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Helloooooooooooooooo world! Well it's been an interesting few weeks! I didn't get the Barclays job (no biggy, I didn't think I would!) and now I haven't got the NHS job! So I'm out of a job in mid-June! Good times.... So now I'm looking for roles in the hope something does come up! In my heart of hearts, I know nothing will. It's not through want of trying, it's just down to 3 factors:
1) I do not have the CIPD, the professional qualification I need!
2) I do not have proper permanent HR experience, because no one has taken me on perm since April 2007!!!
3) I'm working the NHS. If it were any other industry, I would be snapped up. And quite rightly too, working for the administration in places like this is a death knell on most CVs!
I'm not bitter about it, I'm not sad. I quite expected it, so now I'm trying to come up with a game plan to get me sorted. It's based on the expectations that even if I apply for jobs every day for the next 3/4 months, I'll still end up with, at most, one interview and probably won't get it as someone with more industry/HR/qualifications experience will get it!
So new plan!
1) Get CIPD by studying full time starting September
2) Volunteer (at least attempt to) once or twice a week at another company during this time to gain experience to supplemment the knowledge!
3) Work part time or enough hours to pay for my reduced rent/beer money/food/credit card. I still haven't paid that bitch of a card off because of this knack of jobs ending just as I'm breaking into the debt and then having to spend on them again to feed myself whilst looking for a job. Bloody vicious circles!
So yes... The paying of the course fees is going to be a tricky one. By doing it full time over one year will cost me £4400, which I don't have... So I'm going to have to take out quite a large loan. I'm thinking if they loan me for the course fees, the ovedraft, the credit card and 6 months rent, I can put money aside in my savings account from other job to pay off a chunk of that loan when it comes to next summer. I will be talking to Mr. Barclays' man within the next week!
So I'm taking control of my life somewhat and having to make some major sacrifices but it will be 9 months of intense physical and mental pain, but I think it'll be worth it!
Hopefully, I'll be able to network too and get some contacts to make inroads into this bloody profession too! If anyone knows of any companies who have taken on volunteers before, can you let me know. I wouldn't mind something in the media industry as it might fit my personality better than the Financial Services... I don't know, I just want a job!
the weird thing is I'm feeling quite calm about this. maybe it's because this is the 4th time my contract has ended without me finding another role...
Never mind! It would've been a fab opportunity but the two people ahead of me had Financial Services experience!
Moving onwards and further down a career in the NHS where I'll stagnate and become useless... god i need out!
So I'm trying to gear myself up to do the work and then move on!
Still nothing back from the second interview... I'm hopeful but I think they're waiting on the other candidate I'm up against before making a decision... So not overly optimistic but nonetheless, I could still be working in shiny town!
Almost out of the busy quarter! Thank the lord! I've spent way too much money and it finishes off with my cousin's wedding and I can go back to enjoying my life and having some fun!
Life is simple and not at all complicated at the moment, long may it continue!
Is one step closer to you,
There'll be no more working in Bermondsey,
And I'll be walking each step drinking all around you...
Yes yes, I know it's a crappy parody, but passed the first interview, onto the team interview for the second now!
This one's the tricky one, it's the interview to make sure the 5 or 6 people I see from the HR team I'll be working in do not find me completely obnoxious or even too much of a kiss arse! We'll see!
But yes, another step closer to working in the Wharf, full of hot young city boys (trust me, I saw most of them in the pub!) and all there for the taking! I'm getting so close now that I'm not going to mess this up!
I got to the interview stage!
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
I'm so hyper! And bouncy but can't tell anyone at all in the office!
My... LORD!!!!
It's been an... interesting week to say the least!
I've had the pleasure of being put forward for a role I wanted with Barclays Capital about 2 weeks ago. I think, GREAT!! I knew nothing would come of it as I need Financial Services experience, but what the hell, put me forward. the reasoning behind it was:
a) It's the job I SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO want
b) It's the location I want
c) It's the company I want!
It comes to tuesday evening, I check my email and lo and behold, they say want to take me forward on the interview process! I'm shocked to say the least! Really, really... AM!!! So Wednesday evening (yesterday, I think...) I'm in Barclays Capital's headquarters (not the big blue building in Canary Wharf, the skyscraper next to it!) and go in for stage one... THE TEST...
It is explained to me that the test I am about to partake in is done by all analysts coming in at this level.
Hold up, but I'm coming in as an HR Admin guy, who says anything about an analyst?! The test is excrutiating... 7 minutes and 60 questions to answer! It's basically matching one sequence of numbers and letters to a selection of four on the other page, but it is surprisingly tricky!
So I did that, fried my brain and now waiting on the answer... I've just checked my phone and there's a voicemail...
I'll update in due course! I know the pass rate was very high and I don't want to fail, but I'm realistic enough to think that something like this is a hard thing to break into. If I make it, great, if I don't, I'll be fine!
Other stuff is boring, I'm going to check my voicemail!
Hopefully this will work...
If not.. Look at the Beyonce piss take on my Facebook profile. Best 5 minutes of laughing ever after three pints!
Life is going ok... Nothing to complain about. The paperwork for this role I'm doing to go permanent has been done so the ads will go out soon so I'm praying that something will come along that isn't this. Yes if offered the job I will take it for the sheer reason that I'd be stupid not to, but it's SOOOOOOOOOOOO BORING HERE!!!!
Oh well!
Moving onwards and upwards, plenty of weddings and birthdays and Easter to be getting on with to take my mind off this place! :D
Usually this would be a happy day but I'm just not feeling it! I'm off for dinner with some school friends. It's not that I don't want to go, it's just that for this particular friend, she chose this AMAZING restaurant down Covent Garden. I was really excited! Then true to form, she changes her mind and wants to go to Pizza Express... I've known this girl for 15 years now and we have ALWAYS gone to Pizza Express. All because someone can't afford a set menu price of £25 with drinks.
This particular someone pisses money away on dog accessories and lives with his parents rent free but still can't afford an extra ten pounds on his girlfriend's birthday...
Rawwwwwr!
Work news, nothing really. I'm almost getting a kick out of going around here and doing other people's work to save their own behind... Potential law suit because some stupid mare (who worked in this department and gave me what could be considered the WORST handover in the history of man!) won't follow temp booking procedure when we have established Service Agreements...
Never mind! All will be well!
I'm still around and still alive... Kinda!
I've had lots of distractions in my quest to become thin... Mainly in the form of the special edition flavour Walker's Crisps (Goooooooooooo Cajun Squirrel!)
But meh, my body is going down the right direction now. My tight trousers do not feel so tight anymore, which is a result.
My job is going permanent here which is a bonus. It's on less money (because the NHS is crap like that) and also the student loan deductions will come back out so it's going to be... Interesting... Especially if I'm not out of the credit card by June which is the plan. How else am I going to pay for my tuition fees starting in September?!
Oh the joys of money and working for the crap public sector! So inefficient, so rubbish, yet the only option for me to develop as a professional... Could this end in tears?! ME thinks so!
Scary scary scary! I've decided this on three factors:
1) I miss being a Student
2) I'm done with the self-pity, it's more than likely I'm not going to get a permanent job unless I can get out there and study and do things myself. Things do not get given to you, you have to take them.
3) The price of London Met's course wasn't so bad!
So with those three in mind, I'm taking the plunge! The forms get handed in today and then I find out if I can enroll next week or in September. If I have to enroll in September then I'm applying to do the course full time to get it done quicker (will also have more money to play with a less loan to take out!)
I will then also be able to start applying for jobs that require this knowledge and skill base! Opening my options/paylevels/industries and allowing to resume my course of ruling the world by 40! :D
There's also the crippling work load that will be required and also the whole work/life/study balance thing! I'm sure I won't go too crazy. I'm taking the PGDip instead of the full Masters as I'm well out of practice studying and a Masters might be a bit too full on and something I can do after the course if I need to!
So a mixture of fear a trepidation! Normal business for Dave has been resumed!
2008 has been a bit of a non-event for me. I have been in a continual level of high stress since February (mostly because of the reasons written in earlier posts) but to summarise!
1. Debt levels haven't really gone down, but they haven't gone up! Well actually they have gone down but not to the level they should be mainly because of other job-related reasons, but I've managed to put things on a keel where I'm in control with it, which is the first time this has actually happened so small baby steps! My student overdraft is also coming down very nicely! So instead of my debt free date being February, it's going to be more like May but that's ok!
2. Jobs: Well, this has been the bane of my life! At the tunr of last year, I was looking forward to going on an expenses paid trip to New york, I was working well and I was having fun with a great group of people! Then it turned sour, my line manager didn't put in the work required to get jobs in. Candidates were in short supply and so he took back all the roles he liked and gave me the short straw, I also didn't like his way of thinking as a lad's lad. When you're talking to a guy in his late thirties with two babies who only recently gotten married and seeing him dance like a prat with young girls in a club and you lose respect for the guy. I suspected an affair which has been subsequently been confirmed so I'm glad I'm away from him. the same goes for the directors in the company who all seem to forget about the sanctity of marriage. However, I wish I went into a different area and learnt a new way of recruiting in a different department and then moved into HR or looked for a job within the first weeks of January. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and whilst I was lazy, I was also reckless in that I could've found a job and performed better when the candidate market was picking up through Janaury and February and possibly even rebuilt the business relationship, but we shall never know!
So then moving on from Goodman Masson, it goes from bad to worse! One contract at the NHS where nothing worked, I come in, whirl around and do work and catch up backlogs and STILL they didn't like me. I got bored and fed up with them and so I left as early as I could.
Worked as an HR administrator for another public sector organisation as the recruitment market for my level had died on it's feet. Then got the job at Saudi Aramco. It was good, I hate my manager and the line manager but I loved the role and the travelling and the meeting of new candidates to get in!
However that went sour for reasons I still do not know. I was jobless for a month and never have I been so stressed or worried for my future, debt goes up and thus all the good stuff I've done to budget myself goes out of the window.
And here I am, working another contract, desperate to go back into Financial Services or Industry & Commerce and have a pemanent job where I can bond with people I work with instead of being a contractor who could go at any minute, or someone who's paid by the hour so can't afford to take holidays off. This is my main resolution and this will be my main aim for the first 6 weeks of the year.
3. House: I like it, the docklands lifestyle is definitely for me. I seemed to have mellowed a bit and the housemates now know that I like things to be clean (read immaculate) so there's a meeting in the middle now. But I feel like I've had enough of living there and want a new place to go explore... We'll see how that pans out then!
4. Social life. The one thing that is dependent on everything else above working out! I miss going boogying and miss the laughs I had and everything with it. I'm a social creature and make no apologies about it. So hopefully, once I have a job sorted and settled, I can join a jazz band and pick up my sax again, meet friends, reunite with old ones and get back on to a keel where I feel I can go out to a pub and see them without having to organise a houseparty.
5. Holidays. I know people are in worse off positions and probably will baulk at this but I haven't had a proper holiday since 2006 when I graduated. I took off the odd day at Goodman Masson and also had a week's sick off but that was it. Since I've been contracting, the gaps between jobs has been job hunting and worrying about money and worrying about where money is going to come from. I want to be in a position where I can take holidays without losing money and relax!
So to conclude, I need to become debt free, find a permanent job and get a social life all in the first quarter of this year, the go on holiday, a long... hot... holiday... I think it's do-able, just needs a lot of luck, drive determination and then I can forget about 2008 and focus on the future!
I was off sick on Monday and the work piled up. I came in yesterday and mooched around and did the bare minimum, by my own standards this was well off but I was still shivering and wanted to go to bed!
Come in today operating at 90% and suddenly realise all the work I need to do is urgent and of GREAT IMPORTANCE (*cue bellowing god voice*)
So now I'm stuck here doing a load of work I should've done before but couldn't be arsed! Strike one for laziness!
Catching up is the fun part and also the most frustrating part! The work that is here can all be cleared in one day! ONE!!!
There is not a need for a recruitment administrator full time in this trust!
Been drinking
Been drinking and
Been Drinking!
It also involved lording it up at Chelsea Football Club eating free food, Meeting my agency for christmas drinks and then both of those trips taking forever to get back home!
Now today is rushing down Oxford Street for a secret santa gift before going to the staff christmas do tomorrow and generally working my arse off!
Also the Feeling are doing a spot of Charity Busking in Covent Garden Market at 5pm... Just outside where I'm having the Christmas dinner!
Yay that!
Friday was a drunken blur, well it wasn't because I remember EVERYTHING right up to leaving the bar round the corner from the house then as soon as I put the key in the door, I forget! I don't remember ordering Dominos, I don't remember passing out on the sofa, I don't remember Steve waking me up fully clothed on my bed trying to feed me Chicken Strippers...
Saturday was a muchos lie in! Followed by nothing then Steve's bro coming down, casino (which has turned into shit chav fest so I'm completely ignoring it ever happened) and seeing my sister's new man... Who wasn't her normal type... Seemed nice!
Oh and my cousin auditioned for a porn movie and now has been signed up to some medium sized company in London! His dad is so proud as he's been saying that since he was 14! Just gotta make sure I don't end up seeing him do gay for pay...
That's about it! I haven't done my Christmas Shopping, I haven't even looked at christmas shopping, and I don't want to! It will probably be a 19th December jobby!
this one is smutty!
Can't help but not think this will happen!
I'm off out with a pocket full of vouchers for various restaurants with school friends and we're going to eat cheap till our tummies explode! :D
Ummmm... yeah that's about it! Finally starting to pay off the month I was unemployed so it will be now that I start putting a rainy day fund together because if my contract ends and I need to look again, then it could over a month again before I find anything!
Or more...
Anywho, best be moving on with some work, the NHS apparently can't function unless I personally move mountains, walk on water and personally go to the police who do the CRB checks and go, "move it!"
I love work...
Everyone is dropping like flies and I KNOW it's only a matter of time... Now I'm feeling dizzy and nauseous... Never mind!
Work is fun when there's so much to do but no one to do it! I would cope if I was feeling 100% but I'm not so sure now!
