It’s been just over a year since I last updated this blog and what a year it has been!
When I came into 2025, I had just jumped back into housesitting after having taken a break from it for a few months.
I had been housesitting throughout most of 2024 and using the peace and quiet of each housesit to get on with building my MTA Portfolio.
I had also been working nights to support myself financially while I studied at each housesit.
I worked nights at two different companies.
The first was as a Parcel Sorter at Royal Mail which was a zero-hour contract meaning I could select which days of each week I wanted to work. However, I left this role at the end of August 2024.
The second was a Night Housing Worker for 1625 Independent People at St George’s House, their central Bristol high support hostel for homeless young people. Initially it was just a permanent part time role two nights a week but was later expanded into a full-time role four nights a week in July 2024.
However, when I came into 2025, the option of taking on a part time daytime admin role for St George’s House suddenly presented itself.
It was a very tantalising offer because I’ve aways been very much drawn to administration, the entirety of my MTA Portfolio is a massive exercise of my administration skills and I had already started doing bits of administration for St George’s House during my nighttime work hours.
Another massive advantage of the admin role is that it could be used to demonstrate all the knowledge and skills I have acquired while building my MTA Portfolio.
Furthermore, I could then bring the role back into my MTA Portfolio and use it as a work placement for the final project of my Information Management and Career Development concentration.
The role felt like a very good fit for me.
Practically, it was part-time meaning that I could still get on with my MTA Portfolio.
Crucially, it would also mean that I could cease being a night worker once and for all.
Just as a bit of context, up until that point, I had been working nights for 12 years. While I didn’t (and still don’t) dislike working nights, I’ve always been very conscious of the negative physical and psychological effects it can have on your life. It’s also another reason why I have put so much time and effort into Biohacking My Personal Fitness.
I had always known that working nights was not something that I could do forever and that I would eventually have to transition back to days.
Suddenly, the way out of working nights was being presented to me and I decided to take it!
Two weeks into 2025, I spent two days filling out the application form. Unsurprisingly, I did it at a housesit while I was ill with the flu.
Annoyingly, the deadline for that application was fast approaching so I couldn’t put it off and had to force myself to write while feeling like total crap.
That application is, without a doubt, the hardest thing I have ever had to write.
But write it I did. Submit it I did. And attend the interview I did.
My interview and my reasoning for why I should have the job can best be summed up with the statement I used within the interview, “I can’t just spend all night sat staring at a wall, my brain needs stuff to do.”
And, boy, has my brain been given stuff to do in the admin role.
So the role itself is actually called the Reception and Support Administrator meaning I do all the reception duties and other general administration for St George’s House. It is actually a lot, but if you are organised and build yourself a good system for getting the work done, as I have done, the role is relatively smooth sailing.
While being a Night Worker, I had built up a lot of ideas about how St George’s House could be supported to operate a lot more smoothly and efficiently. Some of these ideas, I had already suggested while I was a Night Worker.
Before beginning the Reception and Admin role, I had to fulfil the terms of my Night Worker contract which meant I had to work a final four weeks in the role. These final four weeks were incredibly useful because it gave me time to start implementing some of the new ideas and systems I had in mind for St George’s House.
Then I started working on days as the new Reception and Admin at the beginning of March 2025 and I was working three days a week Monday to Wednesday 08:00 to 16:00.
It gave me a solid three days a week to keep the place in shape; while also continuing to implement my improvements and it left me with four days a week to crack on with my MTA Portfolio.
However, my transition to days does not stop with attaining the Reception and Admin role.
Two things happened when I came to days:
- I wasn’t earning enough only working three days a week.
- I got a taste for doing admin work and I wanted to do more than my three days a week would allow me to do.
Therefore, I made the completely unplanned decision to secure a second part time admin role to pair with my first admin role.
It didn’t even take me long to make that decision. Taking a bit of time out to focus on applying the skills and knowledge from my MTA portfolio made complete sense.
Even more so, because the idea of having work placements be apart of my MTA portfolio had been there from the very beginning and it made complete sense to do this for my Information Management and Career Development concentration.
So, not long after started the Reception and Admin role, I started to apply for other related roles. I ended up securing three interviews… all of which I did not pass. Frustratingly, I was not having much success at finding another role.
Then, two months into working the Reception and Admin role, and like lightning out of a clear sky, another newly created part-time admin role came up within 1625.
I couldn’t believe my luck when I read the description for it because it was basically the same role I was already working at St George’s House.
This new role was the Support and Housing Assistant at Charles England House, another of 1625’s supported accommodation hostels. Charles England House is located on the outskirts of Bristol (although, technically it is located in South Gloucestershire) I was already familiar with it as I had already worked a few relief worker shifts at Charles England House.
It was only a 20 hour role which would very easily pair with my 24 hour Reception and Admin role. Plus it was in the same company performing pretty much all the same responsibilities I already performed.
So I applied for it.
Again, I wrote the application while at a housesit. This time I was not ill, thankfully.
I secured the interview, I was offered the job and I accepted it.
I started the Support and Housing role at the end of May 2025 and I have continued to work in both my admin roles ever since.
I say both my admin roles, but, in truth, I see both of my admin employment contracts as being the same role just worked at two different locations.
Now that I am fast approaching the one year mark for my Reception and Admin role, which will be quickly followed by my Support and Housing role, as there is only three months between them, I’m starting to re-orientate my focus back towards my MTA Portfolio because I want to start bringing my admin roles and everything I have as part of them back into my postgraduate studies.
Specifically, all the admin work I have performed at St George’s House and Charles England House will be presented as work placements within the Designing My Career Brand final project.
Ultimately, I continued to do housesits throughout 2025 and, unsurprisingly, I wrote this blog post while doing a housesit.
I fully intend to do more housesits throughout 2026 while I continue to build out my administrations skillset and showcase it within my MTA Portfolio.