Diary of an up and coming sociopath

once again, I’m back from Nikki’s. It occurs to me I’ve left a whole bunch of unresolved threads about what I’ve been doing and where I’ve been, so seems as it’s also the end of the month I’m going to wrap up October.

So, looking back. At the start of the month, I claimed I was looking for a bookcase to buy. I still am. I can’t really afford to spend money on, well, anything right now, so unecessary shelving is way, way down the list. I think I’ll have a look on eBay, actually. Always chance of a bargain there.

I never got around to re-doing the stylesheets for the page, because I keep thinking I’ll get the other design up and running soon, but I did fix the font so that it was readable. Quite why the default font had spacing set to -1 I’ll never know.

I didn’t mention that last weekend Nikki and I spent some time wandering around central London in the rain. We started at Edgeware road, in spite of the multiple tube outages, and thenwandered up to Oxford Street. Nikki stopped for a McDonalds on the way back, and I restrained myself but I did eat some of her burger, and it gave me thirst for more. When I went home this weekend, I had small fries, a burger and 4 chicken nuggets, and while it was inexpensive and filling, it reminded me why I avoid fast food as much as possible these days. After we’d been to McDonalds, we went up Tottenham Court Road, and then back down the other end of Oxford Street to go, via Borders, to Selfridges, which is not unlike my vision of hell. Floor upon floor of pointless, pointless items to own, which all cost a lot of money because they’re unusually shaped. If I ever wanted a fridge shaped like an egg, I’d go there, but by christ, not before.

To add insult to injury, when we actually decided to leave it slowly dawned on us that we had somehow become totally lost within the labyrinthe building and at times I felt like clutching my head and screaming, because it seemed like we’d never find a way out. We finally managed it when I successfully spotted cars in teh distance, though I wasn’t sure if I was just leading us towards the “Automobile” department.

Last week, I had a job interview. It went very well, but I found out on Wednesday that despite impressing the interviewers, other people had the job. I was likely the choice if either of those turned it down, apparantly, but this time it looks like it wasn’t to be. They said that my interview and test scores were good and that I was clearly able, and that I would’ve been the next choice after, but that the people doing the job had more experience. There’s clearly some kind of term for the catch-22 involved when you are unable to get experience doing a job because of your lack of experience, but I suspect the specific word has yet to be discovered. If anyone out there knows, I’d like to hear.

And then there was Friday, where I had an interview at Millward Brown. It was a strange day, a lot like being at university but without actually learning anything useful. I was asked to give a presentation on the job even though I didn’t really know anything about it, so I just made some stuff up which seemed relevant and spent the previous night concentrating on doing a structured and clear presentation that would show I knew what I was doing.

On Saturday Nikki and I went up to Coventry (alternate 2004 fad-influenced nomenclature: Chaventry) and poked around a few shops there, and were surprised to bump into Kate and Charl who are acquaintances from the easyworld messageboard. At first I didn’t notice who it was because I was thinking “hey, that girl’s wearing a beautiful garbage hoodie. That album sucked.” then suddenly Nikki saw who it was. I bought a couple of Comics (New Demo issue! I know you don’t care.) and we stood bemusedly in the West Orchards shopping centre wondering how a shop named “Hallowe’en” can have a business model that works. Either they’re in for a lean 11 months, or, I’d more readily assume they’ll be changing their name to “Christmas,” then trying to figure out the choice for the next holiday to financially rape. I notice that Hallowe’en started 2-3 days early this year, and given how Christmas started sometime this month as well, it occurs to me that the length of your average holiday has ballooned in duration to roughly 300% of its original. With this in mind, I want my birthday next year to encompass August 30th-September 2nd inclusive. I will make you all advent calendars to remind you of the days from the 30th leading to the 2nd, and in return you have to give me 5 traditional geese-a-laying or something, until my actual birthday when you give me my actual presents. Don’t worry about remembering all this though, there’ll be a reminder closer to the time.

I think that just about wraps up October. I got my birthday Zim DVD off Rob, which means I can finally put September to rest as well. If you have any further questions about the previous time period, please leave them with this entry and I’ll get back to you.

(Hey, I didn’t even mention the clocks going back, which is usually a source of great mirth for me. Let’s just say that I’m glad we’re back to GMT. I reason that at some point in the past it became easier, economically and environmentally, for everyone to put their clocks to BST and back rather than for farmers to all get up an hour earlier/later at the appropriate juncture. For this to be the case, there would need to have been more farmers than people. Dwell on that for a while and come to your own conclusions.)

…perhaps too long, since I did a useless test, here’s one I’ve done on the basis that I actually found the questions quite amusing. Knock yourselves out.

Which File Extension are You?

Jesus christ. Even I care about John Peel dying. I’m usually unmoved by the deaths of even my most favourite celebrities. Princess Diana? Didn’t give a shit. Christopher Reeves? Don’t make me laugh. John Peel, though… now there’s a reason to stop and think. Until today I would’ve claimed that John Peel was immune to conventional weapons, he’s been around so long that you’d think he had something keeping him going. Turns out that a heart attack does the job just fine. I remember John Peel fell into a ditch at a recent Glastonbury, and it evoked strange emotions. Yes, Ha Ha, John Peel fell over in the dark and had to go on TV covered in dirt, but also something slightly sadder, like Uh-oh, John Peel’s getting old…

I don’t listen to a lot of radio, and thus I’d never heard “Home Truths” but I’ve been reading stuff from Peel in the “Grumpy Old Men” book Nikki’s mum bought me, and it somehow supports the argument that even if you’re not a radio-listener, Peel has affected you. It’s arguable whether I’d be such a Pixies fan at this point without his championing them in the past. I’m sure everyone’s listened to his show at some point or another and been bemused by the thought of a 60 year old enjoying, let alone merely playing indie rock, acid trance and german hardcore back to back, but he did it, and there’s really one less reason to listen to the radio without him. I don’t believe Teenage Kicks will ever get this much airplay again.

God, why? Why couldn’t it have been Zane Lowe?

Ugh. I might be getting better at Interviews, but I’m not getting any better at waiting to find out if I’ve got the job or not. It feels like I’ve spent a whole day killing time until the company contacts me in some way to let me know if I’ve got it or not. I’ve got to find out one way or the other by Thursday, so my plan is to phone them wednesday afternoon and see what’s up. If I get this job, I won’t have to go and do the milward-brown thing, which, while being quite a nice opportunity, isn’t really the direction I was hoping to take career-wise. In this case at least, it’s far worse to not know if I’ve got the job or not than to know I’ve not got it. Maybe I’ll find out tomorrow.

So. My interview.

It seemed to go quite well. As I said, my take it may be wildly out fo step with the standards set by everyone else, but I didn’t make any huge mistakes so at the very least, I can be confident I did the best I could. I learnt quite a bit about it in the interview and there’s nothing in it that I can’t already do, and certainly it would allow me to improve my existing skills.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I found myself awake at a surprisingly early hour, especially for me. I had a reasonable night’s sleep, but the hard part was dragging my sorry rear out of bed. I set three alarms, but I only needed one. The first thing to do was get dressed. Mum bought me a suit for interviews when I pointed out that I didn’t have one, nor did I have the money for one. I’m not really a suit person. More of a jeans and t-shirt person. That’s quite obviously noticeable by the fact I can list the entirety of the times I’ve worn a shirt this year on one hand - Relly and Paul’s Wedding, Interview at SPG, Graduation, Interview this week. I mean, I’d wear smart stuff if the situation warranted it, but given the choice? I’ll take the denim/chest logo route every time. Still, I have to admit the suit had the desired effect of making me look almost like a professional. Unfortunately, the long hair probably made me look like a slacker/wannabe web developer attempting to appear professional, thus negating the effect. At first, I thought the suit was so cheap it had fake pockets, but Ian later claimed that it’s standard practise to have to cut suit pockets open yourself. Some life lessons really pass you by.

I walked up to the tube stop and then was unsurprised to discover that I’d be standing most of the journey. I look forward to perhaps making that trip five times a week, but I’d hope in the future I’ve got a book I can take along. I got some odd looks, which concerned me because I couldn’t fathom a reason why. I could’ve been developing stigmata for all I know. I think it’s more that when you’re on a tube carriage there’s nowhere else to look than at other people, because you’re packed like cattle into every available space. I made the change at King’s Cross as if I’d been doing it all my life. I thought I was getting quite good at navigating the tube system, but then on my way back I got on a train to Uxbridge rather than Heathrow to save time, and missed the place I was intending to jump off and switch to a Heathrow train because I was deeply engrossed in an article from a discarded copy of Metro, about the failing educational system. Nice one, James.

When I got to Old Street, I was faced with a similar problem I had when I went for my last interview, and had to reconcile the map off the website with the train station I just walked out of. This time, I had zero problems and even arrived at the building early. It’s a large tower, with a huge marble-floored lobby, lots of chrome and various landscaping features, which was kind of intimidating because it looked like it cost some serious money. I’m used to hanging around University buildings which are mostly 90’s prefab decor with 70’s concrete block architecture, and look like they were paid for by the contents of the single, broken vending machine which resides in the lobby of each one. If I had imagined interviewing at a place like this a few months ago, I’d have probably been quite bemused by the prospect. I was picturing small offices above the local Woolworths, not office towers which cost equal to the GDP of Belgium to decorate.

So I made it to the location on time. I was collected by the interviewers and taken to a large room where I had the first part of the interview. The head of the systems development told me what the company did, and then one of the development team leaders asked me about my technical experience. I was incredibly surprised not to be answering the usual crop of non-questions like “What would you ask me if you were interviewing me for this place” and “What do you think is more important, synergy or dynamic solutions?” The questions were mainly technical and occasionally about my past experience. I spoke about the current big thing in web development (accessibility) and my personal favourite, W3C standards. I showed them some stuff I’d done, along with source code and used the online verifier to show that it was standards compliant, and then I cleared up my remaining questions about the role and company. They then left the room and gave me a 5 minute proofreading test, which I found quite easy, and I’d hope I’ve got decent marks on it. After the test was collected, I was told I’d done well in the first half of the interview, and that if i wanted, I could move on to the second half.

Obviously, I did want. I had the chance to come back another day, but I didn’t need it. I was definitely ready straight away. The second half of the interview consisted of about an hour’s worth of numerical and verbal reasoning tests. I’ve never done either of those in a formal situation before, but if nothing else I got the examples questions spot on, so I’d hope that bodes well for the completed test. I think I only got about halfway through the numerical one, but I don’t think it was expected to be completed, given the calculations required. I’m near certain I got all but one of my answers correct on the numerical test, so that should count (ha ha) for it. The verbal reasoning test was a little less clear cut, in those kind of assessments you can find yourself inferring information from the text, when you’re really supposed to just extract what’s there. I had time to run through most of the test again, and my answers all matched up the second time over, so while a perfect mark is unlikely, I’d hope it’s a high one.

Which concluded my interview, really. I left feeling that I’d done my best in the interview, doubly so because I felt I’d handled the unexpected tests well, and I hope that my performance was enough for them. I really need a job, and by christ, I really want one exactly like this, a foot in the door of web development. I’ve been extra-dilligent in applying for anything and everything recently, so if there’s any karma in the world, I’ll be rewarded. At this point, if I don’t get it I can at least look back and say that I did all that was possible.

In the afternoon, we went and told Adams that we didn’t owe them extra rent and they were receptive of the truth. Not like the bunch of crooks at Isis. In the evening we all played Delta Force, and then today Dad gave Isis a ring to see if he could sort them out, and Nikki came up for the weekend after Uni. We watched another episode of Joey, and it seems to have levelled out at “humourless, but inoffensive.” Slightly better than the last series of Friends, then.

The interview today seemed to go quite well. I’m quite tired so I’ll refrain from a full explanation of my day until tomorrow when I’m slightly better rested. Still, it looks like a good job and I felt pretty positive about the interview, but as ever, I’ve only got myself to compare to. The most challenging part of the whole day was getting up a couple of hours early to prepare and travel to the place. I could do it every day if I had to, but the problem was that today it was out of step with my current unemployed sleeping pattern. I was awake by the time I got into the city, but by god, I’m feeling the burn at the other end of the day. No point rambling on about it while I’m approaching incoherancy, though, it’ll be more interesting when I bring it up tomorrow.

The saga of Isis properties yet continues, as today I finally got someone to claim that yes, they are sending me the documents I need, though my original plan to have them distributed via facsimile machine were nixed when they told me their fax machine was “broken”. I’m not sure how, I think it’s probably what one might refer to as “operator error.” The stuff I’m waiting for should be sent by mail, allegedly in the post today. Calculating the distribution of post from Oxford to London involves some very complex mathematical processes which only 3 people on the planet are fully able to conduct, but using a crude lookup table method, and factoring in the probability that the documents weren’t posted today, and the decreasing likelihood they’ll be posted in subsequent days without additional phonecalls, I can safely say I’ll see them by the middle of next month, assuming they even still exist.

Today I began preparing for the job interview I have on Thursday. Loose preparations, that is, but I’ll be continuing them tomorrow. It seems like a similar position to the SPG one I applied for in August, though I’d like to think that now I’ve got a little more interviewing experience under my belt I might stand a better chance at getting it. Part of the problem, I’ve found, is that due to a seriously overcrowded IT job market (thanks, dot com boom) the jobs I can do are almost certainly being applied for by people who have a whole bunch more experience than I do, if not necessarily more technical skills, but also the willingness and necessity to work beneath their ability just to get a damn job. I’m working on a way to at least make it evident that I know what I’m doing despite the lack of employment in the field, but I admit, it’s quite likely going to be a hard sell. A most annoying prospect, really, since it’s exactly the kind of job I’m after, with a pretty excellent looking mix of location, work and salary. This weekend we calculated it’s going to cost, at a conservative minimum, £550 a month to live here. If I can get a job like this, I’ll be well covered, and I can get on with paying away some of my debts.

Still, I’ve also been applying, contingentally, to some slightly easier to get jobs. I’m not a fan of working retail, but at this point I’m more than ready to give it a stab until I can find a job I’m more likely to enjoy. I also checked out what it’s likely to involve to get some job seekers allowance, and rent/tax benefits, but I have a suspicion that the amount I get and the time it’s going to take may render it useless by the crunch point, that is, the point at which I run out of money and/or luck.

Speaking of luck, though, it seems Nikki’s not got work next week because of some strange ritual I have a distant memory of, called Half-Term. She’s probably coming up here on Friday after Uni, and staying until I go back to Leamington for the Milward Brown interview the following Thursday. Then the week after that we’ve got Placebo’s last live date until 2006, which is part four-year anniversary present from the begining of the month, part “Haven’t seen Placebo in ages and don’t want to miss this chance”

I haven’t done much blogging recently, though that’s with a good reason. Besides not having anything worth writing about, that is, unless you really want to hear how much money I’ve not got left, which I’m sure you don’t. The real reason for the lack of updates is because I’ve been back home this weekend, doing the long-distance relationship thing with Nikki. To be fair, it’s not a huge distance, certainly not as prohibitive as it could be, and so far we’ve seen each other 3 weekends out of 4, and we’ll probably see each other for the next few as well, dependsing on various plans aligning. Nikki might be up here for a (free) gig next weekend, the weekend after I’ll be doing one of my job interviews, and the weekend after that is the Placebo gig in Wembley, so that’s a guaranteed next 2 weekends in 3, with a possibility for all 3. Not ideal, but far better that it coudl’ve worked out.

While at home, I made sure to pick up my Calvin & Hobbes books. There’s really no excuse for not owning several, if not all of these. I have many fond memories of these books, and since I can remember it’s been the only cartoon strip worth reading since Garfield went horrendously crap. I also received a book I ordered many months ago, back when I had money to spend, which is the second of Jess Nevins’ League of Extraordinary Gentlemen annotations. The bok is definite proof that stuff available free on the internet can be made into a saleable property. The bulk of the book is available, for free, online, and yet it’s well worth the tenner to have it all printed out and on the shelf. At least, it is if you’re an utterly unashamed geek who enjoys reading books about other books. Which I do.

Well, enough anyway, I’m suffering from a severe defecit of material and I’ve pretty much covered the last 4 days solely with those two paragraphs. I could do a quick rant about how incredibly crap the traffic coming back to London was, but if you’re not a driver, you won’t be interested, and even if you are it’s debatable. Let’s just say I had the time to search out a snack from one of my bags, and eat it, and compose a text message in relative comfort, on what should’ve been a motorway travelling at 70mph. Not an unusual thing, but then I often expected traffic around 20:00 would be slightly more rarefied than that. I guess that actually covers the bulk of my points.

I do have to remind myself to start badmouthing the letting agency once we get our money back off them. I think it might be worth making an Annett-style googlebomb at them, so people can find out just how shite they turned out to be. I’ll leave it until they give us our fucking deposit back though, just in case.

Today it’s a case of two steps forward, one step back. Milward Brown sent me a response indicating that I could turn up for their interviews, two weeks from tomorrow (in Warwick..) and one of the companies I applied to the other day for web-related position got em in for an interview on Thursday, at 10:00. The rent got paid, despite Barclays’ best attempts to keep me from doing that, and I got rejected for a different job I applied for, but it’s at least a positive thing that I’m getting a response these days. The utterly brutal stonewalling I’ve been meeting with recently seems to be disappearing.

Of course, one way to save money is by cutting down the cost of shopping. Earlier this week we were given some codes for the sainbury’s online site which gave us £10 off an order, twice. With that in mind, we bought a bunch of shopping, estimated cost in stores: £20, actual cost: the £5 delivery charge only.

Nothing much has really been going on since I last updated. I mean, not for me. Ian had to move (temporarily, perhaps) to sleeping upstairs after the gas technician informed us that sleeping in the room he was in was illegal due to some vaguely described laws, but that’s about it. There was some impromtu repair work done on the house when Ian and Al knocked a bit of plaster out the wall taking some furniature upstairs, but all it involved was some plaster-style filler and one of those spreading trowel thingies.

Actually, I did go and get my overdraft increased a little, though it took an impressively long time, even given the usual standards. Most of the actual meeting took place in a room where time seemed to stand still, and I kind of got the impression that no-one had ever actually moved in there at all. However, I did eventually get served, and for now I’m financially stable, if not necessarily secure.

As ever, finding a job is seeming more and more like a totally futile endeavour. I’m using what’s more or less the last lot of money I have to pay the rent and despite a more agressive approach to job-hunting, I seem to be meeting with just as little success. HMV are always after people I suppose… I did get called up by one of the agencies I registered with in August, which was an incredible surprise because I always got the impression these people chucked anything they couldn’t use more or less immediately in the bin. However, after some conversation, it emerged that I basically didn’t have enough experience for the job. I probably could’ve told him that at the start of the conversation. Oh well.

There was an advert in Recruit megazine earlier for a job described as “Poultyperson” (that’s one word.) We’re not quite sure what it entails, but it’s 50-60 hours a week, and located, pun-tastically, in Peckham. I can’t imagine any way the job would be anything less than horrendous. The popular theories are that it’ll be either wringing chicken’s necks, or dressing up as a giant chicken to advertise food. It’s the vaguest job description I’ve come across since Ian directed me to a data entry advert which read simply: “Temps! URGENT! TEMP!” and a phone number. Job descriptions would be hilarious if it wasn’t for the simple fact that I have to deal with them on a daily basis at the moment.