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

4-hour interview (including 3 tests) - I am not sure I have the stamina for this sort of thing.

I just really... I don't know. I normally come out of an interview with a quite clear sense of whether I want the job or not. I don't really have any sense of anything, except a very vague instinct that I don't want the job, and it's so vague a gut instinct that it might just entirely be PMT.

The stickler, really, is the hours. It's 45 hours a week, standard contracted hours (OK, they claim there is "an hour for lunch" but I was there over lunchtime and I saw everyone pretty much eating lunch at their desks.) That, to me, seems excessive. I can do 9 hour days maybe 1 or 2 days a week, if the workload demands it. But the idea of a 9 hour day, every day (and the potential for several days a month that they will require more) is just... no. Was I just spoiled by my last 2 jobs being 9 to 5 and 9 to 5.30? Is 9 to 6 just considered "normal" now, and those last few jobs I had were freaks?

I just can't do that whole macho competitive overwork thing. I do not get any more work done in a 9 hour day than I do in a 7 or 8 hour day. I am just more tired all the time, and tired means 1) I work slower and make more mistakes and 2) it sends my health to hell, which means I start taking loads and loads of sick days, which is really counter productive.

The job itself... I can't think of any overwhelming reason not to take it. I also don't really feel any enthusiasm at all, especially for the industry. Not that I expect to feel "OMG, yay, best job ever!" when I start a new job. (Though I did when I started the last job! - though look how awfully that turned out.) It's just... if my overwhelming response to a job interview is "I don't really want to work here" I should probably not work there. Is this a bratty, childish reaction to have, or is this a perfectly reasonable and adult reaction to have? (Especially over the hours thing.) I can't even tell any more.

ARGH. Headhunter says they want to make me an offer and all I can think is "can you take your offer, and give me 4/5 of the salary you were planning on offering, in exchange for 4/5 of those crazy working hours?"

If they really want you, there is always an opportunity to negotiate. That is, if you really want to work there as opposed to really needing to work.

I do not get any more work done in a 9 hour day than I do in a 7 or 8 hour day. I am just more tired all the time, and tired means 1) I work slower and make more mistakes and 2) it sends my health to hell, which means I start taking loads and loads of sick days, which is really counter productive.

i would put it to them in these terms tbh. good companies recognise that time flexibility helps employees and employers, especially in cases where a documented health condition is an issue. if they're completely intransigent on this they'll assuredly be a horrible company to work for in other ways as well. (unless there's an actual reason for being in the office at certain times that isn't a moronic insistence that more hours = more work done, i can think of some reasons but they wouldn't apply to your industry, i don't think)

I have already raised the issue of flexitime/shorter hours and was met with "you could work at different times, but those are what the hours are". I did explain that there were long-term health issues which meant that regular 45 hour weeks were just not an option for me. I am not quite desperate enough at this point to *have* to take it, so I guess that leaves me in a good position to negotiate for a 4-day workweek, at which point, fine, I'll do 9 hour days. But I'm not feeling very hopeful about the option.

if explaining the health issues didn't even persuade them to trial you to see if you're able to do the required work in the hours you need, idk, that's a bit of a warning sign.

Yeah, that's kinda what I'm afraid of, but that's kinda what working in Finance is like: "These are what the hours are, if you can't do them, sucks to be you."

I raised my concerns, and the headhunter just came back offering more money. It feels completely churlish to spurn money on that level, but at the same time "thinking that money is the answer, rather than actually addressing the issues raised" is another red flag of "this is not a place I will be happy working."

ARGH. I hate the way the try to make you feel awkward or objectionable for stating in advance what your needs and inabilities are.

And the whole "I want you to reject this more-money offer, before we go back to them with the 4 days a week offer" and it's like... NO. That is backwards. I ask for what is important to me, and if you can't get the ideal thing I want, then we negotiate from that point. I don't feel like I should have to reject an offer outright in order to ask for what I really want.

ugh ugh ugh. I wish I could just bring myself to ... I dunno, give myself permission to say "No. This isn't going to work." And again, that panicked feeling that if I say no to this job offer, there will never be another one. (Rather than "you've impressed one company enough for them to hire you, you can impress another company, that doesn't insist on 45 hour work weeks.)

My last 2 jobs were 9-6. It's a pain in the arse and of course most people myself included don't take a whole hour for lunch. Maybe on Fridays if I went to the pub. My new one (which starts next week) is 9-5:30 and the commute is halved so I get to sleep in a bit and get home earlier, which is great. Sorry this is maybe not the thread to mention that.

Good luck BB, I'm pretty sure you do similar stuff to me (my main skill is databases/SQL) so I can relate to your interview stories. There do seem to be more jobs out there these days fwiw.

No, that gives me hope, because it makes me *know* that I'm not being insane or overly demanding to not want to work 9 to 6. Those are stupid hours, and any employer that actually gave a shit about the health of their employees would recognise that. Employers exist who do not insist on squeezing every last drop of effort out of their staff; this is not one of them. My last 2 jobs were 9 to 5 and 10 to 6.30. It is not unreasonable to expect to work those kinds of hours.

I feel bad now, because I had to get pretty emphatic with the headhunter's boss over the phone, and feel like I've been rude.

But I don't want to commit to a role with hours I know that I will not be able to sustain. The alternatives are: don't take the role. Take the role, end up getting very unhealthy and taking tons of sick days. Take the role, work like a dog for the first few months, then slowly start to slack off in a really underhanded way until I have the hours I desire.

It's awful feeling so bad about turning down a job, but it's clear, this is not the employer for me. "If they negotiated that way for you, then they would have to negotiate that way for everyone." Hey, you know what, if loads of people would actually negotiate for flexitime or 4/5 of their salary in return for 4/5 of their hours, maybe I'm not the weird unreasonable person, just MAYBE YOU ARE WORKING YOUR STAFF TOO HARD.

In other news, tomorrow is my birthday. I want to go to the seaside. Should I go to Broadstairs or Brighton?

I think Brighton looks like it's half the price and an easier journey, even though I know there are nicer walks to be had around Broadstairs. There are no sea arches anywhere in walking distance of Brighton, are there.

And just when I'm ready to start throwing darts at their pictures, there's this:

http://24.media.tumblr.com/8b0bf0420abdfdb16b226938d974951c/tumblr_n3rwy6Km3E1rd1g7mo1_250.jpg

Smirking bastard. Why are you so cute.

Bit late, sorry, but HB BB!

Aw, thank you Spacecadet! x

I don't know if I'm just being ~over-emotional~ right now, but...

Although I had an excellent birthday yesterday (chocolate biscuits, TSM, seaside, crazy Victorian architecture, Doom Bar) I kinda ruined it by checking my work-related email last night. I wish I had left that until this morning to get ... I don't even know what the word is for the emotions I'm experiencing.

It isn't disappointment, because my gut feeling through the whole process has been "I do not want that job". I should have just listened to that gut feeling, and said no flat out, and not let myself be coerced or sweet-talked into a negotiation process. But it isn't relief, either, because either the employer or the headhunter decided to just do a passing "kick you in the teeth" neg in the last email, telling me that my negotiation "left a bad impression."

(All along, I think this headhunter has acted particularly unprofessionally. For example, asking me the wrong set of questions in the initial interview (they asked me the developer questions, not the report writer questions!) Then, before the first phone interview with the employer, he said "oh, don't mention that I asked you the wrong questions, also, here are the actual questions you will be asked, look up the answers so you do well in the test - oh, but don't mention I gave you these, either!" Um. Now, obviously, I do not need any help acing a SQL query writing test, but still, that was weird.) ((I am semi-tempted to just forward that email to the guy who interviewed me at the employer and say "by the way, you were complaining about candidates who did well on the phone interview, then couldn't pass the sit-down computer test? Here's why."))

This whole world is just not something that makes any sense to me. I know, from experience, if you say to an initial offer "I think that salary looks a little low, I'd like another £2k or £3k" then headhunters will go back and negotiate. But the idea that I might say "I'm willing to negotiate for less salary in order to get more reasonable hours" is basically viewed like I just did a shit on the board of directors' table.

Oh fuck it. I am just going to consider this whole thing a bullet I have dodged. I will give myself today to feel kinda bummed and weird about it, and then throw myself back into the job search on Monday.

Omg. You did nothing unreasonable! You dodged a bullet imo. I would not have wanted to work those hours either.

Thank you!

It really will be something that I pay more attention to in the future, is how many ~women my age~ there are in an office. (In that one: none.)

Because I have started thinking, like, it's impossible for me to work those kinds of hours because of my long-term health issues. But what if I had children? I don't in any way mean to equate "parenting" with "middle aged women" but still! It does make me wonder, when women my age disappear from a workplace, what the issues are. I don't know why men put up with overwork culture. But from those guys in the interview, going "I work 9 hour days, no problem" "well, I work 10 hour days!" I suspect it is that whole "macho" competitive overwork bullshit.

(Oddly, the employer that I worked for 2 jobs ago, like, 75% - 80% of their staff were women. And they were having appalling problems with their staff retention rate. The whole reason that they dropped the standard contract hours from 40 to 37.5, and also instituted flexi-time and part time, was in a deliberate effort to hold onto their staff, most of whom were women. But the reason they were even willing to consider it, was that they had 3 women on the board of directors! 2 of whom had children, and all of whom said "you know, the working hours might be a problem.")

Blah blah blah etc.

I don't know why men put up with overwork culture.

Don't blame the victim!

You know, on ILX, I sometimes spend a great deal of time composing posts, and then just hitting the back button, thinking "I don't really have the energy or the emotional equilibrium to argue through the inevitable backlash right now."

And then I see the posts that other ILX0rs actually just go ahead and blithely post, and I just think "really?"

Instead, I am going to go and pitch some illustrations to a website that a friend of mine told to me pitch to over a year ago, but I never got around to doing because... well, because I was afraid. Because I think that would be a better use of my time and energy.

happy bday for y'day k8!

tbf i was listening to some of the women in my office having a "who's ill the least" brag-off y/day so i've got to say that workplace tuffness feels like an equal opps disease in some ways. but otoh we work reasonably flexibly and have reasonable holidays

I am not going to have this argument, and especially not here, but when I hear men who do not go home and do The Second Shift bragging about the ~long hours~ they work it does ring a little hollow.

I mean, basically fuck long hours culture for a billion other reasons, but for men to even pretend this is some place where men and women are equivalents, just... come on. No.

no i know there's a real difference at home, and i was gonna mention it. but i have observed women acknowledge this too with a kind of competitive stoicism. my stance on the horror of long hours culture is pretty well-documented too.

the macho overwork thing seems to be a symptom of 'get as successful as you can as fast as you can QUICK QUICK before some bastard beats you to it' corporate bullshit whereas women often through necessity have to ascertain more of a balance throughout.
I am lucky, my workplace is mainly female and treats flexible working seriously, and some of the men are taking advantage of it too (not in a bad way! I mean doing their own flex working to look after the kids etc).

Wonder if it's even worth applying for anything during Easter week, but trying to at least log onto the website and apply for things so at least it looks like I'm active.

I've only officially been doing this a month, but I'm already so sick of ~job search~. Need pictures of cute boys in suits.

Also, today is my estranged brother's birthday and my subconscious decided to bless me with creepy freaking dreams. Thanks for that.

Oh god, how does one stay focused and ~enthusiastic~ and "oh yes, I would love to interview for this job which requires weekend cover... (oh do fuck off)" in the face of endless, relentless disappointment and being asked to jump through hoops for impossible things. I'm getting to the point where I don't want to even call anyone back. But I know that I have to. Would like to just take a week off and go on holiday from looking for a job.

Anyway, here is Kessler demonstrating his fingerbanging technique:

https://31.media.tumblr.com/8ce454f747035a565aaa17fc3054968d/tumblr_n3x8rmJtND1rd1g7mo1_250.jpg

Ugh, unemployment sucks. Working from home sucks too. I'm currently working on some research for an industry body and I am going a little stir crazy, even when I change it up by going to the library or coffee shop.

I'm struggling with headhunters as well, my resume doesn't clearly identifiable box so most headhunters ignore me. That or they try and cell me 'career coaching' or CV rewriting services. I went to a meeting with one for shits and giggles and they quoted me $5000 for their services, maybe I should get into that racket. Having done this from the other side I wish more hiring managers hired like I used to, cut out the HR CV screener and the head hunter and go straight to the resume pile and LinkedIn. I hired two or three great people who never would have got in through the traditional route and turned out to be amazing. (especially the vegan punk tech writer I had to fight really hard to hire, she ended up winning the MVP award at the christmas party the year I hired her)

Also fuck a 9 hour work day. I think my peak productivity is somewhere around 35 hrs a week. i would love to be in a position to ask for a 4 day week or a 9 day fortnight but right now no-one is interested in talking to me.

Oh god thank fuck I haven't been offered "career coaching" or "CV rewriting" because fuck that racket. I'm not convinced that any of them know more about the recruitment process than anyone who has actually... y'know, hired a body. I suppose the sheer volume of the CV pile (and how much people lie on their CVs) is the reason that managers don't do this. But when the headhunter is adding another layer of mendaciousness, rather than taking it away... I dunno. Half the ones I speak to don't understand technology, and the other half don't seem to understand that "office culture" is just as important (if not more) than tech skills, which can usually be taught.

I am well aware that I'm a tricky case, because with the right manager and the right environment I will work like a dog, and have certainly proved myself capable of it, but with the wrong manager and environment, I'm a complete fucking HR nightmare. And I have no desire to go into an HR nightmare any more than they do.

I think everyone's peak productivity is between 30 and 35 hours a week. I cannot think of a single instance where longer hours resulted in more work getting done. Work always expands to fill the available time, so you gain nothing by working longer.

I spoke to 3 different headhunters yesterday, and I'm at the point where I'm mixing up them and their jobs and which other jobs they're connected to, and I've started writing down some of it in a little notebook, but then as soon as you write it all down, you never hear from them again.

Anyway, here is a picture of Kessler, because this seems to be becoming a tradition:

http://37.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyaeoipkvE1qcuqzco1_1280.jpg

Oh, and just as I was complaining about headhunters, there was another one on the phone. I guess I have a phoner interview tomorrow so I need to go and do some research.

One of the best things I ever heard about productivity was during my scrum training; that their are only 22 productive hours in a week, less if you have any kind of management responsibilities.

The thing is about CVs is I reckon that I can do pattern recognition faster than an HR wonk. I'd always pass back my shortlist to HR for initial contact and phone screening but go through the pile myself.

Top tip, I use Asana as a sort of CRM to keep my recruiters and conversations with them straight.

If there truly are only 22 productive hours in a week (and honestly, it depends on the week, it depends on the task, it depends on the environment) what the FUCK were we expected to be doing those other 23 hours, at that awful "9 hours a day" place?

Laptop is so old (argh! I just remembered I had a dream I had to update its operating system, which I haven't done in... ooh about 4 years, ugh) that I can't install any new software on it. Probably first thing I do when I get a job is buy a new laptop and smartphone but ugh. I don't even like apple products any more.

I've got "please POH-lice me, I want you to POLL-ice" me stuck in my head and I'm laughing trying to remember if it's all Americans who pronounce "police" funny or just that particular one.

Who is this Kessler fellow anyway?

some bloke

I gathered that

a bloke is a bloke is a bloke

And while I am complaining, I would also like to air my irritation with the "No-Yes".

This is that horrible phenomenon whereby people manage to turn down something, without ever using the word "no" and in fact, while maintaining a cheerful air that they plan on doing something they never actually intend to do. I don't know what people get out of this. The idea that they are letting you down easy? The idea that they are not-negative, and positive, and Do Things, while all the time keeping you in this kind of suspense whereby you never actually get a "no" so that you can move on and make other plans, you just exist in this quasi-space of slowly decaying hope.

If I suggest to you, that I do A Thing for you, and you don't want to do the Thing, just say "thanks, but no thank you". Do not display enthusiasm and say "yes, let's do the thing, let me have a think and get back to you" and then... slowly ghost and then not get back to me. This is the second time this has happened in a month, with different people in different situations, and in this case, I should probably send another, more firm suggestion of instead of "I would like to do A Thing for you" I should say "I would like to do Thing X for you, I expect it will take this long" but good god I am sick of chasing people to no avail.

Also, Tumblr is failing in its appointed task of providing me with more pictures of Kessler being adorable this morning, and this is irritating.

This is a Kessler:

http://31.media.tumblr.com/ecdd82beeaf46415e7c91be908f50d0c/tumblr_n40ksdiONA1rjw8sqo1_1280.jpg

...and another email from someone wanting to use my drawings in a local publication, with no mention of payment, but lots of mention of "exposure" and "promotion" and I am trying to get up the nerve to just write back and say "My rates for print publication are £30 for an original image, and £50 for a colour image" (which is probably actually incredibly low, because I've no idea what the market rates are, because everybody just expects you to work for free) and take it from there.

Because quite frankly, I've already had, this year, two rounds of people using my artwork for free because "it's great exposure" and quite frankly, at this point, I don't want more exposure. I want cold hard cash.

(Yes, ironic, considering that I was willing to work for the "no-yes" people for free but I'm running out of patience, not to mention cash.)

Went to Epping Forest yesterday, which was lovely (in the mist and the rain) but at the same time: disappointed by total lack of bluebells. Well, maybe one tiny small patch of bluebells the size of a bathtub, hiding under a bush.

Why no bluebells? Biggin Wood, locally, is a mass of bluebells!

Is this because London is always 5 degrees warmer than the surrounding countryside, so London bluebells are earlier than Essex? Or, because Epping Forest is mostly beech wood, there is so little ground cover, so no bluebells? (Though bluebells usually come out before the full leaf canopy has sprung in spring, so surely this wouldn't matter?)

Walk: lovely, but still somewhat dismayed by lack of bluebells. Where can I go (within reach of London) that has good bluebells?

if you think about something very sad and then look in the mirror you might see a blue Bell.

Only if I hold my breath.

that's a more efficient and less gloomy method than mine.

Hampstead Heath or Highgate Woods for bluebells? Might also find the last of the season's wild garlic into the bargain.

Hampstead Heath in abundance, and there's an impressive display in a tiny park/reclaimed pavement beside the Royal Free along from Belsize Park tube

I really wanted to go somewhere more exotic than Hampstead. Not that Essex is exotic but... well, ~not London~.

Wikipedia says that "The thicker the summer canopy, the more the competitive ground-cover is suppressed, encouraging a dense carpet of bluebells, whose leaves mature and die down by early summer."

One place that springs to mind is Coneybank Wood, nr. Great Missenden. There's a footpath running through the wood (it's a pleasant walk from Great Missenden to Wendover) and I remember the woods being awash with bluebells in early May 2009.

http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=51.711544~-0.721207&lvl=15&sty=s&eo=0&q=london&form=LMLTCC

https://www.flickr.com/search/?q=%22Coneybank%20Wood%22

https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2444/3625834968_c232c89e2b_z.jpg

Early May? maybe I am simply too early.

I shall have to investigate woods and walks and train times and things.

I am trying to get up the nerve to just write back and say "My rates for print publication are £30 for an original image, and £50 for a colour image" (which is probably actually incredibly low, because I've no idea what the market rates are, because everybody just expects you to work for free) and take it from there.

do this! exposure is worthless!! make the buggers pay! [and your rates are very reasonable]

maybe I am simply too early.

I shouldn't think so, it's nearly May already. They'll be out now.

Maybe I just picked a bad forest! Except there were actual posters up, on the carpark billboard of "Epping Bluebells" so there surely must be bluebells in Epping forest; just not the bit I was in. I shall try another woods.

Stevie, I did do. They declined to pay, claiming they were new and just getting started and apparently the whole point of the magazine is... advertising for local businesses? I declined to do them any illustrations.

Weirdly, I got another local "community" magazine, also mainly advertising for local businesses, and it had this weird rant in the back of it, about how they were supposed to be a charity, and the printing press they run is to train and employ disabled people and apparently some people they got in to organise advertisers for them "realised how lucrative this was" and ran off with their advertisers to start their own magazine, and this is "stealing from a charity, which is just not done!" and it was all very outraged and weird and ~local politics~ and it makes me wonder if they were talking about the people that approached me? Whatever it is, it's very strange, and all quite ~local~ and kind of amusing and kind of sad in "two bald men arguing over a comb" territory.