Unemployed Watercooler Fridge Buzz Commiseration, Alienation and Mental Anti-Stagnation Society (DNRIYHM)

Maybe they're going in reverse chronological order? It's all a bit haphazard there, things can get missed. I don't think that many people have access to the approval queue so things can get a bit backed up if someone's not on top of it all. I very much doubt that your story has been deemed unacceptable or anything.

Yeah some of the other girls said they were waiting on updates for their stories, too.

I got totally paranoid bcz one of the admins said that my latest story was "making fun of" otter stories when that was the last thing I was doing, I was actually showing huge amounts of affection + love for fan fiction in general and those authors in particular but expressed through the mouth of a sarcastic Brit.

But it's really impossible for me to be objective about stuff like that when it's 4am and I'm in the grips of the black dog and I go into that kind of flailing panic of paranoia.

I hate my brain, I hate what it does to me sometimes.

Other stories not otter stories.

Jonny as an otter would be great, though. Ha!

Eep. So I have a job interview next week. Apparently.

Oh paper it looks like a great match but oh boy I'm not sure I'm prepared to start actually going for this again.

Excellent! Plus!

It'd mean going back to Financial Services, too, when I was pretty keen to stay on the Medical side of data but, argh.

Does anyone know any good SQL tests online? I took one as practice but I got 100% (on 15 questions) in like 2 and a half minutes so I think I need a harder test. (What's the difference between WHERE and HAVING? Come on! Too easy.)

Great news! I don't know of any hard SQL tests though, sorry.

I've just knocked off work for the day, it is... nearly half past midnight, and I'm not nearly done with the doings that need doing, but my brain has kind of gone crunch so y'know, sooner or later you have to try and switch off. But how? I'm so wired now my jaw feels like it's on fire and my eyes are trying to crawl out of the backs of my eye sockets and hide in my brain-space.

k are we both learning sql to get out of the medical data field

cause that would be weird

Probably the best way to test yourself on SQL is to just do it. Install MySQL and get a decent book and go to town. I'm mostly self-taught from constantly practicing at my last job amidst my prescribed tasks. It's kinda sad how proficient I am, because I cannot imagine ever wanting to do anything with that knowledge again.

Ah, I did a SQL 'test' that one company had sent me the link for, I thought "ar, nae bother" and just went for it. The required pass mark was 85% and I got 80%, so that was the end of that one. (and I'm good at the SQL). should have 'revised' or at the very least had google open on another tab.

That's the thing, the actual 'quality' tests are srsly guarded off.

LOL, no, I'm not learning SQL, I've been a SQL programmer for like 10 years. I just have to take a stupid test to prove that I can do it, and I get stupidly nervous about tests. I aced the last official one I took, and that was before another 3 years of experience (and a SQL admin course) so I don't know what I'm worried about.

And I want to *stay* in medical data, I don't want to go back to Financial Services. I hate the Finance world.

Not least because I've spent too many nights like Zora, still working when it's nearly midnight.

I was wondering where you'd been, girl, but I figured you were extra busy with work.

My experiences with the Financial World have been either it's late nights etcet, or it's 'almost nothing to do'...

Another nibble for a job in a rural Oxfordshire town with CASTLES and LUMPS and looks tweely pretty as fuck so bad I want to go and live in a gingerbread and marzipan cottage there. But alas, it looks far too developer-y for me and not reporting oriented. Specialisation, I hate you so much. It's like all this stuff seems exactly the same to headhunters when they see "SQL" but you have to read between the lines of a job description.

I've no doubt that I could do it, if placed in front of the tools, it's just that I have very little experience in doing it, so convincing someone to let you do it is tough.

POCKET SIZED DRONEROCK BOY

http://cache.krop.com/stevekeros-4f4a830fff4b65.jpg

I mean, I know. Perspective and all, but he *is* tiny. Squeeee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCsn_MUHTOs

^^^^^droppin' hints

Job interview today. First one in I don't know how long, like I've forgotten how to do them.

Been told I have to take a SQL test, so I boned up on code, then got told yesterday it will be "mostly on theory" like WTF is the "theory" or SQL? Are these the things I missed going to art school instead of doing a computer science degree?

Anyway I don't even know why I'm posting on this thread, it's like tumbleweed and I should accept it.

Relational theory maybe? I dunno, I didn't do computer science either.

Entity Integrity? WTF is Entity Integrity?

And all that 1st form, 2nd form, 3rd form normal? I have no idea.

It was a super hard test, and every time I felt confident, it had an algorithm to make the questions harder if you got them right. Fiendish.

Anyway I was totally bummed coz I only got an 85 on the test, but they were really impressed with that anyway.

We shall see.

Yeah normal forms is relational theory stuff. I did look up all that stuff when I was looking to leave my last job, although my new job doesn't really involve much hardcore SQL at all. In fact it involves almost no SQL because most of the database access is handled (or obfuscated as it seems to me at the moment) via an ORM.

I was reading a book called SQL and Relational Theory that goes into those concepts. Some of it is only really useful on an academic basis, like having any nullable columns at all diverges from the relational model and is wrong. Try doing that in any database I've ever worked in will leave you in over-normalisation hell very quickly.

I read up on all that stuff when I was learning database design, decided I would build everything to 3nf, then forgot all about it. I guess it's all just second nature now - I would probably have failed yr test.

I don't know that I ever learned any of that stuff but it just kind of came instinctively through having a balance between well stored data and easily inputtable and accessible data and not having nightmare queries.

Either way, I've been called back for a second interview and the CEO wants to meet me (apparently this is standard for this company tho still nerve-wracking) so, um, yay me?

I guess it's just weird coz I'm realising how much my confidence was ripped to shreds by the stuff that went down at my last job, but coming back to realise that my skills are highly desirable to some companies, and the personality quirks that some places see as negative, others see as major selling points?

yay you!

yay

yes

I really wish ILX had a reverse killfile so you could prevent your posts from ever being seen by someone. When it's like, "You don't like me, I don't like you. If you can't read me without sticking your condescending oar in, then just stay off threads you can see I started and don't fucking read me at all."

I was having a really super super good day, and now it's taken specific dudes who just can't help sticking their oars in, and I'm angry and riled when I should be going to bed. Why did I even look?

hurrah for the second interview, when is it?

Next Tuesday.

I feel very much like I'm coming down with the flu today, so I really hope I'm over it by then. :-/

that boots first defence stuff is pretty effective ime - a couple of times when i've felt like i'm coming down with something i've taken it, and i've still gone under the weather a bit but have still been functional, able to work and think and move etc

Yes but that would involve getting out of bed and walking up to Boots (which would necessitate having a shower and changing out of my pyjamas.)

I think I'll just load up on Vitamin C and try to sleep. I've taken ibuprofen and codeine and it's not moved my headache at all, so I think it's best to just lie very still with a pillow over my head and a hat covering mine ears.

Hope you're feeling better now, my own experience is that these treatments take unaccoutably different amounts of time to kick in from one occasion to another, even if the dose is the same.

Good luck with the second interview! I'm sure you'll be over the flu by then.

I very rarely post new threads of my own these days, but I would be interested to know what Watercooler folk think about

this thread about stimuli, decision making and consciousness

Making a decision -- is this an indicator of consciousness?

Although I have nothing against philosophical discussion, I don't feel like I have the knowledge or expertise to contribute?

Nice picture of Thom Yorke's tits, though. Totally approve.

I has a job offer!

We've agreed that I start 1st May. I'm going to go to Cornwall for a week's holiday before then to clear my head and get rid of any leftover bad vibes from the way my last role ended - and then I will have to abandon ILX during office hours in order to concentrate on my awesome new role.

Although I can't talk about the company or the role because I'll be dealing with some sensitive information, I'm actually really excited about what it entails. This could be great.

Ex+

looks like it's all worked out brilliantly - first time of asking, and i think i saw you tweet that the commute's easy too? and time for a holiday first too!

Yeah, it's in Croydon which is half an hour away by bus, and in the opposite direction from London so not crowded.

I'm just so... that was too easy.

Because I'm used to looking for a job being a long, drawn out and torturous experience of desperation and settling for the least horrible option. This has just been so different. Partly because my headhunter was a dream to deal with - partly because it does just seem like a good fit between what they need and what they have (which means the headhunter did their research really well.)

But I suppose it's because I saved up enough money that I wasn't desperate. I didn't put my CV in for any jobs I didn't really want to be doing. I think I submitted maybe half a dozen CVs, instead of a hundred. I was really choosey, even when just speaking to headhunters about what they had on offer.

I just keep looking for the catch because this is literally the only job I've properly interviewed for (not counting phone interviews, which don't count) and ... it can't be that easy, you know? It just feels like sheer blind luck. I've had such shitty job luck for the past 5 years, how can I have suddenly got a burst of good luck in the middle of a double dip recession?

well, not entirely luck - you know you're skilled, prob more than most candidates, in your field, and the headhunter really does sound like the key to matching up your skills with a company that needs them - where did you hook up w/the headhunter? to have a go-between matching you up rather than flailing at job applications yourself sounds amazing.

I guess I should really have more confidence in my skills - like, taking a programming test I so thought I was going to fail, and then scoring higher than any candidate they'd ever seen. But also accepting the things that are negatives in one job are viewed as positives in another.

Like, being a person who is really concerned with ethics and honesty and accuracy was such a negative in my last role - because that was a company that basically sold lies. Like, the Beauty Myth stuff they were pushing all day long, it is one giant lie, so I shouldn't have been surprised when they ended up deeply implicated in a massive scandal. But when the company you're interviewing for has as part of its ethos an evaluating, watch-doggy and sometimes even regulatory role, to turn up and say "I will never lie, not even with statistics, and I am never going to sugar-coat data ever again" then they view that as a massive positive and makes you more qualified for the role. I was so scared that the reason I left my last job was going to be a massive negative black mark on my Permanent Record, but to these people, it was like "you are EXACTLY the kind of person we are looking for."

But yeah, the headhunter did some really good matching and filtering and it's just such a relief to have dealt with someone who was like that, instead of those kinds of agencies where they just try to shoehorn you into whatever is open. If anyone ever needs an IT agent, email me and I'll pass on the guy's details, because he was really good.

Hey all. Bit of a headfuck round our way this week. Work is still bonkers. My April writing challenge has been a washout due to work. Pater is having a meltdown. And now a long-lost uncle has crawled out of the woodwork and is causing consternation. Pigeons, meet cat.

Ms Masonic have you seen
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-17897467

One of them was Blur guitarist Graham Coxon, who is performing at the town's Princess Pavilion later.

Just got sent home early (before the lunch they pay for, typically my sole quality meal of the day) from temp hospital job because I've got a cold and you can't have a cold in a hospital. Also informed that "because we're working so fast" I won't be needed on Friday, and that the final week I may not be needed at all. So there goes my plan for July rent. Fucking fuck. I'm gonna go home and sleep for 20 hours or so.

that sucks hoos

Wau, I am feeling so crappy. Still not unemployed :( The b@nk just extended me until end Sept. Why do I not have the bollocks to just say 'no thanks'? I am exhausted, frustrated, and creatively bankrupt.

Meh.

Because it's really scary to take that step into the unknown? Because a bird in the hand in a tough economic climate etc?

I know I owe you email! I thought of you the other day when I read the Guardian banker blog and they did the IT consultant.

All I can say is, things sometimes work out. Like, I am 100x happier in my current job. It's like a black cloud of anger & constant stress / bitterness / unhappiness has been lifted. Sometimes you gotta just close your eyes and take the leap - but it takes a lot of trust, mostly in yourself.

I'm not unemployed any more, but this seems to be the thread where I talked most about woods.

I've been reading Roger Deakin's Wildwood and now I am consumed with the desire to visit David Nash's Ash Dome.

22 (there's that bloody number again) ash trees in a woods, all bent inwards in a kind of dance to form a dome, eventually to be woven together.

http://images.artnet.com/artwork_images/159506/708539.jpg

I am liking the Roger Deakin book loads, but for some reason I keep having to stop reading it to have a bit of a think and almost a cry because it's so full of hiraeth but also beauty. Things which are already lost and things which are slowly being lost.

...and with leafs on.

http://c48743.r43.cf3.rackcdn.com/Images/2009_07/06/0008/218380/d25bf291-97ba-43c9-a5de-9fcb967b57fb_g_570.Jpeg

^^^^this basically makes me want to give up art forever, it's so lovely.

that last one is a black metal logo right?

Nothing to do with metal. Hippies if anything.