my fucking job hunt.

I’m in a very angry and hateful mood right now, I figured it might be a good time to write it out. This will either prove to be cathartic and help, so I can go and watch One Tree Hill in a relaxed stupor, or it’ll make things much worse and I’ll set myself on fire and jump out the window. Place your bets, ladies and gents…

Not much has been going on, apart from the fact that I got swine flu. It was really fucking boring, aside from my bad reaction to tamiflu, which I think was cooked up by the Devil in the darkest pits of hell. Projectile green vomiting and shaking so violently that my bed was quaking, I was on some next level chick-from-the-exorcist shit. After I got switched to relenza, I mostly just spent a few days lying in a pool of my own piggie sweat (makes a change to vomit), hacking up funky coloured phlegm and forcing my flu-friend (my mother) to attend to my every need. Fuck the swine ship and all who sail in her.

Anyway, my bad mood was brought on by my aunties husband lecturing me about how I must not be trying very hard to get a job. This was after I had looked after his 9 year old son all day – his son who is fucking mental. I mean proper, chicken oriental. He only ever talks about death, murder, the best ways to kill people, how hes gonna be an assassin when he grows up and his bedtime reading is ‘The Encyclopaedia of Knives’. His dad came home from work and started telling me how I should check the job centre website every day (O RLY?!) and sign up to agencies (WOT SHOX!) as well as checking shop windows in town regularly (O MAI LYFE!). Fucking pretentious cunt. Incase you were wondering, he sells third rate cleaning products to second rate cleaning companies for a living.

I have a little book where I write down all the jobs that I apply for, just so I can keep track of things, chase things up if need be and know whats going on if by some fucking miraculous chance I should get called for an interview. So far, I have applied for 73 jobs. SEVENTY THREE. I didn’t even realise it was that many until I counted today. I am both impressed by my efforts and struggling not to commit suicide at the same time. 73 jobs and I have had 3 proper interviews. And I still don’t have a job. Fuck my life, anyone?

My first interview was the one I mentioned in my last post, a surprise job for the government. I turned up and had to fill in a bunch of forms before they would tell me what I was actually applying for. After giving a list of all the places I’ve lived in, people I’ve lived with and ex-boyfriends for the last 5 years (that last bit was a good time) I was told the job was processing terrorist deportation forms. When I said ‘surely we don’t deport our terrorists? dont they just go to prison?’ the nice lady replied with ‘oh no, we process forms from other countries, theres less chance of you getting hunted down over here!’. Great!

I then went to an interview with 2 fucking terrifying men in suits at the city hall – one of whom was DEFINITELY wearing a man bra. And a toupee. They asked me if I had ever been involved in terrorism (“only the sexual kind”) or espionage (“I don’t think so, but then again I haven’t a fucking clue what espionage is, so I could be little miss espionage 2009 for all I know”) and testing how easily I would be bribed (“I’ll do mostly anything for a fiver. But no anal.”) they offered me that job, depending on me clearing the security checks. That takes 6-8 weeks. I am not hopeful.

My other proper interviews were for Gerry Weber, the clothes shop for old ladies who think theyre something special cause they have a few quid to spend on some fine woven chinos, and at A COMPANY*, for a PA position. I really want the PA job, even though the daily tasks sound about as easy as trying to cram my tits into a training bra. The position is as PA to A MAN who is a foreign correspondent for ITN and is a well important broadcast journalist or summink. The salary is incredibly attractive to both myself and the rum demon on my shoulder who needs feeding, and the dude lets his staff go on holiday to his holiday home in A COUNTRY. He also looks like he might want a bangin in the stationery cupboard every now & then, but I’d take one for the team. I have a second interview for that, but don’t know when it is. In retrospect, the lady who interviewed me the first time may have just told me I had a second interview to get my sorry begging ass off their premises.

*name of company and man and location of his holiday home have been left out, incase they have some fucking mental MI5 style computer hacking systemz that can seek me out.

As well as that, I went to a recruitment evening at Ted Baker. They told me it was an interview, but when I turned up there were about 8 other people waiting outside. The 8 people turned into 40 others, all there for one position. This was a fucking joke. First we all had to have our photos taken (front and side angles, unfortunately no money shot or I’d be working there now) and fill in some forms that asked why we wanted to work for ted baker, where we saw ourselves in 5 years time and 3 words that our friends would use to describe us. Now, I could’ve chosen to fill my form in honestly – why do I want to work for ted baker? Because the pay is good, I could easily do the job hungover/drunk and I appreciate the discount Id get on every Christmas/birthday/anniversary/fathers day/bah mitzvah present I’d ever have to buy again. Where do I see myself in 5 years? Bangin an old rich man and plotting his demise so I can steal his skrilla and run away with my one true love, tinchy strider. 3 words that my friends would use to describe me? Dangerous drunk whore.

Of course, I lied and told them what they wanted to hear.

After that, we all stood in a line and were told to introduce ourselves. Of course, it was my spunked-on luck that I was first in line. I went for a simple “I’m Niki, Im 23, just graduated from Leeds University, I previously worked for Gap which I really enjoyed so I’m looking for a new position in fashion retail”. Yeah, I came off like a really normal, well rounded individual! But other people started getting cocky and telling little ditties and jokes - go suck a donkey off you ball lickers, I hate you. This one girl decided to tell her life story and how her claim to fame was that she ‘nearly got on shipwrecked’. Again, fuck off, I hate you. One poor bloke who was in his 50s, complete with comb-over and unfortunate sweat patches was just screaming ‘I’ve been made redundant and my wife might leave me permanently for the man shes secretly been humping for the last 10 years, please give me a job so she doesn’t take my cats too’ came off with the brilliant line “my name is David and next time I’m in this store, I’m gonna be on that side of the counter instead of this! YEAH!”. With the YEAH! there was a fist pump. I loved that dude. I hope he didn’t intentionally run out infront of a bus on his way home, you could tell he was close.

The manager then asked if anyone knew anything about the company. At this point, nearly-shipwrecked girl stepped out of the line, went to stand with the staff and started telling everyone every available fact about ted baker. She knew how the business had started, how many stores there were, what their mission statement was, like everyone who had done their research did too. But she went on – she knew about ted bakers family, the annual turnover, their annual losses through theft, fucking everything. I was genuinely surprised she didn’t tell what ted bakers favourite flavour of hula hoops were or how big his cock is. She was a fucking tool.

We got divided into 4 groups and were told to come up with an advertising campaign. Again with my luck, I got nearly-shipwrecked-knowitall-cunt in my group. I gave up before we had even started and decided to turn my efforts to getting to know the pretty little thing with the nice eyes and good beard instead. I managed to score a date with him and he took my number. It later transpired that he was 18 years old, so that date never did happen. But its nice to know I still got it, right? Oh fucking hell.

So there it is. An update on how fucking awfully my job hunt has been going so far. I’ll link my aunties husband to this blog and let him see exactly how hard I work to get jobs. I’ll just cut out all the bits about gettin pissed, engaged and stalking men, which actually takes up most of my spare time when I should be learning about Ted Bakers wifes favourite dildo model.

I’m off to find me some kerosene and a box of matches.