Well, I’ve got a job. Didn’t want to say anything until I was sure – so waited until today – my second day at work. Figured that if I still had my job today – after turning up for my first day ridiculously hungover – it’s pretty much a certainty. Managed to make it a little not so certain though, by turning up late on my second day – due to bloody tube-trouble.
So… it all happened pretty bloody quickly. Turns out the chaps could overlook my apparent over-seriousness. Got offered the job on Thursday – for a Monday start. Sweet – can do. Bought champagne. Then, had a social weekend. Saturday afternoon a few beers at the pub while watching some football game. Some cup final – but it must have been a shitty cup, coz it was too shitty teams. Then – off to Chook’s for a party. Mixed my drinks up real good, and got intoxicated. Mostly champagne. And then up in the morning to go to Dom’n’Caro’s for a barbeque. I turned into an absolute mess on the way there. Lack of sleep, plus a fair bit of booze piled up on top of what was still lurking in my system from last night… and I was a messy mess. Don’t think I did or said anything too silly. Except staying a bit longer than sensible. So – got back to Stratford, Sunday evening – unable to unlock the front door. 12 hours to get myself together for first day at work.
12 hours – not really enough. Turned up at 10:30, barely able to think, talk, or stay awake. And the fun begins.
Anyway – details for my job. Not gonna give you any, cause it’s all boring. A small company which is a ‘managed service provider’, which of course does consultancy as well. So – what one used to call an IT outsourcing company – before that became a bad word. I do like wanky business jargon. When a “silo of knowledge” is bad, but a “tower of excellence” is good. I guess I’m going to have to learn all the terms which have been invented over the last year. I’ve already picked up “bespoke”. Not happy about it, but I know it.
Oh well – back to work. Need to get some money so I can get a place to stay much much closer. No more tube.
Still unemployed. My busy week of interviews led to just the one offer – which I turned down. Work with an arsetralian? I don’t think so. Unfortunately, after turning this one down – the job I wanted turned me down. D’oh. And my delaying of making a decision for the second role outside of London may have put them off – and I haven’t heard back for a while. But – yesterday, managed to organise a phone interview. Did the phone interview, and it seemed to go fine. No nerd questions – the guy just wanted to get to know me, I gathered. Lots of questions about my travels – which, of course, I was only too happy to answer. He did complain about me seeming too serious though. (Pause while you get yourselves back together.) Anyway – had a call from the agent about an hour later asking if I could do a 2nd phone interview – for nerdy questions – in ten minutes time. Sure – did that. That ended in organising a face-to-face interview for noon the next day. Sweet – going well. Except that the agent had mentioned to me that a face-to-face interview with these guys usually ends with an invitation for a beer. Sure – no problem with that, bloody excellent in fact. But – noon timeslot, I suddenly realised I might be missing out on the beer. Dumb. As most of you know, my charming true self usually only shows itself in a pub environment. Sure enough, I went to the face-to-face today – and left them with an impression of a very serious-minded boring nerd. One of the chaps kept accusing me of being too serious – but perhaps the english wit is too dry for me. I should have exchanged my continuous wry smiles/smirks for some fist-pumping “Awesome! Yeah!” – to convince him that I was ‘excited by the role/company’ – as he wanted me to be. Anyway – the job did sound awesome, “Yeah!” – and I hope that they trusted my dead-pan assertions that I am not really that serious or boring.
In other news – it seems like I may be allergic to London water. Or something. Seriously – it is a real possibility that it is the water here. Awesome! Yeah! Without going into disgusting details – I have self-diagnosed a rare form of eczema on my left foot. Luckily for those I live with – non-contagious. Luckily for me – “can cause extreme stress and pain”. Awesome! Yeah! And everything irritates it.
And, my shopping list of stuff to buy once I get a job is steadily growing. The normal stuff, of course – champagne, icecream, pay off visa, Aotearoa music. But the electronics/appliances list is getting out of hand. Ran out of disk space for all the music that was released while I was away. So – also got a growing list of music to download, on top of the CDs I’ll be ordering from Real Groovy. Need some kind of monster external hard drive for that. A sewing machine – as it is high time I made myself another suit. Blender – for fruit juices. Motorbike with sidecar, or a convertible. Some yerba mate – so I can look like a wanker who’s recently travelled (extensively) throughout South America. Oh – and a place to live. Did I mention champagne – I’m gonna drink a helluva lot of champagne.
Well – that’s me for now. Was hoping to receive a phone call tonight asking me to start work tomorrow. But, it seems my inability to show excitement has sunk me yet again. No matter – I’ve got an agent chasing me for a job in Dubai. Just as long as it comes with a licence to buy booze.
Still lookin’ for a job. Made a graph of my spreadsheet which tracks which jobs I’ve applied for. The week beginning 14 April – I applied for, or was contacted for, 25 jobs. Last week – just the 20. But, that peak in the previous week paid dividends. Last week, booked myself four interviews. Two in person, two phone. The two phone interviews went well enough for me to be contacted within the day to organise proper interviews. And all of the proper interviews seem to have gone reasonably well. The first one – I haven’t heard back. The other three – all seem keen. Waiting for my agent to get back to me about one that’s involving music – but I may have offended them by citing a different salary expectation than the one my agent told them I wanted. Did the same thing at an interview yesterday – but they wanted me to do one of those personality tests yesterday. You know the ones – they think they can read your personality from a set of 40 or so multiple choice questions. Good luck – I’m complicated like an onion. And the other interview I had – they seem keen, but are scared I’m going to take off in 12 or 18 months to go a-travellin’ again. Everybody here seems scared of that – my CV with a couple of big gaps in it, plus my last few jobs being for short periods of time (in UK terms)… gives people the fear. They don’t seem to understand that from NZ – if you travel, it has to be done in a big chunk to make the airfare worthwhile. Whereas while I’m here – I can achieve the same thing with extended weekend trips over into Europe. Sort of.
Anyway – that’s how the job search is going. Mostly. Also hoping to hear back from some other jobs and stuff that people are talking to me about – but they’d better hurry. In other news – same old. Got no money, so can’t do nothing. Although there was a sunny day here on Saturday. And I discovered what that means to the London populace. Any other plans were forgotten – as everybody stopped to enjoy the magic yellow ball of fire. I went and had some drinks with Chook & Nicky-John. Justin came along for a little while, as did Martin. Afternoon in the sun was followed by a night out in Clapham. And then a night at Chook’s mansion. Breakfast at a cafe – although the weather was back to normal. And then bought Sweet & Sour. Chook’s new pair o’ goldfish. Followed by some board games – and me losing on purpose so I’d be in time to catch the tube back to Stratford – and hopefully have enough sleep to catch up on the weekend, before getting up at 5am to catch trains out to remote places for interviews. Turns out I should have allowed for a little more sleep. I assume nobody saw me nodding off in the waiting room though – as they still seem keen to hire me. All day on Monday travelling around the countryside for interviews – the only topic people were discussing was that it had been sunny on Saturday. I’m starting to guess that all the english joking that summer is “a couple of days, usually sometime in June” might not have been too much of an exaggeration.
Is there anything that looks quite as pathetic as a broken wheelbarrow? Whether it’s missing it’s wheel, or a handle, or a leg, or the entire ‘barrow’ – it just looks sad. I’ve never hugged a wheelbarrow – but I felt an overwhelming urge to hug the one I saw out the window today – all upside-down and missing a wheel. I fought off the urge.
I’m kind of feeling like a broken wheelbarrow at the moment. Had my first face-to-face job interview during the week – followed a couple of days later by my first real rejection. My previous rejection didn’t count – as it was for a team leader job. This was actually a job I would have been good at. But I failed. Oh well. Got another phone interview on Monday – for the world’s largest online bingo company. Oh yeah.
Also applied for a job for a ‘household name in sporting entertainment’. The only group I can think of which describes itself as “sporting entertainment” is professional wrestling. I’d be pretty happy if I could tell people I worked for online bingo, or for pro-wrestling. And imagine the perks/discounts accompanying either!
In other news – Pen has gone to NZ. So – if you’re in NZ, then you’ll either be seeing her soon, or you can assume that she doesn’t like you.
And yesterday there was a barbecue at Setal’s place. A barbecue in England – yeah… good luck. Cooking in the rain, small flat packed full of people. But… lots of food, some drinks, chit-chat, and an ‘enry.
And that’s about it. But remember – $1 a week to you is just a can of crap soft drink. To a broken wheelbarrow – it could be a new life.
So now I’m thirty-something. But, I will NEVER be ‘A Thirty-Something’. I’ll wait until I’m forty before I start talking about my house renovations, and how little Suze and/or Cruz are this much ahead of their age average at such-and-such, and how much I love the new line from some goddamn furniture store.
Anyway – it’s been a while since Paddy’s Day. Since then, I’ve been housesitting, pretty much. And didn’t realise I’d been given the wrong keys until Dom&Caro were long gone. So, I resigned myself to not leaving the house for a week. Big change, right? Luckily I’d been given the thumbs up to the well-stocked liquor cabinet, and a couple of trays of beer. And a cat to keep me company. The main problem was going to be if I was offered a job interview. I tried to figure out a way of leaving the house without leaving it unlocked – but couldn’t. I had the key for the back door – but the back yard fence was topped with some daunting barbed wire. Closest I got was possibly asking Pen to take time off work to sit in the house while I was out. Which I actually did on the second night, while I went grocery shopping. And while I was gone, she found some keys that were the right ones. My own search had been shown up as piss-poor. But, now I had the ability to go out’n’about. Unfortunately, I’d already accepted my fate as being trapped indoors – and despite being given the key to outside (so to speak), I did not take the offer. So, a week of television, beer, and a friendly cat. During which I turned thirty-something. And celebrated by eating left-overs for breakfast and lunch, drinking beer, and making a lancashire hotpot with NZ lamb chops.
And then Saturday came, so I fed the cat his daily due, and came home – in order to serve bloody marys to people during an afternoon-tea type ‘do’ for Pen’s birthday. (She’s now thirty, wrinkly, forgetful, has blue-rinse hair, and has put her hip out three times already. Did I mention incontinent?) So – a full day of bloody marys, wine, snacks, etc. Justin educated us all on Hannibal of Carthage, I did my spiel on scientology, and Pen got drunk enough to think that giving our bedroom to everybody else would be a good idea so that we could stay up all night watching action movies. I talked her out of that.
And now it is today. A fairly large mission to clean up the place, considering it was supposed to be a civilised tea-party. And now that is done, I’ve got myself a bottle of slightly-delicious “slightly sparkling perry”. Named Lambrini, with 7.5% booze. And considering watching some 70’s B-grade action, starring David Carradine & Sylvester Stallone. Before it gets ruined in a 2008 remake starring Jason stinkin’ Statham.
Oh – and I’ve decided that a birthday is the proper time to make new year slightly-resolutions. A slightly resolution is a resolution which isn’t statutory – but merely “try to do more of”. Mine for this year:
Yes yes, I know that the catholic church moved it this year. But when was the last time I listened to them? So… despite expecting some phone calls regarding a couple of very promising jobs – I’ve decided to celebrate St Paddy’s Day. Not sure if I should turn my phone off, or trust myself to answer appropriately. I seem to be going down the path of making that decision when it’s too late.
10:00 – after a breakfast of Guinness, I go to the supermarket. No boxes of Guinness left, so I am forced to purchase a tray. Along with the ingredients for irish stew. I also spend a very long time trying to find cans of irish stew, but end up with very sore arms from holding a tray of beer, and a couple of cans of “Highlander’s Broth” – with a description remarkably similar to irish stew. I suspect the english did the same thing to irish stew as the seppos did to french fries.
11:00 – get home, and take a couple of photos of my preparations for the day. Coffee table filled with Guinness, potatoes, ingredients for irish stew (including potatoes), Oscar Wilde’s Complete Short Fiction, and more potatoes. Start to drink more Guinness.
13:00 – 5 down. Hayden reckoned he was going to attempt a shot at his family record, or some such. Twenty-two, I believe. He’s actually got oirish ancestry, apparently – although I would have thought an irishman could do at least dirty-tree. Me – I’m just drinking coz I got nothing else to do. Oh, and joining with our fellow ‘colony’ oppressed by the evil english overlords. Especially after the bastards beat us at the Basin.
Hello especially to everybody at Finn McCool’s.
15:30 – 8 down, feeling fine. After considering the options, a decision was made that a Guinness is NOT a meal in itself, and some Highlanders Broth was had. Oscar Wilde confirms my initial impressions of being a less sarky version of Saki. (sarky – sarcastic, Saki – an author (pen-name), not the booze)
18:00 – starting to cook some irish stew for the old lady. Should probably try to compensate for the possibility that I may be rather intoxicated when she arrives home. A drunken attempt at cooking should do that. High risk, I admit. Especially with a gas oven, and fairly sharp knives. But, everything’s fine so far. Except my lining up a play-list of all oirish music – which I will listen to at random, even as Boyzone comes on (as Ronan is telling me, No Matter What). Why oh why didn’t St Patrick do something about Ronan and Bono? If there was a god, he’d let Paddy come back and have another go. 11 Guinness down by the way – starting to suspect my purchase of two doz was rather optimistic.
20:00 – Pen got home early. So I got caught drinkin’ me booze. Oops. Irish stew turns out remarkably well for being made by a chap who’s had 15 Guinnesses at this point. The late addition of kumara to make it kiwi irish stew nearly ruined thanksgiving – but all is well at the end. Pen demands television with dinner – so I managed to find some Black Books for our viewing pleasure. A welcome relief from Bono telling me how to live my life, and Ronan telling me how life is a rollercoaster.
22:30 – as expected, it’s not the chap who’s now got 17 Guiness in his belly, but the Old Lady who is the first to tip over the empty cans. And yes, it is a bit poseurish to set them all up together while I’m drinking it, but then again – what am I if not a poseur. A poseur who can back that shit up. And for the purposes of photos – for my old friends back in Quito – I do like to show off that I’ve got Guinness. And leftover irish stew. Hayden, if you read this before I can find you, gimme a call, eh?
11:59 -Well, the ‘day’ is nearly over. I’ve drunk lots of Guinness; I’ve eaten/drunk/cooked/brewed a fair bit of irish stew; I’ve talked to people in Quito – and cried like a little girl; I’ve tried to talk to people in Aotearoa, and failed like a little girl. Now I’m going to finish my Guiness. It would probably be best if I gave up like a little girl. But.
02:30 -Finally talked to Hayden. Sounded sober and back in control of the farm, not much time for drunken international phonecalls. Fairnuff. Several attempts at talking to Quito – foiled each time. Closest I got was talking to some guy (seppo, maybe canadiot?) – who went to find Ursula or Lee. And then I heard Ally find the phone unhooked, so she hung it up. Foiled. Earlier though – had managed in different calls to talk to Ursula, and Ally. Each time – tears in eyes. Possibly the first time I’ve ever felt homesick is when I left Finn’s. And I’m from Aotearoa – so that’s pretty bloody cool.
Ah – the Gonzo thing. Well, 22 beers down. Am feeling rather drunk – got to the point where I have to re-read things I’ve typed. And doubt my own judgement. But I’d still trust myself to mastermind an assassination attempt against Bono – just to solve the Troubles. Sure – just for that.
03:00 – I think I might be drunk. Clumsy fingers.
03:10 – Yep, a man has to admit when he’s drunk. And drunk I am. Another two Guinesses would be foolishness. So – I’m figuring that after this one, it’s all over. It’ll have been 23 Guinnesses, 9 unanswered calls to Quito, 10 unanswered calls to Reporoa, and 1 unanswered question.
03:50 – Right, I’m off. Had a chat to Heather back at home. Tears in the eyes while checking up on my god-daughter and might-as-well-be-god-daughter. So what? Got tears in the eyes – that’s gonzo. And that’s time for the night to finish. 4am – 23 Guiness down, and luckily(?) no calls from job-people.
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