Job Hunting

"If you are looking for a degree or other tertiary qualifications, I can tell you I don't have any. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me an ideal employee for people like you."

Not actually me, just a similarly hung and dangerous look-a-like.

This last week has been a strange and humbling experience for me. I last applied for a job about 8 years ago, back when I had very little to offer but my rampant enthusiasm. Since then, I've become some kind of super skilled, highly professional, experienced guy, but I don't seem to be able to translate my value outside of a policing context. It was not fun writing my CV, as I seem to lack experience in all the roles I am applying for. Something like this would be ideal... [Henchmen for hire] 

I've sent out somewhere between 50-100 emails in the past week to various pubs, outdoors stores and cycling stores, as well as popping by in person to say hello and let my rugged good looks and boyish charm win them over. But, amazingly, they don't seem to share my high view of myself. Very few replies. I'm a bit limited with my availability as I'll be off on my bike come May. That's cost me one job already, post-interview. A bike shop I interviewed at said they really like me, but ended up choosing a guy who actually knew something about bikes (You pedal them. Did I miss something?). I interviewed for a managers position at an outdoors store today which seemed to go well, but it'll be another week before I hear back. I'm so impatient...

In the mean time, I just had my first shift (literally) with Kiwi Movers. A positively racist furniture shifting company in London that had me running furniture up and down four flights of stairs most of the day, sweating like a man who's running furniture up and down four flights of stairs. Appropriate, and I believe a set a new benchmark. The work can be irregular so I'll keep searching around, but it's something to keep me busy and fit in the mean time.

Speaking of mean time, I enjoyed a ferry trip down the Thames to Greenwich the other day. Not only where time comes from, but where the longitude is zero! Enabling the good folk at Nauticalia to proudly boast they are the first shop in the world. I didn't go inside, for fear I'd end up buying an 8kg brass and mahogany "bicycle compass". We all know I'm capable of that.

Having a mean time in Greenwich.

For all your nautical needs...

London is full of surprises. Popping out of the Westminster tube station the other day I was confronted with Big Ben. Well, it turns out I was confronted with a clock tower, as later, the ferry tour operator asked us all if we could see Big Ben. I gleefully nodded my head, but then he said it was a trick question and Big Ben was the name of the bell inside the clock tower, which was not actually visible. The clock tower was just part of the Palace of Westminster. "So there, you have not seen Big Ben." I repressed an urge to tell him that his head was not actually a dick, yet due to its inner content that was a sufficient label for me. Bubble burster. 

Disclaimer: NOT Big Ben. You CANNOT see Big Ben.

The London "I" - Looks more like an "O".

I swear there's a joke here, but I'm unable to find it.

Holy Ship! Digging the rigging.

That's all I have to offer you right now. Hopefully in another week I'll have a stable job. Hey, stable jobs! I wonder if that's still a thing here? Didn't England invent the horse?