Being 5 years late for work - and other humbling experiences

I'm starting work on Monday, directly opposite the place I got made redundant from 5 years ago.  In fact, it's possible I could have avoided that redundancy by getting a transfer over the road instead at the time.  I'm not sure because I never really explored that possibility.  At the time, I was ready to leave.

As I was eating my farewell meal in Pizza Hut that day I was sure I was going off to get a better job.  Things already looked promising.  In fact I had an interview the week after.  It was to do data entry in the NHS.  I was pretty confident of getting it.  I thought I did pretty well at the interview, although I might have blanched a bit when they explained the part about where I had to empty people's tumours out of buckets and then rinse the buckets out, I'm not sure.

Anyway, I didn't get that job, and I haven't got lots of the other jobs I've gone for since, which seems bad until you consider that some of the jobs I went for, I did get, and many of those it might have been better to get turned down for too.  In fact, with hindsight there's only two of the six jobs I've had since that I'm glad I got.

Sometimes it's easy to look back and say 'What was I thinking?' when I look at the jobs I did get, but hated, but then I didn't have the luxury of sitting around on a pile of money waiting for the perfect job to appear, I had to get what I could get, when I could get it.

Getting anything was at times an achievement, considering the huge number of jobs I applied for, but didn't get a look in with.

It's become a standing joke now, that whenever I go out with Ruth, either to the shops or for leisure, we usually visit somewhere during the trip where I've been turned down for a job.  She must be so weary of hearing that line when we go out, I might need to buy her some of those glasses with the eyeballs painted on the lenses for Christmas, so she can go to sleep behind them, while still looking interested.

And it can't be easy for her, holding her own career together, while I go through one false dawn after another at work.  Anyway, she'll have to do it at least one more time, as another new job awaits on Monday.

I start at 10 am.  I'll try to be on time, even if I'm 5 years late.

Running away - but very slowly

I wrote a blog post this week, but I didn't publish it because I thought it sounded too negative.

It was about how badly my job at HMV was going, compared to the one I had before at SLC, where I felt so much more at home.

Because I was hesitant about publishing the post, I asked Ruth how I would know if it was unduly negative.  She suggested I read it out in a whiney voice to see if it sounded whiney.  I said anything sounds whiney if you read it out in a whiney voice, so she said it was probably too negative then.

Anyway, in the end I decided to scrap that blog post, because I don't like moaning about other people if  there's a chance that it's just a case of me not fitting in with them.  And I'm glad I did scrap it, because it's only been two hours since I left, but already I feel less like whining.  It helped that some of the staff were very nice to me as I left, and even though I'd only been there 2 weeks, they were grateful for the work I'd done, and that I'd seen out the week, even though I could have walked out sooner.

With hindsight I wonder if some of the fault was with my expectations.  I thought HMV would be similar to Waterstone's because they used to be part of the same company but I couldn't have been more wrong.  Apart from a similar computer system, it was worlds apart.

It was noisy and bright and shiny and I didn't understand all the technology and computer games they sell, and they play Radio 1 a lot, and they had Loose Women on the telly in the lunchroom, and it was sensory overload, and I just felt out of place.  Like I was on the wrong channel, or having a connection failure.

I went there with the best of intentions but it was like going on a blind date, that you realise is a mistake the instant you walk in but you have to go through the motions of having a few drinks and a meal.  Secretly you can't wait for it to be over, and you know you're totally unsuited right from the start, but you don't know how to say so without giving offence.

It's a lot easier with hindsight to say that jobs (and blind dates) are horrible blunders, and you can sit at home all you like dreaming of your ideal partner or your dream job, but sometimes you only know things are completely wrong by giving them a try.  And so I did.  And it was bloody horrible, and I felt like running away pretty much all the time I was there, and in the end I did.

Even though I felt like running away a lot, I only ran away very slowly, ie by working a week's notice, and today I even got to meet my replacement.  It was a reassuring way for it to end, because he looked a lot happier to be there than I ever felt.  He was joining in with conversations I had tended to avoid, and he seemed keen to impress and really glad to be on board, whereas I just felt continually lost at sea.  Also, he really needs a job because he's got a baby on the way, and I was kind of glad to have moved aside for him.  I hope things work out for him.

As well as feeling like a fish out of water these last few days, another aspect of this week that was quite strange was walking round Middlesbrough seeing a daily parade of people queuing up in mortar boards and gowns to get their degrees at the Town Hall.  And a couple of times I took family photos for some of them, while they were waiting to go in, and as I said congratulations to them as I passed back their cameras, I wondered why they'd even trusted me with their cameras when some of them seemed to be really valuable, but then I thought either they were very trusting people who see the good in their fellow human beings, or they thought I didn't look like someone who was capable of running away very fast.

It was a bit of a contrast to the people hanging around outside the law courts only a few hundred yards away.  They were also mostly smartly dressed, but they were doing things like going over their witness statements on the benches outside, and saying things to each other like 'All I did was hit him' and 'now we both have to make sure we tell the same story, or we're for the high jump'.  Funny how people celebrating things gone right and people dealing with things gone wrong wound up being so close together.

I actually derived some vicarious enjoyment from seeing people all dressed up, and celebrating the achievement of academic success.  It reminded me of being there with Ruth a few years ago, but it also made me sad that I hadn't made more of my own opportunities.

I sometimes wonder if my own lack of academic success is the reason why I'm still scratching around desperately for a job that fits me, but even if it is, there's no point kicking myself in the ass about it.

No time to dwell on things in any case.  New job starts Monday.

At 44 I'm too old to start falling off horses

Shakespeare used to say that nothing is good or bad, it's just thinking that makes it so (or something like that).  And I've often found this to be true.  Sometimes buried inside a disappointment is the seed of a future success, although the opposite can also be true.  This being the case, it's probably a good idea not to go too bonkers over success, or to get too crushed by disappointment, because one could quite easily be hiding behind the other.

Which also reminds me of this old Taoist parable.

"...an old Chinese farmer lost his best stallion one day and his neighbor came around to  express his regrets, but the farmer just said, "Who knows what is good and what is bad."  The next day the stallion returned bringing with him 3 wild mares. The neighbor rushed  back to celebrate with the farmer, but the old farmer simply said, "Who knows what is good  and what is bad." The following day, the farmer's son fell from one of the wild mares while trying  to break her in and broke his arm and injured his leg. The neighbor came by to check on the son  and give his condolences, but the old farmer just said, "Who knows what is good and what is bad."  The next day the army came to the farm to conscript the farmer's son for the war, but found him  invalid and left him with his father. The neighbor thought to himself, "Who knows what is good  and what is bad."

This year's job search has been a bit like that.  After months of dead ends job-wise I applied for a job at Waterstone's in May but in between me finding out about the job, and me going for an interview, the job had ceased to exist (budget cuts).  And I was really disappointed that day, because I was desperate not to work in the cake factory anymore, and this seemed like a way out.

But indirectly out of that day, came my next job.  This was because the manager at Waterstone's knew someone from Manpower, and the someone from Manpower was recruiting for Student Loans.  And I wasn't going to apply to Student Loans, because I'd already been turned down by them twice, but because she suggested it, I tried again.  And this time I got in.

But even the Manpower job, I didn't really want.  When it was advertised it was to work evenings until 2 am, and I totally didn't want to do that, but because I couldn't find anything else at the time, I applied.  Even after I'd passed all the pre-screening and the interview, I spent the next six weeks (between being offered the job and my projected start date) desperately trying to find something else, because of the unsociable hours.

But I couldn't find anything else, and so I was resigned to working evenings.  Then the week before I was due to start, they rang me and offered me days, which was exactly what I wanted, but which had never been advertised as a possibility.  And so, from the disappointment of having an interview for a job that didn't exist, via applying for a job I didn't want, I ended up in a really good job, working with people I really liked.  It may have only lasted 4 months, but that 4 months was better than nothing, and it got me back into work, and got my confidence up again.

Then at the end of October, after working hard for those 4 months to try and earn myself a more permanent job with Student Loans, I was laid off, completely arbitrarily, along with all the other agency staff.  And it was a big disappointment, because I was out of work again, and at first it seemed like all the effort I'd put in to be good, hadn't paid off.

A few days later, newly jobless again, my car broke and then my internet got accidentally cut off, and this is just adding insult to injury I thought.  And having to sort these things out also delayed my planned trip into Middlesbrough to look for temporary shop work at Christmas.

The other thing which had delayed my trip into Middlesbrough, was waiting for the outcome of an interview at Marks and Spencers, which I'd had the week before.  Because I thought I was likely to get that job, I didn't try too hard looking for anything else in the meantime.  Only when it became apparent that I wasn't getting that job, did I get my finger out and get into Middlesbrough.

When I eventually did get myself into Middlesbrough, after being delayed twice by having to organise car and internet repairs, and after wasting time hanging around waiting for the results of an interview for a job I didn't get, I managed to walk into HMV just at the right time to bump into the store manager, who it transpired was looking for someone just like me.  And so, by another series of accidents, I've got another job.

And so tomorrow I'm back to the drawing board again.  I'm 44, and I'm facing another first day at work.  And at the moment that feels like a good thing.

But as I know from what's gone before, only time will tell....


Post Script.  Yep, once again triumph has turned to disaster.  The job I was really pleased to get at HMV turned out within days to be a job I couldn't wait to get out of.  I've got to hope the next one is better, this is driving me nuts!

Job Interviews are easy now - They're like exams I've already revised for

When I was at school I used to do exams.  Proper exams.  3 hours in a room with just a pen and a few pieces of paper (although they had started to bring out answer booklets by the time I finished).

And I was quite swotty at school, so I used to properly revise for exams.  And if you properly revise, there comes a time before the exam, when you need to stop trying to remember stuff and trust in the fact that you've done enough.  I was never one of those people reading notes outside the exam room, or reading notes on the bus on the way to the exam.  I used to mostly give up the night before, sometimes earlier.

And it's quite a nice feeling, knowing that you've done all you can, and now it's just about you and the exam.  I always found it was a good idea to try and remember that feeling during the first 10 minutes of every exam, when I used to have a complete and utter panic attack, and be convinced I couldn't do any of it.  Usually if I was still in there after 11 minutes, I did okay.

Well, job interviews are a bit like exams.  Except the subject is me.  And I used to revise for interviews the same way I used to revise for exams.  I used to look through lots of notes I'd made about different jobs I'd done, and I reflected on things like when I'd faced a challenging situation, or when I'd done well, or when I'd exceeded expectations, and all that telling your life story / competency based crap that you have to go through to get a job.  I used to wonder what they'd ask me, and I used to get ready to answer whatever came at me.

But these days I don't bother so much.  And for two main reasons.

1) I've done this exam so many times now, I know the answers off by heart.  I was crap at O Level Chemistry, but if I'd taken that bloody exam as many times as I've been interviewed for jobs, I'd have been getting 100% by now.

2) Self-confidence.  I'm not a performing monkey (some people might not agree), I'm a person, with a life story, and an employment record, and a history, and it is what it is.  And some of it is crap.  My employment history, like my life, is full of blind alleys, and some things I wish I hadn't done, and some things that didn't work out.  And sometimes what I am, and what I've got is totally not what an employer is looking for.  And that's fine.  It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with me, it just means I don't match what they want.

That's not to say I've not done some work things really well over the years.  It's not to say I don't have skills and talents and abilities, and strengths at work.  But being myself, and letting them find that out early is a good thing, not just for them, but for me.  There's nothing worse than doing a really good interview, and then ending up in a job where you want to flick your own eyeballs out with a grapefruit spoon after 5 minutes, just so you can get out of there.

The thing I've learned from all the interviews I've done, past and present, good and bad, is this.  There's no point telling them that you're who you think they want you to be, unless you are in fact that person.  If you're not, they'll soon find out, and they'll probably be really annoyed that you wasted their time, because now they've got to do the whole thing all over again.

And so job interviews for me now are easy.  They're like exams that I've revised for.  I don't overprepare, I go in, I show them who I am, and then I leave.  If they ask me questions, I answer them, if I want to ask questions, I do.  If they ask me why I only worked in a call centre for 3 months, I tell them it's because the job was totally wrong for me, and I found that out by working in a call centre.

I maybe wouldn't elaborate and say I knew the job was wrong for me about an hour in, but it took another 3 months less one hour to get out of there.  And I maybe wouldn't mention that if I'd only figured that out about myself before I went for an interview for a job in a call centre, I never would have gone to the interview, and in doing so wasted the time of the people who interviewed me.

But whatever I tell them, they will know that it's me talking.  They won't be fooled into thinking they're talking to Orville when they are in fact talking to Keith Harris.  And it will then be up to them what they do with that information.  And after getting to know me, if they think I'm not right for the job, they might be right.  But if they think I am right for the job, then they also might be right.

Life's too short for pretending (well it's okay if you're an actor, or at primary school), but when you're a grown up, just be a grown up.  When you take exams, you can't pretend to have revised, you either have or you haven't and it shows through.  And the same goes for interviews.  If you don't show them who you are, they'll probably notice anyway.



Postscript to this blog entry.  The interview I went for this morning, I got the job.

I used to be a genius - not any more

When I was younger one of my favourite quotations was from Mark Twain.

it went like this:  'When I was 14 my father was such an idiot that I could barely stand to have the man around, but by the time I was 21 I was amazed at what he'd learned in seven years'.

The height of my own genius was 18.  Probably on the bus on the way back from having 3 months in Germany.  Hey, I'd lived and worked abroad, mastered a new language, and now I'm off to University.  What a genius.

I used to think that courage was a thing you needed to be able to do stuff.  But I realised on that Germany trip that courage is not having the courage to do things, but doing them anyway.  After 25 years I'd forgotten that but I've been remembering it recently, and I think that was what got me on a plane to India.

Another thing that happened to me when I was younger was that I used to play football, and in the long days of the summer holidays I used to play football all day.  And sometimes early in the day I'd feel tired and my legs would feel heavy, but after a while I got beyond tired and I could just run and run.  And sometimes I'd still be out after dark, although playing football at that time of night could be dangerous because you couldn't always see the ball until it smacked you in the face.

The reason I remembered feeling like that, is because that's pretty much how I felt when I was cycling on Thursday.  For the first 30 miles or so I felt pretty weary and didn't think I'd be able to go the distance, but then I got into that magic place that's beyond tired, where your legs feel like they could go on for ever.  And even when I got to the pub at 8.30 at night I felt like I could keep going.

This week I've been feeling pretty down, indecisive about my future and some of the time when I've been alone I've been a bit despondent.  Worrying about what job to get, where to work, how to spend my free time, worrying about my home, and about my eyes.  All the usual crap.  But when I was out on my bike none of it mattered.  It didn't matter where I lived, or whether I had a job, or what I was going to do in the future.  Because I was out on my bike, and it was great.  It was almost Spring, and my winter hibernation was nearly over.  It was still cold, but inside the cold was the promise of better things to come.

And it was the same when I used to run around kicking a ball aged 14. Nothing else mattered.  Not exams, not my crazy stepdad, not the kids who lived in my street who wanted to chase me because I went to a school where I wore a blazer.  None of it.

That's what exercise with a purpose can do for you.  Some people think kicking a football or riding a bike is pointless.  What do they know?

So what happened to me for 25 years?  Since I was a genius.  I think for some of that time I lost my way.  But I'm getting better again.  I don't know as much now as I used to, but that's because I found out about a load of stuff I don't know.  A bit like Donald Rumsfeld, I now know more about the stuff I know I don't know.  I've still not caught up with the stuff I don't know I don't know, but I'm sure that'll come later.

In those 25 years what happened was that I did some stuff.  I succeeded at some things, and I failed at some things, although often it's hard to tell the difference, because it's just a matter of perspective.

Judging by the standards of the outside world, I've been failing at a lot more stuff in the last few years.  Especially getting jobs.  Before 40 I'd hardly ever been turned down for anything.  Now it happens to me almost every week.  But filling in job applications is getting easier.  Because I don't write what I think they want to hear anymore.  I write what I want.  I don't try to pretend I'm something I'm not, because I figure if they don't want me as I am, they probably wouldn't want me trying to be somebody else either.  As John Vernon famously says in the film Airplane.  I don't do impressions.

It's possible to get better at failing I think.  And I think I am.  Now I laugh when I get turned down for stuff, whether it's a job, or whether it's just a bowl of porridge.  It doesn't work to take myself too seriously.  And although I've had a meltdown in the last few months, I did find a couple of things out.

One is that you don't need courage to do things.  You just have to do them.  And the other is that getting out there and exercising, whether it's running around with a pointless football or riding a pointless bicycle, is the best way to help you feel better on the inside.  Of course it helps that it's nearly Spring, although I'm not going to use my new found energy to do myself in, as some depressed people do.  I'm going to get better.