I hate recruitment agencies

I may have mentioned this before. I have dealt with recruitment agencies from both sides of the table, so to speak. I've had to use their services to employ staff, and I've had to use their services to find work.

In the former, they phone incessantly, send muffins and chocolates (useful) and random mouse mats and calendars (not so useful since it's hard to move a mouse around on a pile of mats), and worst of all, they always ask me how my weekend was. Why? You don't know me, you don't care about my weekend. You don't care that I downed 6 tequilas then passed out, nor do you care that I stayed in and read a book (Readers, which one was it, eh?). Furthermore, why do you think I will tell you, and do you think that asking is going to make vacancies suddenly appear when you were told last week that we weren't hiring until the new year (and it's June)?

Regarding the latter, sometimes you don't have a choice since all the good jobs seem to be through agencies. So, I duly send my CV in. They call me: "great CV!", and then I never hear from them again. What happened? Was I not suitable? Say so. If I am not suitable why did you say I was? One particular agency advertised 3 roles on different occasions. The same person (whom I met: "we'd love to meet you to determine if you are in fact normal") said that he put me forward for all 3 roles and that I was to be called - all 3 times - about an interview. Readers, this didn't happen. You know who you are, Craig James.

I vowed never to use agencies ever again. (Except Richard O, because I like him and he does what he says he is going to do.) However, now I need a bit of pocket money to make Christmas more rosy, so to my horror, I've found myself registering with the temp agencies because how else will I get temp work? I devised a very special email and have spent some time this morning sending it out to all the usual suspects.

Readers: mortification. I had addressed the email as follows: People could you let me know the registration process... People? I meant had meant to say Please.

Obviously ingratiation sticks in my throat.

Woe is me

I can't help thinking that there must be another posting on this blog with the same title. It is my wont from time to time, as My Loved One frequently points out, to feel self-pity. I mean really feel it. I have a look - usually staring out of the window, a little sigh, and a pathetically small voice that goes with everything. A cup of tea?, I am asked. Deep breath, sigh, "yes please". Cue looking out of the window some more. Today is such a day, because I am unwell. I am illin', as my My Most Delicious Friend Regina Silverspoon® would say. I deplore being ill. Being ill is fine when you get time off school - although I didn't want to in case I missed something (in the playground that is) - and it's fine when you don't have that much to do at work and a couple of days off to watch Murder She Wrote followed by Diagnosis Murder followed by Midsomer Murders followed by a marathon of the King of Queens (Kevin James is someone I am contemplating adding to People I Find Strangely Attractive) is exactly what the doctor ordered. Lying about in bed is: for sex; it's for watching movies on a Sunday afternoon; it's for reading a good book; and of course for beauty-sleeping. It's not for groaning, sniffling and coughing and crying "why is this happening to me?". I want to go out tonight and I shall, if it kills me. This bloody cold.

I fought with Windows Vista and won

So, it's like this. If ever you get an error message "Windows Explorer is not working" and if that message appears on a loop FOR ETERNITY - not working, closing, restarting, not working - and if you cannot DO ANYTHING about it because you cannot access a single thing on your own computer BECAUSE OF IT, just gimme me a call: I'm your IT bitch.

You're welcome.

Where have all the good blogs gone?

It was a Saturday night in, and I was looking for something to read. Usually I scroll through Blogger which has been known to yield some interesting reads, and occassionally a giggle or guffaw. This time however, I was at a loss. What I found, click after click, was a community of poets and wannabe writers, as if the recent successes of blogs-gone-a-published incited a frenzy of hope that they too will be discovered.

For you, some treats I found "on my journey":

'Have no fear, kids. These novels are gonna rock it.' - Rock it? Down with the kids much?

This insightful gem, from a poem called "quarrel": 'no words, no words pass between us today. no words, no words she said.' - Otherwise known as the silent treatment, genius.

'Courtney Kazembe's Blog: Inspiration, Motivation and Transformation' - No, no and no.

There are dozens where that came from, but I got bored writing them down. I will let you explore for yourselves, fuelled by this final inspiration:

'My Weekend: I spent the weekend here at home.' - Hold me back!

Can someone please point me in the right direction?

Things I like: Colcannon

Mmm, good. Preferably with baked potato mash and red cabbage.

Things that make me go "Arrrghggh"

Now that we are at home every day trying to grow a business from zero to successful in as short a time as the wolves at the door will allow, I have a little more time to surf the Internet, and a lot more time to complain. My delicate state [that is: being poor, having bills to pay, stagnation of the brain from having daytime TV on-hand, and atrophying of the muscles caused by not wanting to leave house since it would require me to wear more than my pants] lowers my rage threshold to the point of ridiculousness and makes me act like the grand mistress of the grumpiest of the grumpy old women.

Who cares that the local 6th form students leave lunch debris all over the Common every day. I DO!! Why? I don't know why, just because I do! My Loved One told me that it's my war. And he is right, but at this time I am choosing to let rage wash over me.

What else makes me go mental that didn't make me go mental before? Cold calls. Do you know that people really do phone up and try to sell you double-glazing. I honestly thought this was a quaint English joke: it's not, they called not 10 minutes ago. I live in a managed block, the tiniest bit of research would have told them that. No one in this building owns their flat. Don't phone us, phone the managing agent. But instead of saying that, I bark something like "I.SAID.NO.NOT.INTERESTED." What's happening to me? Someone please give me some business please, it's in society's best interests.

And then there's the recruitment consultants (and their associated agencies). My wrath cannot be contained in this posting. I am, in my head, compiling a special posting for you horned devils which I will unleash in due course. (Except Richard O, I like him.)

Disturbed much?

Does anyone else, anyone at all, find this sexy lady bunny disturbing? I said 'sexy' and 'bunny' in the same sentence. Tell me I am not alone here: disturbing.

I found these and liked them

1. Fuck you, Penguin. Laughed out loud. Poverty-induced hysteria? Maybe. Don't let this confuse you: I am in no way a fan of cute animals/cute animal blogs. This is just funny, simples....

.....which leads me nicely to the next one:


2. I have always appreciated the Meerkat and this made me smile indulgently. (Thanks to Peter the Great, because I nicked it from his blog.)

Why does it have to be so difficult?

Foraying into the field of service provision, I now have a well-formed view of "what it should be like" to give good customer service. It's not hard, it really isn't. Why then have I spent the past two days "dealing" with an Internet service provider? Tiscali, let's make it clear.

Having blown off BT for abominable customer service, I gave Tiscali a chance. (If I am to be entirely honest, I wanted to give Virgin Media a chance but they don't "service" our area). Nevertheless, lessons learned from BT made me wiser and more assertive about my extraordinarily reasonable service provision expectations. On the phone to the Tiscali Sales - a promptly answered call - I felt that I had all bases covered.

"Can I please put My Boyfriend, whom I live with and who uses the service, as a named person so that should there be any faults or queries, he is also able to phone you directly."
"Absolutely!" came the reply. "Why don't I just go ahead and take his information down for our records?"

Wonderful.

You can see it coming, can't you? The day dawns, a Tuesday, when My Boyfriend has to make that call. He got as far as: "We'll need to send an engineer out to your house." Excellent, he says, please do. "Erm, well, actually, I can't take that instruction from you." You what? "Erm, data protection (voice becomes muffled) so you are erm, not authorised."

I won't bore you with the rest, although I feel I should: as a warning. It's taken two of us, two days talking to four different people, to send someone between 11 and 1 p.m. They have yet to arrive. Time of posting: 2.15 p.m.

Do you recommend Sky? Are they good?

Overheard

On the tube. Girl, probably 23 or 24 years old, says to boy, probably 19 or 20 years old:

"I'm sorry to hear about your friend."

Boy nods sadly, "She died on her birthday."

"That's a bit shit. But, hey, at least her parents will only have one day of the year to feel sad."

Verbatim.

Things I like: Flings

Not of the 'brief casual relationship kind' but of the 'baked not fried' kind.

They're from South Africa, made from maize (corn) and taste wonderous.

My Loved One says they taste like Wotsits.

They do not.

Rodchenko and Popova at the Tate

This is what the blurb says:

"This exhibition explores work by two of Russia's most influential avant-garde artists, Alexandr Rodchenko and Liubov Popova. Charting their evolution from abstract painting to graphic designs, the show includes cinema and theatre poster designs, books and costumes as well as paintings and sculpture. "



This is what I said (standing in front of a Liubov Popova fabric design):

"I like this one."

My Loved One rolled his eyes and walked away. Such an expression of personal taste without any explanation is apparently uninteresting, I later learned.


Rodchenko & Popova: Defining Constructivism

Unexpected item in the bagging area

A little more than a year ago, I wrote with some fervour about a style of speed-dating that encouraged a 3-minute rant, as opposed to the style which involves pouting and syrupy tones. You can read it here. I have something to add. Not about speed-dating, rather about things to rant about.

Have you ever used the self-service scanners at Tesco? Great idea! A few items to buy and no queue, or not a very long one if there is. Some may say that it's robbing a British worker of a British job...but is it? I ask, because about 9 times out of 10, I have a forced interaction with a Tesco-uniformed individual whilst using the "self-service" scanners. At any point, from arrival at the scanner - before any button pressing or bag rustling begins - through to removing my paid for lentil and bacon soup and triangle seed roll, bagged or not, I am affronted by that voice, that voice! "Unexpected item in the bagging area." No there is not, no there bloody is not. I haven't even started, and if I have, and I've finished and paid: no there bloody is not! I did not surreptitiously add a packet of nuts or bottle of Lightly Sparkling mineral water to my stash. I just didn't. But apparently that disembodied lady has a different view. Did your coat brush against the bagging area? "Unexpected item". Did you open that difficult-to-open bag a little too vigorously? "Unexpected item". So I wait for the Tesco-appointed, Tesco-uniformed investigator to come over and ensure that there isn't a cheeky chocolate bar smuggled into the bag; that there isn't a packet of condoms nestled between my Strawberry Muller Light yogurt and Royal Gala apple. I wait for them to identify themselves to the accuser by scanning their tags to say Hey, it's OK, I'm from Tesco, and EVERYTHING IS OK. There is no thievery going on over here. Here, let me enter my special code so that our valued customer can be on there way with their PAID FOR items.

Come on Tesco, is there something else you could be too sensitive about? Perhaps the chickens?