I arrived in South London just after 10am yesterday morning -- and as usual, although I had made a note of who I was seeing, and the name of offices, even the road name, I hadn't actually checked little details like how to find the offices from the tube station. Lucky for me it was a nice day and I was in no hurry. I found my way to the main high street without a problem. It was which way to go on this long stretch of road that puzzled me. In the end, I settled for choosing one direction -- and stopped into a petrol station to buy a drink and ask directions. The woman behind the counter had never heard of the business centre I was trying to find, but knew of a pub by the same name -- and so I thanked her, and said they would probably be close to one another.I set off down the road, and decided instead to go in the opposite direction. Why, I have no idea -- the only thing resembling a promising lead, and I ignored it? Luckily after less than a minute, I met a postman. He would know where it was. And fortunately for me, he did -- not only did he point me in the right direction (yes, it was the other way to the way I was going :P) but also pointed out a large tower that he said was part of the centre I wanted.
This time, I found it easily enough -- and was still way too early, so I sat on a bench in the sun, and listened to the few songs I can fit on my phone's memory. This week, I love the Eel's Hey Man, Now You're Really Living -- it's inspiring and catchy, but I have to ration myself or I am going to get really sick of it.
When the time was right, I went into the office complex and announced myself at reception. They called through to the company, and I stood waiting. After what seemed like forever, my contact came down and met me and showed me up to the offices -- we made polite conversation about how far I'd come and about someone she knew that lived vaguely near me. I think perhaps when I caught the word copy writer I thought something was not quite right. My contact showed me the offices, just with a brief wave, took me into a meeting room and offered me a drink. I asked for a glass of water and she left me for a couple of minutes.
It was about this time I realised my meeting was not with a recruitment consultant, but instead was a job interview. In my defence, it never happens like this. What happens is, you see a job advertised. You apply for it. A recruitment consultant calls you, asks you to come and register with them, and sometimes they put you forward for the job. A time is arranged for an interview, they brief you on the client, and off you go. What does not happen is this -- you do not see a job advertised, apply for it, get an email from the company itself saying "looks good, are you free to come in for an interview tomorrow?" and then go for an interview.
It was all I could do to stop myself laughing my head off while I was left alone.
It was unfortunate I knew nothing about the company, and could only surmise very little about the job itself -- being a perceptive sort of lad I worked out quickly that it was a biztech job (that is, rather than consumer tech) and obviously it would be a junior position, or else I never would have applied.
The interviewer returned and we were at first a little confused how I had heard about the job. I thought someone had contacted me about it -- but looking back in my emails, this is clearly not the case, I had instead seen it advertised on the jobcentre's website -- this surprises me, since the jobcentre is usually completely useless. In what I hope to be a continuing trend, I was relaxed and confident, and regaled the interviewer with my witty tales of consumer PR.
The interviewer noticed my PR experience was what could be described as fluffy -- fashion, beauty clients, not exactly hard-hitting stuff. I assured her what I really wanted to be doing was tech, and that was where my interests lay outside of work. Maybe so, she said, let's see -- she started outlining a hypothetical situation involving a large company with a couple-hundred networked computers, people working from home and links to offices overseas. She asked me where I would begin advising on this. I just dove straight in, talking about firewalls and working on ftp servers, rambling about wireless networks against wired, the need for security on a wireless network, and using ftp for people working from home, or accessing a central server. I think that mostly satisfied her, although she had her own ideas about stopping servers from overheating.
I don't want to get my hopes up on it, but I think it went well. She asked me about notice periods and how soon I could start, I talked about doing the commute via moving somewhere closer. I think she liked me, there was talk of perhaps getting me to do a written test and I assured her that would not pose me any problems. That said, some practice wouldn't go amiss.
Speaking of writing, I was sent an application form to work for a PR agency I contacted on Monday. It was all going swimmingly until I came to a question asking me to write a 300-word press release about myself starting work at the company. Finding the way in to it is the hard part at the moment. I also need to write something similar in way of a biography for an art site I will be submitting some of my pictures to. Both of them require a certain amount of bullshit, but without filling it with statements like "Jay is the best thing since bread came sliced". We all know that is true, but it needs to be more subtle. The art biog needs to avoid being pretentious, but at the same time make my pictures sound more thought out than just "I thought it would look good". It's just as well I have a lot of time on my hands.
In other news, I mentioned previously having tickets to see Suicide Bid on Thursday night -- and more specifically, a spare. The personal ads I placed regarding it yielded nothing and I was beginning to think I would have to go on my own. I'd left some status update on my Facebook profile about it, and was surprised when San's younger sister asked me what it was about. I remembered playing her Suicide Bid once when I was round their house, so I emailed her about how I had this spare ticket and she was welcome to join me or to bring friends along and included some songs. I heard nothing back that day and thought nothing more about it. Then yesterday morning I bumped into a friend on the train, and he mentioned our mutual friend Laura had recently broken up with her boyfriend. While it bugs me (and others) that it seems like Laura only wants to be friends when it suits her, and sometimes she will completely blank you if she sees you in the pub, I heard Laura was quite cut up about the break up and so I invited her to make use of my spare ticket.
You can guess what happened next. Ten replies to my email saying it sounds cool, she'd love to come and would see me on Thursday. Then Laura replies saying yeah, she'd be interested if she can afford it, who else is going? I explain how nobody else we know is going, and that it wouldn't be a cheap night -- hoping to put her off now I don't have that spare ticket. How come? She asks. How come what -- how come nobody is going, or how come it's not cheap if tickets are less than a tenner. Sure, tickets are cheap, but there's travelcards, and drinks and taxis, I say. And nobody else is going because they can't fit it in with work.
I figured I would leave her a day or so, before mentioning having other people interested if she wasn't. But I didn't need to wait, Laura sent me a text this morning to say she would take the ticket. Faced with two takers for the same damn ticket -- and neither of them even a bloody date -- I've ended up buying a third.
Let's hope I get that job to pay for them.
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