Moving house (a hiatus)

A query: what, exactly, does everyone else do with their old university work? I have carried it, in the manner of a demanted pack rat, around several houses now and it's currently sat in shiny new boxes (yes, plural) waiting to be moved to the new house tomorrow. Mr DG has managed to get everything into two folders.

I have no idea if this is weird. From one perspective, my mum still has all her college work in boxes in the attic. From another perspective, she actually has an attic, a house she owns, and no intention to move house until she leaves this one in a wooden box. (Her words, not mine.) My university folders are a thing of beauty, preceding my love of filing in a professional manner. I don't want to get rid of them!

Anyway, whilst you all ponder these issues (tell me what you do in the comments!) this is a wee hiatus announcement. Tomorrow, I am moving to London. Today, I am mostly going to and from the recycling centre (I can get rid of, you know, other stuff, I just have a block on uni stuff), packing up the kitchen and trying not to freak out. I'm only writing this post as part of my magnificent ability to procrastinate. After moving, there will be no internet for about a week or so, resulting in some quietness from me.

A bit of consideration, people

As we all probably know, it's currently an employers market when it comes to jobs. I was staying in London with a family friend for a set of interviews, and he wondered if they still reimbursed you for travelling to interviews. I laughed uproariously. I do dimly remember a time, back just before I graduated, when job applications had dire messages telling you that they couldn't reimburse for travel. So clearly, it used to happen. Not any more.

I have become used to not having results from job applications. It's got to the point where getting a rejection letter is actually rather enjoyable, because at least SOMEONE has read the application.

You know what's really bloody rude though? When you've been for an interview and they still don't get in contact with you. One interview I went to – three weeks ago! - told me I'd hear back within 24 hours. After a week, I sent a polite e-mail enquiring about when I might hear a response. At the start of the next week, they told me. It is only today that they've rejected me. And not just a rejection, oh no. They told me that they'd 'decided not to recruit for the role'. So you've dragged me down to London and now you've decided the job doesn't exist? Are you fucking KIDDING me?

There's a bright side to all this, and it's that I've actually been offered a job. Yeehaw! They also didn't get back to me within the predicted timeframe, but I did get a message saying there would be a delay. It takes two minutes to send an e-mail like that, employers. It's not hard. The job I've got is the one I wanted more than the rest by quite a large margin, but I needed work for my move to London.

There is also the very real possibilities of what happens if you wait a long time to let someone know the results. I am, it must be said, enjoying telling people that since my interview I have interviewed for, been offered and accepted another job.

One of the elements of my new job? Sending feedback to candidates who have interviewed for the company, successful or otherwise. Having this element of respect for people who don't even work for the company is a very good sign, in my eyes. Also, no poverty for Christmas. Wheeee!

Just... have some respect, employers. Someone has taken the time to apply to your company, travel to the interview, iron the interview suit, go through the preparation and the nerves. Even if they're no good, it takes a tiny amount of time to let people know how they've got on. We may be the faceless mass of desperate people to you, but one day you might be the same boat. Think about it.

Police Commissioner Elections: sadly free of costumed vigilantes

As you're probably not aware, the Police Commissioner elections are taking place this Thursday. I know, I know, it's been a real hotbed of political discussion over these elections and I'm sure you're all desperate to cast your vote.

After some discussion and thought, I have decided that I will vote for one of these options:

1. Anyone by the name of 'Gordon'.

1a. I will also accept anyone campaigning under a slogan of “Tough on costumed super-villains, tough on the causes of costumed super-villainy.”

2. Anyone who promises to give all of their salary to a police widows charity and to not do any work, instead letting the police do their work without any bullshit needless political stuff.

Unfortunately, I can't find any candidates who fulfil any of the above criteria. The UKIP lady in our area, Merseyside, looks a bit like Gary Oldman but that's as close as I can get.

Not actually the UKIP candidate for Merseyside Police Commissioner. Maybe.

 So now I'm torn between voting Labour in an attempt to keep out the UKIP/English Democrat lot, or spoiling my ballot paper. I'm rather tempted to go for the latter. I'm going to note, no matter what happens, because if I think about not voting I hear my ancestors screaming at me. So like many people, I'm now mostly trying to think of the funniest way to spoil my ballot paper, mostly via trying to think of good quotes from The Thick of It.

I do genuinely disagree with these elections, because we don't need Police Commissioners. I have yet to hear a convincing reason why we should, or frankly any reasons whatsoever. I've heard nothing from any candidates, or from the government explaining this new role, or any reason why we're wasting million of pounds on an election we don't need and can't afford.

I'm thinking 'FUCKING OMNISHAMBLES' wouldn't be a bad start.

Interview preparation, and possibly how not to do it

Job interviews are HARD. I go in intending to have the self confidence and general awesomeness of this:

What actually happens is this:

The only bright side to my current round of interviews is that my current employer knows they're happening, which means at least I don't have to come up with an increasingly large roster of dead relatives and hospital appointments. This is about the only good side.

I haven't done any interviews for a long while, and I haven't done a successful interview for even longer, so to say I'm out of practice would be an understatement. Before we even get to the interview itself, there's all the stuff around it. In my case, this has involved buying an interview suit that actually fits, wearing in a new pair of shoes, and remembering where I had put all of my see-through piercing gauges. (I am aware I am getting too old to be as heavily pierced as I am, but there we go.) This is more difficult than I remembered, although that said I've never been very good at shopping.

After that, there's the travel arrangements. I'm quite good at negotiating my way around public transport systems – if you can work out Salzburg, you can do anything – but getting to London in time for an interview without re-mortgaging your house is a difficult task. I don't even have a house to re-mortgage. That's just depressing. Plus, you have to find the interview location itself. One recent interview gave me a map to their office from the train station. Like a fool, I trusted it, which led to me wandering in circles around a suburban Surrey town for forty five minutes last week. NEVER AGAIN.

Then you have to prepare for the interview. Now, there's a fair amount of research you can do using the internet and a bit of nous, but there are a great deal of unknowns. You have to put together a question to ask,which is nigh on impossible, and try to remember your own work history and how it links in with the company and the job description. Chances are your application was some time in the distant past, so you also have to remember the spin you put on it as well.

I haven't heard anything back from any of the interviews I've had thus far, so I have no idea just how badly I crashed and burned in any of them, or if indeed the preparation listed above was any use. All the preparation in the world doesn't make a damn difference, because you can't control how well you do or do not get on with someone. Or indeed, my tendency to babble a little. 

I have another interview next week too, hence the fact I'm typing this rather than actually doing said preparation. Fingers crossed at least one of them comes back with something positive, and I can get on with everything else to do with moving across the whole country, i.e. freaking out about the sheer amount of stuff we own and making some fairly random donations to the various charity shops in my local area.

Job hunting part the first

So, since I'm job hunting in common with many millions of people – a big chunk of whom are graduates – I feel it's worthwhile using these experiences to blog about. In job seeking terms, this is maximising the potential of a situation to improve myself as a person.

The first thing I'm going to talk about is how wonderfully kind people are. Yeah, that's a surprise, isn't it? Looking for work is HARD, and it's easy to focus on the sensation that you and your multiple applications are basically pissing in the wind, with the only responses being cheery automated messages thanking you for your application and then nothing but deadly silence.

The thing is, though, friends and family are wonderfully kind and well-meaning. I've only been looking for work for three weeks, and I've lost count of the amount of e-mails sending over job openings, people letting me know about agencies that have worked for them, and even putting good words in for me with their workplaces. It's made me remember that the world isn't full of horrible people. There is an element of 'all in this together', storing up good karma. The job market is a horrible and uncertain place, and it feels like everyone has experienced this feeling of pissing into the wind.

I tell you what though, applying for jobs via nepotism is just weird. The jobs that friends send over in their organisations are jobs that I actually want to do and feel capable of doing. So I apply to them, but then there's that weird moment where you think – do I mention the friend or not? Sometimes you have to, as part of the application form, but other times it's weird, wondering if its worth name-dropping in the application form. Then there's the terrifying moment when you ponder if your application is wrong for the job, and if you have name-dropped the member of staff will you embarrass them?

OH GOD THE TENSION.

The thing is, I'm still glad that everyone is sending over the job openings. I have no idea if they will lead to anything, but more applications the merrier. I'm being vague because if any future employers are reading this I don't want to give anything away, but one minor bit of nepotism has got me an interview which may or may not lead to a job. I've also had some leads in terms of things that aren't nepotism, so we'll just have to see what happens.

Still, it's an interesting process, and one I can look on with some objectivity as obviously I'm still in my current job so I'm not scrabbling for money, just yet. It's an interesting process. We'll see how it continues, and I will keep on squirrelling blog posts away in an attempt not to wail too loudly about how much I seem to suck at telephone interviews.

London! Yay?

So, after years in a small town in the North of England, I am taking the well worn graduate path and moving down to London.

I would like to pretend this is because I have a shiny new job, but actually it's because my husband has a shiny new job and I am so ready for a change. When I was a student, I sort of assumed I'd end up moving to a large city, drinking lattes and using public transport. I ended back up in a small town I grew up in, managing to move all of ten miles down the road to the coast 18 months ago to a marginally larger town. I'll admit, there's a stonking pub here but that's about it.

As such, I am wildly excited. We're moving towards the end of next month. I remain excited until you ask me the following questions:

1. Where are you going to live?

2. What are you going to do for a living?

3. How do you plan to move that monstrosity you call a sofa down the stairs, anyway?

Then I sort of crumble and have to try to resist the urge to have a little cry.

Now, we are sort of coping with part 1 via going flat hunting at the weekend, and part 3 has been solved with the grim resolve of spending a large amount of money on a moving firm. I am proud of our large amount of mismatching but sturdy furniture, and I simply can't face going furniture shopping in the near future. Logically, the best thing to do is schlep it all down to London, and to prevent Mr DG and I divorcing with less than a year under our belt we may as well avoid the arguments that our mutual attempts to move furniture cause.

Part 2 is one filled with fear and horror and a grim sense of denial. Do I have a job lined up yet? No. Do I have a plan? Only if wildly flailing counts.

Still, I suppose it's more relevant to a graduate blog as we discuss my wild scrabbles through the world of jub hunting. I'm still in my current job at the moment, but desperately trying to persuade employers that I am really very good at administration and should be taken on for the specialist administration roles I'm applying for. OR EVEN A WRITING JOB TO ANYONE READING THIS. Yes, I actually do enjoy administration work, or to be precise I rather prefer getting paid and administration is the quickest way to do it. Quietly I hope I'm going to use this move to find paid employment writing stuff – are you reading this, employers? I can create content for PRETTY MUCH ANYTHING, you should see my portfolio, ASK TO SEE MY PORTFOLIO PLEASE?! However, I enjoy eating and paying rent more than I want to be a starving artist, so now it's a desperate scrabble for a job.

Still, a small and dirty part of me thinks that at least this will be stonking blogging material. Between the job hunt and the move and the new place, I am set up for MONTHS to come, before we even get to the whole bitter Northerner issue.

Plus, bonus Kermit gif.

Down with the patriarchy. Please?

The news this week has made me want to weep. As allegations about Jimmy Savile – and now, some of his colleagues – have come out in a terrifyingly long list, Justin Lee Collins has been found guilty of harassment of his ex-girlfriend, a case which has also contained some bizarre and plain nasty details. In Pakistan, the Taliban have shot 14 year old Malala Yousafzai for speaking out about women's rights.

These three cases are on the outside very different. Sexual perversion, domestic violence and attempted murder are, legally speaking, three entirely different crimes. Make no mistake, though – this is the week that the patriarchy made itself thoroughly felt on the headlines. It makes me feel a bit sick, to be honest.

Before you all start protesting that these are radically different crimes, allow me to assure you that they have one thing in common. That thing is the need to have power over women, to keep them in their place, to use violence and coercion to prove that power. Jimmy Savile allegedly chose teenage girls, the kind who would be coming into the awkward stage of adulthood but still be vulnerable. Justin Lee Collins psychologically and physically abused an ex-alcoholic who by her own admission was in a vulnerable place. The Taliban shot a girl on a bus, on her way to school.

All of the women involved in this will forever bear scars, some more literal than others, and I sincerely wish for the recovery of Malala, because she is the kind of young women we need more of. All of these women have suffered because men – and frankly, ones that sound insecure, unable to deal with strong and confident women in any way other than violence – have decided that men deserve power, that women are inferior and there to be used.

The patriarchy isn't a very trendy word. Suzanne Moore has a great piece in the Guardian about it today, actually. The concept is quite tricky to explain without sounding too strident, although on a week like this one I'll sound as damned strident as I please. Basically, though, the majority of the world lives under the rule of men. There are rules, invisible rules, designed to protect the ruling men. These rules damage men too, have no doubt about it, but the patriarchy is the thing that judges women for getting old and praising men for looking 'distinguished'. The patriarchy is the glass ceiling. The patriarchy is the anti-choice movement. The patriarchy says you get raped because you were drunk, or in a short skirt, rather than because you happened to be in the path of a rapist. The patriarchy exists where we let it exist, and it leads to men like Justin Lee Collins, insecure in their control.

It has not been a great week, in short, for happy feminist thoughts. And before anyone talks about Julia Gillard's speech, just stop a moment and think about how depressing it was the leader of a country had to stand up and say any such thing in the first place. It's a great speech, and I love the passion behind it, but my God, I wish we didn't live in a world where such a speech has to be made in the first.

Stop and think about your actions this week, and think about the patriarchy too. The next time you pass something off as 'not really mattering', like a Pimps and Hoes fancy dress night, or the Daily Mail tutting about Lady Gaga's 'shocking weight gain', think of the bigger picture. Fight it, if you can, because the other side of the coin may be uglier than you ever dared imagine.