Cover Letter

I just read a piece in a newspaper on how to write a good cover letter/cv. Then I realised I'd done that already. So was it my age or the fact that I like writing which is held against me?

Rather than give you a list , I’ll show you what I have done/can do.
In some ways I’ve had my life in reverse. Having a big job 1st and then having smaller jobs.10years ago I was made redundant from XXXXX after 21years, this was mainly a bulk printing operation working 24/7.In 1999 I  met my Shanghai wife in the old people’s home where my dad lived after he’d survived a near fatal heart attack. I visited every day literally, on the way to work on my 12 to 8pm shift, finally after 3years of visits I met the Chinese cleaner. I was then vetted by a Chinese Ballet dancer from the Birmingham Royal Ballet. In 2000 I went to Shanghai to meet my future family, so that was 1st hand experience of a very different Culture. It continues  to this day and we have 2 girls aged 6 and 8.  Working in a hotel and ending up Employee of The Year, as close runner up. That experience of Customer Service on the Front Line was great fun and hard hard work. Cleaning rooms, working in the laundry, doing security patrols, picking up litter in the car park, organising taxis, recommending restaurants and places of interest to visitors from all over the world, using a bit of French and Spanish. Working on switchboard and reception duties as well as concierge duties too. Using Opera  which was the hotel’s computer system. Looking after celebrities, whether it be        Will Young or Sharon Osborne, then switching from that to helping a blind person negotiate the lobby. Pushing the occasional wheelchair, making time for anybody who needed that little bit of extra consideration. All the different needs of different people had to be catered for. I hope everybody I met felt looked after and cared for. I never treated anybody as just another body to be sorted, each person was an individual with individual needs, that’s why I had thank you letters sent in to the hotel. While they were in the hotel I tried to make it a home from home for them. It was a business hotel and our guests all worked very hard so it was only right that we worked hard for them in turn, whatever it was, even cleaning their shoes.  I would have stayed there till retirement but my hours were changed so I’d not see as much of my children, so I left. Coming home at Midnight is not family friendly so I left. The 12 noon to 8pm shift which I’ve often done fits with our family life. I imagine I will have to do some degree of shift working but so long as I can see my kids I am very flexible. My job at a major law firm  where I worked for nearly 3 years until they made me redundant ,was in a very hot Print Room, standing all day, talking to Lawyers and Secretaries. Jobs also came to us via the PC and we’d do the job as required, such as printing A1 or A0 plans. Doing bulk printing, making up training manuals by the score from a few pieces of paper. When we finished we had a good glossy product that could be used in seminars or as a pitch document to bring in new work in for the Firm. We would also take documents apart to copy and/or scan them. I would then have to put them back together again using binding machines. Heat binding, wire binding or plastic binding. Or with very old documents which could be 100years old we would sew back together with silk or green ribbon. You can actually taste the document as you repair them. I have also done lots of laminating for training courses. As you can imagine Training is a good revenue stream for a Law Firm.  I know I can talk to anybody and everybody and have done so all my life, starting all those years ago (1978) when I was a computer operator in a very busy computer room working on a 24/7 basis. All those years ago computers were a novelty and as big as washing machines that vibrated just as much. Not to mention punch cards and magnetic tapes. For 10 years I have a PC at home and I now blog on the MY SUN as the Christian site where I used to practice my writing has closed down that section.  I have been writing for over 20 years, I have written 2 books so far,  The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker plus Essays and Plays, I also blog a bit on my own web site www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com  it’s a kind of car park where I leave my writing in the hope that somebody will one day discover me, however I think it may be the next generation before we have a  paid writer in the Casey  family. Earlier today I was talking/broadcasting to Shanghai where my wife and our 2 kids are enjoying the Summer and Grandma is teaching them psalms from the Bible. My 8 year old is very blasé about talking to Birmingham over the internet, none of this existed when I grew up, but she and I use it as a tool so that we can tell each other that we love each other. Technology is such a great great tool. That’s all I can say really, apart from the fact that I can and will do anything, this makes me a useful person to have on the team. I counted 10 different roles that I did at the XXXX hotel during my time there. Flexible and adaptable is what I’d call myself, it’s all on my CV in greater detail. Thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope its more interesting than a bare list.

Well, I hope my cover letter makes you smile. I hope that somebody in MySUN world will help  get me a writing job. Though anything would do. Providing this does not get deleted.

Cheerio from sunny Birmingham, there's tons of stuff to read on my site.

Michael