tags: interviews


Interviews and Outer Views

Slightly disappointed to only find 50 emails waiting for me when I return to work, I maliciously contract a cold which may require me to have a couple more days off after my two-week break. Most of the messages are tedious day-to-day efforts and announcements of dull seminars although I do have a persistent spammer from America who really thinks I need to join his audio conference on "Handling Difficult Conversations: Keys to Stopping Bad Behavior". Of course everyone in the office denies signing me up for anything.

I have to apply for my own job. I send in a form, which I am assured is merely a formality. 70 other people do the same. Mine basically says I can do the job because I have been doing it for the last year so if you think I've done a Good Job, then let's just getonwithit! Of the 170 who apply for the job to work with me, only five are chosen for interview. The shortlisting process is arbitrary and horrifying, I personally bin about 20 forms for typos, too short, too long, too annoying... I pray that writing my (new) name in bold in BIG LETTERS will make sure I get picked. Of course I will. But they haven't written to me yet.

One girl writes I am a bubble. That's it. It is a shame that they don't give her an interview on the strength of this, if only just to ask what the hell she is on about.

I meet all the applicants after their terrifying interviews and to be honest I am fairly 'meh' about the whole thing. It doesn't help that I am plagued by sneezes and sniffles but I give my opinion and make cruel first impression character judgements to shock and dismay.

As usual my views are different to the panel's and they are uncomfortably interested in whether I think I will be able to work with them. The first is too talkative, too negative, too annoying. The second too fresh, a bit green, third is okay, fourth is strangely excited by the whole thing and the last is a bit, well, empty. What do I care? I say You haven't given ME a job yet!

An ongoing failure of kitchen etiquette ends with the mysterious re-appearance of about 30 teaspoons. I can finally drink coffee free of biroid ink.

Submitted by dash on Tue, 17/03/2009 - 16:41




It Never Rains

rain

Amazingly, I'm not at all angry. I am in work and I am soaking wet. My trainers squelch when I walk and my jeans have a tell-tale dark tide mark, which is slowly moving down my legs as the water evaporates. I get in to work at 10:30 and all I can think is how ridiculous it all is. I mean farcically ridiculous.

The morning begins innocently enough, I get up with a Plan, to put the last coat of gloss on the kitchen windowsill and go to the bank. The painting goes well and I venture out into the rain on my bike. The task is simple: go to the bank, pay in some money, then buy a paintbrush.

I arrive at the bank. Then I get back on my bike and go home again, to pick up the credit cards one generally requires when visiting the bank. It is raining pretty hard now. When I arrive at work it has been an hour cycling in the pouring rain and I'm pretty wet through.

Never mind I think to myself, At least you had the good sense to wrap your change of clothes in a couple of plastic bags, you'll be nice and dry in no time. Well think again. I first realise something is wrong when, after having thoroughly rung out my socks into the sink, the jeans appear to be a little tight...

Hot Tip for a Rainy Day Number One: DON'T pack your girlfriends jeans to wear at work.

But I am not in the slightest bit angry or annoyed. Perhaps this is part of the whole why isn't Dave panicking thing. But I think that it is a result of years of realising that you just can't get upset about this stuff. There's just no point. In India, we had to wait an entire day for a train. Nobody over there cares, it's all just a big excuse for a party on the platform.

So we all have a good laugh about it, I am offered a skirt to wear, but I prefer to stay in my damp clothes, squelching along the corridors. It brightens up an otherwise dull day, if not for me.

The worst thing about all of this is that we are interviewing this week, to replace our difficult Temp Period and today it is my turn to greet the interviewees and lock them in a little side room for the obligatory admin test. This time the test consists of prioritising a load of random stuff and explaining why.

It is the usual crop of eager, nervous young females.1 you always think you have to impress everybody with how wonderfully efficient you are and ask lots of questions, even of the person escorting you up the stairs. I'm probably the wrong sort of person for that particular job, wet or no. I mean, I just don't really care about your journey in, where you live, how precise and punctual you are.

I am beginning to smell. So first impressions last hey?

  • 1. After our latest crop of temps, the Powers have decided that even risking another spate of Faculty Pregnancies (four in the last year, out of a staff of 12) is worth avoiding the problems we've had lately.
Submitted by dash on Wed, 13/08/2008 - 12:49