David and Goliath.
Putting on my suit was alarming. I bought it last year in a charity shop in Bournemouth. Bournemouth, unsurprisingly, is good for charity shops. This thing was brand new, the pockets unstitched. It was a navy pin-stripe with a narrow lapel. It was Forty quid. Forty quid is a lot for a charity shop suit but I tried it on and it could have been made for me - I have a dead man's vital statistics.
Or I did. A lot can happen in a year of sedentary living and the jacket was just a bit too tight to comfortably close. The trouser waist-band bit gently into my belly and forced the zip to poke out like a tiny silver erection. The sort of thing you'd get on a key ring at the Cerne Abbas Giant gift-shop.
I paced up and down at the bus-stop rehearsing the things I was going to say in the interview, as I had been doing for the last three days, talking to myself, until a man with no eyebrows dressed as a country doctor appeared and out-weirded me, cramping my style.
I had a job interview. The job was a variation on the job I did when I lived in London. I knew I could do this job. I had done this job. But that was a decade ago and this was the first proper job interview I had had in at least 15 years.
I was very early. I went round the corner to Starbucks and used their toilet twice. I was still fifteen minutes early when I arrived at the offices, signed myself in and went up to the lounge where the other candidates were sitting. Three thing were immediately obvious. First was the insistent jack-hammering. There was a lot of very angry, very loud smashing of objects somewhere close by. Somebody was beating the shit out of the building next door. It was like the Hulk had trod on a plug.
"Can anyone hear that?" I said to my fellow applicants, two girls and boy, "Or am I having a heart attack?"
Nothing.
They probably thought, looking at me, that it was well within the realm of possibility.
The second thing I noticed was the television that was blaring in the waiting room. It was one of those programmes that they have now from America featuring men in cap-sleeved T-Shirts buying up old cars, attacking them with Oxyacetylene torches and then auctioning them at incredible speeds over a P.A. system. None of that process is quiet and nor were the squealing guitar solos that were slathered over every scene. It was not conducive to centring oneself or summoning an inner calm. My chakras spilled like drunken jenga.
The third thing I noticed was that I could have sired anyone of the other competitors. I had twenty years on them, easily. Its my greatest fear, really, that sort of generational cringe.
I look my age - today I probably look older.
And there's no shame in wearing your life's experiences on your face*. I've seen terrible things and I've experienced a lot of pain but there are a lot of laughter lines there too. I'm quite proud of wearing the face that I have made for myself. I wear it well. I've earned it, if nothing else.
But what must I look like to them? Those kids, six months out of Uni (one of them, Abbey, told me that. Fuckin' psyche queen!) applying for their first job and there's granddad limping in, in his dead man's suit and his punky hair - I bet he must have been a right raver in his day - cracking his dad jokes and trying not to smile so you can't see his demolished teeth. What must I have looked like to them, as they edged away on the banquette in case the stink of failure was catching.
When was doing my first proper job, I was twenty four or something, I worked for an insurance company in Basingstoke, because everyone in Basingstoke worked for an insurance company. Basingstoke was a centre of excellence for insurance, roundabouts and getting beaten up by squaddies on a Friday night. I was working in customer services, on the phones, and they hired what appeared to be an old man. David must have been in his late fifties, he had been a teacher, he was very nicely spoken and was a ruddy nice chap. He was a friendly man but he struggled with the technology and became flustered if called upon to do anything unusual. He didn't last very long and I think he left before he was fired. I was always perfectly friendly towards him and we got along fine even though we had nothing in common, but I was always wary of him. He made me uncomfortable. I had no idea how he had ended up here and I had no desire to ask. He looked stupid in his little headset, getting flushed and flustered pushing the wrong buttons, his clipped and polished tones incongruous in a call centre. He'd have been better suited to cricket commentary or sending young men to their deaths in the First World War.
And now I'm David.
And I didn't even get the job.
There was a forty minute interview (I was later informed that some of the interviews only took fifteen minutes, which I was very smug about - at the time), a written exercise, and a couple of practical tests. The whole thing took two hours in all. I felt very comfortable there - the office environment was almost the same as the one I'd left behind in London, the people seemed nice, there was a casual atmosphere.
I thought I had done okay.
I found out today that I hadn't. I've asked for some feed-back.
I've been racking up all the rejections again recently: lots of publishers and agents - terrifically kind and helpful and each telling me how wonderful I am just not right for them. Then in two successive weeks the Arts Council and now this - two very big application processes. This company at least had the decency to tell me I hadn't got it. But I suppose they are professionals.
I was looking forward to having a job. I was looking forward to the money. I was looking forward to having a sense of purpose and of being a part of something, not constantly on the periphery selling my home-made, homely wares.
I was looking forward to giving up writing, actually.
Looks like I'm stuck with it.
*I'm the same age as Jared Leto. He's not natural. He's FREAKISH.
 |
| "Well, there go all my options. Stage left." |
Or I did. A lot can happen in a year of sedentary living and the jacket was just a bit too tight to comfortably close. The trouser waist-band bit gently into my belly and forced the zip to poke out like a tiny silver erection. The sort of thing you'd get on a key ring at the Cerne Abbas Giant gift-shop.
I paced up and down at the bus-stop rehearsing the things I was going to say in the interview, as I had been doing for the last three days, talking to myself, until a man with no eyebrows dressed as a country doctor appeared and out-weirded me, cramping my style.
I had a job interview. The job was a variation on the job I did when I lived in London. I knew I could do this job. I had done this job. But that was a decade ago and this was the first proper job interview I had had in at least 15 years.
I was very early. I went round the corner to Starbucks and used their toilet twice. I was still fifteen minutes early when I arrived at the offices, signed myself in and went up to the lounge where the other candidates were sitting. Three thing were immediately obvious. First was the insistent jack-hammering. There was a lot of very angry, very loud smashing of objects somewhere close by. Somebody was beating the shit out of the building next door. It was like the Hulk had trod on a plug.
"Can anyone hear that?" I said to my fellow applicants, two girls and boy, "Or am I having a heart attack?"
Nothing.
They probably thought, looking at me, that it was well within the realm of possibility.
The second thing I noticed was the television that was blaring in the waiting room. It was one of those programmes that they have now from America featuring men in cap-sleeved T-Shirts buying up old cars, attacking them with Oxyacetylene torches and then auctioning them at incredible speeds over a P.A. system. None of that process is quiet and nor were the squealing guitar solos that were slathered over every scene. It was not conducive to centring oneself or summoning an inner calm. My chakras spilled like drunken jenga.
The third thing I noticed was that I could have sired anyone of the other competitors. I had twenty years on them, easily. Its my greatest fear, really, that sort of generational cringe.
I look my age - today I probably look older.
And there's no shame in wearing your life's experiences on your face*. I've seen terrible things and I've experienced a lot of pain but there are a lot of laughter lines there too. I'm quite proud of wearing the face that I have made for myself. I wear it well. I've earned it, if nothing else.
But what must I look like to them? Those kids, six months out of Uni (one of them, Abbey, told me that. Fuckin' psyche queen!) applying for their first job and there's granddad limping in, in his dead man's suit and his punky hair - I bet he must have been a right raver in his day - cracking his dad jokes and trying not to smile so you can't see his demolished teeth. What must I have looked like to them, as they edged away on the banquette in case the stink of failure was catching.
When was doing my first proper job, I was twenty four or something, I worked for an insurance company in Basingstoke, because everyone in Basingstoke worked for an insurance company. Basingstoke was a centre of excellence for insurance, roundabouts and getting beaten up by squaddies on a Friday night. I was working in customer services, on the phones, and they hired what appeared to be an old man. David must have been in his late fifties, he had been a teacher, he was very nicely spoken and was a ruddy nice chap. He was a friendly man but he struggled with the technology and became flustered if called upon to do anything unusual. He didn't last very long and I think he left before he was fired. I was always perfectly friendly towards him and we got along fine even though we had nothing in common, but I was always wary of him. He made me uncomfortable. I had no idea how he had ended up here and I had no desire to ask. He looked stupid in his little headset, getting flushed and flustered pushing the wrong buttons, his clipped and polished tones incongruous in a call centre. He'd have been better suited to cricket commentary or sending young men to their deaths in the First World War.
And now I'm David.
And I didn't even get the job.
There was a forty minute interview (I was later informed that some of the interviews only took fifteen minutes, which I was very smug about - at the time), a written exercise, and a couple of practical tests. The whole thing took two hours in all. I felt very comfortable there - the office environment was almost the same as the one I'd left behind in London, the people seemed nice, there was a casual atmosphere.
I thought I had done okay.
I found out today that I hadn't. I've asked for some feed-back.
I've been racking up all the rejections again recently: lots of publishers and agents - terrifically kind and helpful and each telling me how wonderful I am just not right for them. Then in two successive weeks the Arts Council and now this - two very big application processes. This company at least had the decency to tell me I hadn't got it. But I suppose they are professionals.
I was looking forward to having a job. I was looking forward to the money. I was looking forward to having a sense of purpose and of being a part of something, not constantly on the periphery selling my home-made, homely wares.
I was looking forward to giving up writing, actually.
Looks like I'm stuck with it.
*I'm the same age as Jared Leto. He's not natural. He's FREAKISH.
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