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

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.

wolves in the throne room?

Ah, my unscheduled absence has been longer than I realised.

Don't worry about the email WCC, I know you will be busy wandering in the lands of New Job and I'm very pleased about that!

I thought of you on Sunday when they ran a piece about Cornish independence in the Observer - did you see it?

Today I summoned the strength to tell my bosses I wanted to quit. Senior boss offered to restructure the project so I have some autonomy. Junior boss was pretty peeved. Don't know how I feel.

Come work for us! We're on an almost-scary boom right now.

I'm just cautious of the word "restructuring." It's never not meant "you do way more work, with less help" in my jobs.

I woke up with the words "Fourier Transform" going through my head over and over. This confuses me, as I don't know what a Fourier Transform is, or where I would have heard of it, or why it's stuck in there, but it is.

I'm feeling a bit otherwise this weekend, which is mostly PMT or something. The usual crap. I'm sick of feeling misunderstood. I'm sick of feeling like the words I say or type cannot express the feelings in my head adequately to other people in a way that they actually understand what I mean. And I'm sick of feeling like other people are some species I do not currently and may never be able to understand. Not a nice feeling, but a familiar one. It's like the Welsh Dream, but we're all actually speaking English.

I don't know why I even typed this. Gravedh a wra gwaynya pub-prys.

god dammit. god dammit. god dammit.

sup clouds

might not be able to pay rent this month; not a single potential employer has responded. i've been looking for two months.

my partner has been carrying most of the burden since my last job ended and i'm scared that it'll ruin our relationship unless i find something soon.

i'm just so so sick of this. i can't do it.

fuck it, i'm using part of my last $20 to buy another bottle of booze.

best wishes, clouds, that is a horrible place to be and i hope you find something soon

I know how stressful it is when you get made redundant and have to whore yourself out again. It is unendurable shit sometimes. Best of luck Clouds.

clouds, didn't you intentionally not return to a job that would have taken you back and now you're avoiding applying where you might have to endure the indignity of "a tucked in polo shirt"? a shitty job is still a job, and it's hard to have tons of sympathy re a relationship-ruining financial crisis that could easily be avoided.....

it is hard to have sympathy, isn't it

anyway

got a call from temp agency, asked me abt availability and stuff. hoping for something but hope it doesn't fall during my family visit.

good luck clouds

"Most people are inherently good"

strongly agree
mostly agree
not sure
slightly disagree
strongly disagree

most ppl are chaotic neutral

clouds bro every one of your last few posts has resonated with me in the worst ways.

but most especially

not a single potential employer has responded. i've been looking for two months.

and

fuck it, i'm using part of my last $20 to buy another bottle of booze.

on the plus side, i finally did find something a couple weeks back. so keep hope alive etc etc.

:\

i have a feeling even shitty places like target won't hire me because they do these disgusting and invasive credit checks and i have no credit — if i had good credit i wouldn't have to apply to fucking target would i??!!!

and yeah jesse i have resorted to applying to soul crushing retail, are you happy?

Best of luck clouds, you'll find something.

yr good enough, smart enough and goddammit people like u

imo