Dealing with weird hobbies

I used to work in a relatively small workplace with what I now realise was a reasonably homogeneous workplace. As long as you could talk about the football you were generally okay – we all came from roughly the same place and the same background. Hell, three of us had history degrees. On one notable afternoon we discussed Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. We discussed minor character plot points. This was considered normal.

I now work in a significantly bigger workplace which is a bit of a surprise and has a lot of stuff I wasn't quite expecting. I was prepared for the fact there would be people from a wider variety of cultures, and I'm enjoying that. I'm not the only northerner but I'm the only recent one, so I quite enjoyed telling the sales team what the term 'reet' meant. (Translation: “Right” or in context “Alright,” so you might say in response to a query “Nah, I'm reet ta!” which is a sentence that really puzzles my Scottish inlaws.) People bring in food on national festivals, for example, so whilst I am getting fatter I am at least becoming more enlightened. All of that is good.

No, the real surprise is what a wide variety of people I work with and trying to find common ground. I am a fairly quiet geeky sort. I work in a geeky, male-dominated industry so I assumed that I would fit right in with a bit of Star Trek, but this doesn't appear to be the case thus far.

Firstly, I appear to have arrived in the middle of a baby boom. I am mildly childphobic, or at least in term of actually sprogging up myself, so to be constantly surrounded by people who are pregnant/have partners who are pregnant/be just back from maternity/paternity leave is a very bizarre experience. I'm fairly good at expressing interest in other people's kids. My cheery excuse of “I live in a one bedroom flat in Walthamstow!” means that I can put off the 'when are you going to have kids?' question for now, but I do idly wonder how I will deal with the same question in my thirties.

Also, other people's hobbies are really weird. I'm quite good at deflecting football questions, but I have no idea how to discuss one colleague's deep and abiding interest in Rolls Royces. That said, no one appears to share my passion for London restoration architecture – I got very excited about a Wren church near my work and everyone else was baffled.

Also, I would be posting more often but I must confess to being sort of constantly exhausted at the moment. I have lots of fascinating stuff to write about, but finding the time to do so is a little tricky. When you spend all day learning about classic cars (despite your personal inclinations of 'you're a nice guy, but I really don't care, please be quiet') I think the brain shuts down a little. 

Alas, no one in my work practises extreme ironing. I think.

Shock: you deserve to not hate your job

One of the really weird things about my new job is that I don't hate it.

Now, that might sound like boasting, but it's mostly given me so much-needed perspective about my old job, my first real 'graduate' job. I was there for three years, and it's very weird the awful, awful things you start to take as being both normal and entirely acceptable. It wasn't quite full on Stockholm Syndrome, but there was an element of pushing things to the back of my mind and pretending that they were a-okay.

You see – and I speak for a lot of graduates, I think, of the last five years or so – is that we have been made to feel quietly worthless. Not being NEETs, generally speaking being childless, having a public perception (whether true or not) that we have parents to fall back on and not having mortgages, etc, there was a sense that we were constantly at the back of the queue. We're all useless, with our silly degrees and no hard experience, expecting to walk into an amazing job. We should be grateful for any kind of paid employment we should have because we deserve no better.

Which has led to some employers, frankly, taking the piss.

I'm not going to go too far into details, mostly because my old employer is litigation-happy and liable to withhold references, but basically I put up with a long list of crap. I casually mentioned in my newest job that there was CCTV at my old work, which took in our computers and the boss would occasionally watch it on his laptop at home if he was running late. Stunned horror met this statement. I... sort of didn't realise that wasn't normal? There's CCTV in many workplaces, I realise that, but in an office was that strictly necessary?

That's just one example, and a rather specific and non-graduate one at that. The point is that I was willing to put up with everything, despite the fact that I was deeply unhappy and often fantasised about somehow crashing my car in a non-fatal way in order to miss work that day.

Graduates, you will have to put up with some crap in your working lives. My last job had some good things about it, and got me some much-needed office experience, but in the end I was too scared by the economy to move on.

Let's get some things straight: my new job isn't perfect by a long stretch. New people are scary, and these are a lot of new people in a very technical field that I mostly don't understand yet. Some of the work is a bit monotonous. The Tube is still a challenge most day, and the day is a significantly longer one. I don't look good in proper office clothes, either. But I don't wake up unhappy, and I've remembered that actually I am a rather intelligent human being, I have worked hard, and I deserve a job where I can proudly say: “I've earned this.”

Graduates: you will almost certainly have to put up with crappy jobs, but don't stay with them forever because you think you should, because you think you're no better, because you're scared. My new job is not a perfect job, but it's a damn sight better and life feels like a better place.

Most of the above is not particularly enthralling blog material, which is why it's been a few weeks to put together. However, I think I may be getting some more material together soon, and you can always rely on the government to say some face-gnawingly stupid things before too long. So there's something to look forward to.

Blatent self-promotion

So, I wrote something for a friend, and lo, for he has published it on his superior Fight! Fight! Fight! blog, designed to pitch the greatest against the great in increasingly unlikely scenario.

When I say 'wrote' I mostly mean that I provided nerdy canonical facts and Andrew made them be actually funny, but here, it's worth a read.

Fight! Fight! Fight! 11

(You don't get to find out who is fighting whom except by clicking the link. Yeah, I'm teasing you. Hint, though: it's topical!)

New job

When I left university, I assumed that I would have a job in a busy city, striding through crowds wearing a business suit and clutching a Starbucks on the way to an important meeting type thing. This rather failed to materialise. My first job post university was working in a trendy-yet-casual clothes shop so I used to sit amongst the commuters in jeans and a hoodie, and nip for a MacDonalds breakfast when I was trying to bribe some of the younger members of staff. (Management tip of the day for you, there.)

Anyway. Now, to my amazement, I am in fact battling through business crowds whilst wearing a smart suit. I'm not holding Starbucks, because I dislike coffee and Starbucks is just as evil as we always suspected. My first day, as I proudly strode through (and by 'strode' I mean battled in a sort of nervous, 'oh god I'm so short' way) the crowd, I felt sort of proud.

Then I realised that I was totally hopeless at this.

The reason there's been such a long hiatus is because 'Disorientated Graduate' is something that came about when I used to be able to walk to work, and I wondered at what point in my university life it came about I was only suited to work in an office on a farm in the arse end of nowhere. So yelling in an overjoyed way 'LOOK! I HAVE A JOB I DON'T ACTUALLY LOATHE!' was a little cruel to my readers, all three of you.

Yet the last fortnight has proven to me that university has failed to get me used to just about anything. I have stopped internally screaming on the Tube (at one point, even emitting a faint squeak when I realised that yes, yet more people really were going to join our train, let's talk about the Circle line at some point in the future), but gosh, this is a new world. I have no idea how to behave, not really.

One thing I have learnt, though: big offices are <i>weird</i>. More anon.

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.