Yay me!

Gotta job:-)

It all happened rather fast in the end:

Last week i replied to an out of date vacancy on the website of a firm I quite fancy working for. the closing date was 31st December, but I didn't see it until the end of January, so wrote in thinking it was worth a try as it was still on the website! They phoned me on Wednesday and asked me to an interview today. i attended today, and felt it went pretty well. I was pretty confident of being asked back for the second interview. She told me their next induction date was 17th March. I got home about 2.30pm, and she phoned me at 4pm saying they were forgoing the second interview and would like to offer me the job. Could I start on monday?

You bet. this is a fntastic company to work for. Good staff retention, good peer reviews, and IiP'd up to the hilt. I accepted the 20% pay rise offered, plus benefits, and will be starting on monday.

Yippee.

Agencies (of hell)

In my quest for work, with a minimal time frame and Christmas in the way of what little time there was, I signed up with a bunch of agencies in the expectation that they might be able to find me something that i hadn't found myself. I didn't really mean to, but when scouring for jobs online, there were quite a few (well, loads) advertised in Bristol on a coupel of known sites, and when I clicked "apply" I was automatically applying through a different agency for each one! I was pretty annoyed tbh, as I had searched agency A and B as they were specialised legal recruiters, and ended up being registered with Agency C through to Z without ever wanting to be!

Anyway, it didn't take long for them to really piss me off. a) because none of them seemed to actually have the jobs they were advertising. b) because they all wanted me to spend at least an hour with them in central Bristol, BEFORE mentioning that they did not actually have said jobs, costing me time and money unecessarily. c) because they were all revoltingly cheerful & enthusiastic about my CV and how it should be easy to get something, while simultaneously saying that they did not have much suitable right now and d) because they then promptly all sent my CV to the same companies, without checking wioth me first if I wanted to work there, or more importantly, had already sent my CV there by myself. Which probably pissed off the companies, and definitely pissed me off, as I am quite capable of sending my own CV out to companies!

Only one actually got me an interview. I'm still waiting on the results of that. I have managed to get three interviews for myself without any professional recruiters involved! Grrrr. Plus, one talked me into doing some temping while I was waiting for a FT post to come up - against my better judgement. then after I had agreed to do it, they mentioned that it wasn't actually legal, but medical "but they need similar skills", even though I had specifically told her I need to work under a lawyer to gain my qualifying experience. But having agreed at 1pm on Friday afternoon, I did not want to back out and let them down. And the money was good, even if it was in the most inaccessable parts of Bristol for me. So off I trot on Monday morning, feeling pretty disgruntled at the 90 minute commute (including getting lost quite a lot). My mood is not lightned by the fact that my mobile starts ringing 30 minutes after I leave and then every 10 minutes for the next hour. I arrive at the venue and spend 10 minute looking for a parking place (having been tld "there's plenty of free parking there") making me a few minutes late. get into reception, pick up the annoying phone message telling me the job has been cancelled! GRrrrrrrrrr. what a waste of my morning!

I've got another interview )mine no- agencies involved) on friday afternoon, so I think i shall not bother with agencies any more. they are just annoying! Plus, what with Mstr A's diagnosis, and LMD's birthday tomorrow, and tons of stuff to do round the house i could do with the time off at the moment.

It did mean I had time to go out for a blast on the bike today. I'm starting to remember how it all works now:-) More thrilling than terrifying this time.

Bugg'rit millenium hand & shrimp

As foul ol' Ron would say. Some days are just downright depressing:-(

Today I discovered that Terry Pratchett probably only has a "few more books" in him with the onset of Altzheimers killing off one of the greatest literary minds of our time. I love his books, which are usually laugh out loud funny, with an added dollop of wry wit and observtional humour thrown in to keep it interesting. Plus he just seems like a jolly nice chap from the things I have read about him.

although it is his fault me and Aggie got together, so perhaps I shouldn't be too praising;-)

Then at work today we all got called into a meeting and told that the company was closing in June. But the Family department would be gone by February. So it's job hunting for me again.

And despite it being the 12th, and therefore the draw date, I didn't win anything this month:-) Nor did we get our working tax credit for some unknown reason, so I'll have to chase that up. Hurumph! And I spent the last bit of my car money on a trailer - which will be very useful, and will make our summers much easier, but it is still depressing to say goodbye to a big bank balance.

Some days are just shit! lets hope tomorrow is better.

Woo-Hoo!

We got our money out of the bank! (if you don't know what I'm talking about, see Aggies blog here and here). They agreed to settle for £30 less than we claimed - the £30 court fees we'd paid to show that we really were serious about going all the way:-) that's the mortgage sorted for the next couple of months:-) Plus one over on the banks. Woo hoo! Of course, it was coupled with a very stern letter saying it wasn't their fault, they weren't a ccepting liability or admitting fault, and that if we ever deign to even sneeze in the bank's direction again the will close our account. but that's OK, we've been wanting to close our account for years - ever since they were taken over by RBS and became shit. It's just that we were alays too overdrawn for anyone else to take us on. Now we've got an extra couple of grand in the bank, our overdraft is low enough to move. we're changing banks next month anyway.

Mstr A started swimming lessons again on tuesday evening. it's a bit of a rush for me, but he managed to almost participate in the whole lesson. Also, when I spoke to his teacher (10 secs before the lesson started - even though I wrote to the pool weeks ago) about him having aspegers, she said her day job was working with autistic children, so at least she knew what I was talking about, and did a good job of keeping him with the rest of the group.

I have decided not to attend the interview for the PGCE course tomorrow. despite having put in the effort to write up my notes of Dracula:-) Bath is really a bit far, and I like what I'm doing. If this had come up two years ago it would have been different, but I'm going to stick with law for now.

And on a totallydifferent note: I see that Cadbury's schwepps are going to split into Cadbury's and schwepps. Umm, wasn't that what they were originally?

And how come the gov't regularly complains at how much the olympics is going to cost us, and is appalled that the bill for new roads, public transport, houses, facilities, total regeneration of some really revolting slums, and unimaginable PR across the world is nearing the £10 billion mark, but the same gov't is telling us that we desperately ned to spend TWICE that much on a couple of new Trident nuclear weapons, which will be aimed out into the middle of the ocean for the next twenty years?

Missed opportunities.

I hope I made the right decision about the job. I turned down two interviews yesterday - one to work in a school, which is what I will need to do if I want to go off and do my teacher training (which I think is age discrimination as kids of 21, straight out of uni don't have to go work in a school for a year or two first!), and one to manage a local leisure centre. That one was hard - the money was fairly good, and the job one & could do easily. But I did promise Aggie no more shift work. And tbh, our lifestyle now is not suited for that job. It's not only the shifts but being on call 24/7, working Christmas day etc. Still, it's hard to say no to what could be a fantastic opportunity:-)

It's LMD's birthday party tomorrow. I've still not heard from any of the nursery parents so I hope some of them turn up. Sister S is visiting with cousin G for the weekend, so we should get a good goosip/whinge tonight:-) But it means I don't see when I'm going to get much studying done this week. Again:-(

They're like buses

Jobs that is. You don't see any for ages then two turn up at once.

Or not, in the case of buses in Weston:-)

The post came today with an interview for a job at the local secondary school, and a letter from UWE saying they are arranging dates for interviews for teacher training (not that I've been invited to interview mind - just that they need more time to arrange dates!).

Oh what a dilemma! I like this job, but I don't know if I want to be a lawyer, and staying as a legal sec for ever doesn't sound very financially rewarding. I love the idea of working school terms:-) I know I like teaching in a generic sense, but don't know if I'd like working in a school.... and I haven't actually been offered the course yet. But if I do get an interview I know the biggest deciding factor in getting the course is if I have been working in a school already (obviously not the same criteria is used for new graduates, which I reckon is age discrimination, but.....)

What to do?

On the up

I got a job!

*see me doing the "I got a job" dance round the living room*

At the solicitors i went for an interview with on friday, as a legal sec for the Family Law Dept, which i reckon will be really interesting. Family Law comes quite high on my list of areas I'd like to try out before deciding on my specialisation, and I'd rather try it earlier in my career tha later in case it turns out i can't leave it behind at the end of the day. this job is working with mostly legal aid stuff, ften representing children in care, which will be great!

I'm working 9-3 three days a week and 9-5 two days. That should be OK I reckon (It's what i offered.

Starting Wednesday morning! I can't believe the way these firms work! I hope I can get the nursery places back for the girls, and they're not too pissy about me mucking them around.

Yay me.

Paying off

I phoned the DWP today to find out if they are ever going to pay me my JSA - they promised all six weeks worth of money will be in the bank on Tuesday, which will be nice:-) Although you wonder what they think I've been living off since 15th December!

My "on spec" letters have been paying off too, as i had an interview this afternoon for a job in another local solicitors. It seemed to go well, and they are happy for me to finish at 3pm, so hopefully i'll be back at work soon. Obviously, he has to speak to the partners, and get references (which is more than the last lot did), but I'm hopeful there won't be any problems.