come back. (Some of them are even on the weekend, so like, it might not even require taking time off....)
[Edit: It looks like the first aid courses aren't actually a requirement; you can get enough hours without it. But since I'm interested in those, I would want to take them if possible, yeah.]
I've actually wanted to take a course in first aid for years. My workplace kept bringing up the possibility of footing the bill to get me the training, but ended up cancelling every time because there were not enough people interested, or some kind of disaster happened, or whatever. So, I mean... since that's something I would want to do anyway, it'd be a good use of my time (and it seems like the NAIT options are more advanced than what my workplace wanted to sign me up for, anyway.)
The more I think about it, the more I like the idea. So, I guess I'll have to take a much closer look at this, and see what my options are, how feasible it all is. Obviously, with the pandemic on, I'm not going to Edmonton any time soon, but the online portions of that are another story. ...And meanwhile, I'm sure I can find some free self-directed training for Excel on the internet that I can do in order to upskill myself for now, until work calls me back.
Yuu. Fic writer & book lover. M/Canada.
no subject
Date: 2020-06-09 07:33 am (UTC)Looks like Microsoft is weaning off support for Access which may be why training isn't offered.
no subject
Date: 2020-06-09 01:19 pm (UTC)Interesting re: Access. It's possible that my current industry is just a little bit behind in things. We tend to cling to older applications as long as they do what we need them to do.