A QUANTUM OF SOLACE
for all of you who watched the movie and were like WTF does that mean, this is what it means - a small measure of comfort amid sorrow or disappointment.
That’s what the last few weeks were, and I’m grateful for it.
why, do you ask? well, after countless months of absolute no luck I had not one, not two, not three but four interviews. I’m tired just writing about it.
regardless of how well they went (and i think they all went various degrees of alright, some better than others), it was great to be back in the saddle. it was nice to replace ‘fear of starving in the near future anxiety’ with just normal, garden variety work related anxiety. felt nice to be put on the spot and have a moment of panic when asked an unexpected question. Cliche, yes, but i felt alive again.
I even got a second stage interview with one of them, so technically it’s 5 interviews, but who’s counting.
I won’t name names, but they were:
A cruise line, from which i haven’t heard a peep back but found out the usual way (ooo email…) that the person is, well, ooo. having gone on cruises before i feel that i have just the right experience. because not a lot of people have, and it’s their loss. so yeah, fingers crossed on that one.
a british design-led stationery and gift brand. love them, love the b-corp vibe, love the ‘family business’ feel, and really appreciated the second stage test. waiting to hear back but the dude is away, so yeah, thanks, everyone is away now, obviously…
a civil service role. that was no fun. there was a panel, and there was no banter. there was actually the opposite of banter - stern staring, light sighing at my banter attempts, the clear facial expressions of people internally rolling their eyes. ‘don’t panic if you don’t hear from us anytime soon, we are seeing a lot of people’. a lot of people who don’t fucking do banter at civil service job interviews was the subtext, but hey. better they find out now, right?
finally, a role that is going back and forth, being redesigned and that, so there’s another chat next week. red flag? who knows, right now red flag is better than no flag. time will tell.
hopefully we’re getting closer to the point where i have no time for frivolities such as a fucking semi-regular diary and don’t ever look at linkedin other than to keep my tango winning streak.
god knows i need that, it was very hard for me to not talk shit about any of the companies above in the unlikely event they read this. let’s wait until each and every one of them sends me the ‘thanks but no thanks’ note, or entirely ghosts me, before we do that.
ciao.
