This time last week I was bumbling my way through an interview in leafy South London -- it's been all quiet on that front, so I guess I didn't get the job. Is it really a surprise if you're so unprepared you don't even know you're going for an interview? These things happen, though I should really catch up with them to see what the dealio is.
The more observant among you might remember that last week I was supposed to meet a man about some journalism work. I'd responded to an ad for a Trainee Music Journalist, and after some discussion we arranged to meet up. The original meeting was to be on Thursday, but the journalist pushed it back a day -- it made no difference to me, either way -- although in the time between my first response and the day of the meeting, I'd begun to have my doubts.
There were several points I wanted to discuss -- the job advertisement had used the word "trainee", and yet there hadn't been any subsequent mentions of training. What training was going to be involved? I also wanted further details about how much of it was going to be about music, since the job was writing for a publication interested in mobile phones. I'd been told what he was most interested in for this position was the growing relationship between music and mobile phones -- but to me that does not suggest being a music journalist.
We agreed to meet a hotel in the West End, and as I made my way through the people thronging Trafalgar Square I was suddenly struck at how strange the situation seemed. Here I was, on my way to meet a man off the internet I didn't know, on my own, at some hotel in Soho. That's the kind of situation where you're going to wake up the next day missing a kidney. So I did what anyone else would do, and carried on.
The hotel we'd arranged to meet at was coincidentally next door to the agency where I had been working, until recently. I'd been standing around for almost 10 minutes when a couple of my former colleagues, passing by, spotted me. Given the chance, I'd have sooner hidden behind a rock than speak to them, but there was no chance and no rocks -- so I just made polite conversation that I was meeting a man about some work, but worryingly he was late and I was beginning to wonder if he was going to show up.
After some effort, I connected my mobile phone to the internet to access my email and found a message informing me he was waiting for me inside. Inside! What an idiot I was, I'd been standing outside. Shaking my head at amusement of how I dense I can be, I walked into the hotel and saw immediately a man sat at a table, clearly waiting for someone. Waiting for me, naturally. He looked up and we made eye contact, so I walked over to him, introduced myself and sat down. I explained to him I was an idiot and had been waiting outside, and what a coincidence it was that I had recently been working just next door.
There was an awkward silence.
Then he apologised, and asked me who I was. I had just sat down with a complete stranger who was waiting to interview someone else completely, probably for a job in the hotel. I'd thought for a minute before I sat down how he clearly looked nothing like the person I was expecting, but I didn't know if the editor of the publication was the same person who had been emailing me.
I checked my email again, and the journalist had sent me another message -- this time with his mobile number. Success! Now I would be able to contact him and find out what was going wrong. But no! The number didn't work! I tried adding digits, removing digits, but to no avail. Worse yet, although I could read my emails I couldn't reply to them.
By this time, I had begun to wonder if I was at the right hotel. He had said Charing Cross, but not specifically Charing Cross Road -- what if there was another hotel? He was clearly waiting for me somewhere.
With nothing else for it, I went off in search of an internet café to try and resolve what was going on -- and to check on hotels. Armed with £1 for an hour's net access, I set about exploring the world wide web to find information on London hotels in Charing Cross, and respond to my emails. It didn't take me long to establish the difference between the hotel I had been waiting at and the one he had been -- he was Charing Cross, I was Trafalgar Square. It seems like a matter of semantics, the difference between the two places, but they were different hotels.
I emailed the journalist and explained I was an idiot, but that if he still wanted to meet me I'd be in the internet café for a while, checking emails. I didn't hear back, and presumed he -- quote rightly -- had better things to do with his time. He has since replied to the email I sent, but it's me that has better things to do. I recognise I am wholly responsible for going to the wrong place, but I am sure he had a copy of my CV with my number on it -- and I would have called him, had he given me the right number.
I mentioned I have better things to do, and so it is -- I got a call on Friday morning about some more freelance work. A two week contract, doing some in-house PR (rather than for an agency) on a reasonable daily rate; I'm now officially registering myself as self employed and we shall see what happens from there.
Above: Trafalgar Square last Friday afternoon -- in the background if you look carefully, the hands on Big Ben read 2pm, so I was technically already late for my meeting when I stopped to snap pictures.
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