Dreadful Nonsense

I almost nearly lost my temper just now. This date should go down in history as the date where Shazzle almost actually spoke her mind for once. That truly never happens.

This job interviewing malarky is really starting to grind me down. It's bad enough having to talk to recruitment agents, or The Handmaids Of The Devil as they are also known, but to also have to talk to HR people in offices while wearing office clothes and proper shoes, and smiling like you're a normal person who wants to work in an office is quite another. I'm a remarkably bad liar, and telling people why I left previous jobs takes a certain amount of fabrication, because answering the question "And why did you leave that firm?" with the reply "My boss was a big, bitter bitch and I hated her guts" isn't going to get you anywhere. Same goes for "I was bored", "The other secretaries annoyed me", "I had too much work to do" and "I'd started hiding filing so that I didn't have to do it, and was afraid I'd get caught" (all true stories).

Today I had an interview scheduled for 2.30pm. At 3.05pm they still hadn't moved me from reception where I'd already read The Irish Times and The Irish Independent cover to cover (missing children, murdered girls, tsunamis are bad mmmkay?) and I was considering walking out and not even bothering to go through the motions of the interview. When they finally deigned to see me, and I found out what the job was, I really wanted to scream - it ticked the boxes of every single thing I hate in a job: working exclusively for one woman, working for the most senior partner, doing company admin, working in conveyancing, doing unpaid overtime, "mucking in as a team player", sitting in an open planned room with all the other secretaries... No to all of the above.

The worst thing was, when I'd talked to the recruitment agent last week who put me forward for this job, I'd been brutally honest with him about what I will and won't do in a job. Thanks to my back, the first thing I won't do is be a secretary, because that involves being tied to a desk, and I can't do that no more. I would consider a receptionist role, because as a receptionist you can do your work just as well standing up as you can sitting down. You can't type dictation off a tape standing up. Believe me, I've tried.

So I almost had a temper tantrum down the phone when the smug idiot rang me for feedback. But I didn't. I politely swallowed it down and told him that the job just wasn't for me. Doing his best Jerry Springer impression he told me he was "confused" about what he should be putting me forward for. I understand his dilemma. I laid it all out in black and white in front of him last week, but of course I'm a lady, and ladies don't know what is best for them. They should be leaving it to the men-folk to decide what is best for them, and here I was, a lady, expressing a vested interest in her own life and daring to question what he, the man, was suggesting.

If he'd been able to pat me on the ass as I left the room, it really would have completed the moment.

To cheer us all up on this bleak afternoon, please find below a photograph of Little Sister Edel being attacked by two jack russels. Sorry about the slightly blurred quality, I was laughing so hard I nearly peed myself.

This entry was posted on 10 January 2005 at 4:43 pm. 0 comments

Dreadful Nonsense

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