Blogs: Jack applies for anything and everything

Jack has finished his degree. His job hunt is proving a long and difficult road.

Another blog and, if you haven’t noticed already (such is the way of an undiagnosed twentysomething from the North with bipolar) we will be a bit more upbeat, and that speck of water (pronounced wat-err) means that this time the glass is half full.

Instead of chanting woe is me through my pint glass down the local, where I have been told sorry stories involving being down thar pit for thirty gone years, and so on and so forth. I mean, given the farfetched nature of some of the hard luck and downtrodden stories, these people belong in TV documentaries, but also require a lie detector at close proximity to boot.

I’ve stopped the moaning and droning and have just applied for anything and everything, to the merriment of friends and family. Some of them are truly woeful (like something is more socially unacceptable!) I’ve applied to work on a cruise ship, something that would accommodate my razzmatazz and schmuckery.

Fear is what holds many people back from doing things, and it is what seems to run the movie industry. In romcoms for example, there’s the struggle that a man or woman has when asking the person they are madly in love with to marry them. Similarly, in sitcoms, there’s often a man struggling in a job he doesn’t like because he is supporting his family, irrespective of his happiness. Think of the American staples - The Simpsons, Family Guy, Married with Children.

In every other aspect of life, I pretty much live without fear. Such shenanigans and tomfoolery, I somehow get away with. I punt without fear, drink without fear, and adopt a certain disregard in a whimsical fashion.

Same when I had my own business. I’d take ridiculous risks, because I’d do anything and everything to make it work. One of the most famous examples was when I spent £300 on party streamers in line with a Japanese tradition where wrestlers and MMA fighters are adorned as they are announced in the ring.

I was scheduled to be in Wolverhampton selling merchandise at a two-day extravaganza and thought I’d be able to make a few bob. I bought a load of gear from a party supply company in Coventry and shipped it up. But the Japanese guys pulled out at the last minute and I was left lumbering streamers back to Huddersfield on the train. Happy days.

Such ‘He who dares wins’ mentality seems to have lost me slightly and the entrepreneurial spirit is waning. It’s strange to think that I’m the same boy who, three years ago, was on the Sri Lankan Apprentice, saying on national TV, ‘I can sell anything; I’ve been known to sell ice to Eskimos’.

I secretly want him back. He was a bit shady and always on the lookout for a deal, but the cheek meant that I used to get away with it. People would say, ‘Oh that’s Twig, you know what he’s like’. There was an air of innocence that people were seemingly fond of - that and the fact that I grafted for myself. These people lost a lot of respect for me when putting on my Coral shirt and, if I can’t get any luck elsewhere, I may have to go back to my spiritual home, also known as the market stall.

As ever, Jack Milner @JJMSports