The Return of Travellin Bob

So another month and half has gone by since my paean to Jeremy Clarkson hit the web and was (rightly) ignored by all bar 6 people (whoever you are, I admire you and thank you for your perseverance).   And not a lot has changed, or indeed happened.



I'm still at home, wondering where the next job will come from and becoming increasingly pissed off with the frankly ill-mannered way that recruiting now seems to be done in this web enabled age.  I used to work in the recruitment industry, many moons ago, back in the glory days of the Divine Maggie, and as I've fallen in and out of work over the years I've been through the mill a number of times, so I do think I know what I'm on about.  And I can say without a shadow of doubt an industry that has always been a little, shall we say, loose with the truth has become even more shambolic and (dare I say it) dishonest.

Back in my day, when I worked for a little agency near Liverpool Street station, we consultants - all four of us - split our time more or less evenly between calling all our industry contacts drumming up positions to fill, drafting up our ads to be placed in the wide range of freebie magazines dished out at all the mainline and tube stations that were the best source of applicants (everyone, but everyone, picked up at least one copy a week), and then vetting the deluge of CVs and interview the pick of the applicants.  We also had people walk through the doors sometimes, on the off-chance of finding something.   Very very occasionally, if we were short of applicants, we would invent a job just to drum up more CVs, but that was not something we did lightly nor often.  One thing we always did, however, was return phone calls.

Now what happens?  Well, all the agencies use the web to post jobs and get CVs in, and there are a whole load of sites out there that collate jobs from various sources, sort them and re-direct your attention to specific agencies, automatically re-routing your application mail.  All very efficient......until you try to follow up your application personally.  Then the fun begins.  I've lost count of the number of potential jobs that have come my way via Jobserve (for instance), - probably 4 or 5 day - and lost track too of the ones that were actually relevant and applied for.  What I do know is that the vast majority of them have produced not even an acknowledgement of my existence, never mind a vague discussion or (God forbid) an interview.   So the CV goes off, I give it a day or two (no more) and call the agency, just to make sure the thing arrived, is there any interest, blah blah blah.  The brush off - she's in a meeting, he's on another call, he's off sick.  OK, here's my number, can you ask him to call when he's free.  And ninety nine times out of a hundred that's it.  Never hear from them again.

I applied for one a week or so ago, that from the job description was tailor made - they wanted exactly my banking background, they wanted my IT and consultancy experience.....not just some of it, but to a T.  I applied.  Called in two days later.  And again after three.  Finally got to speak to the bloke.  He at first denied receiving the CV, then when I pushed it found it on his system - and immediately said it doesn't fit the job profile.  I asked him why.  "Well, you worked for years at the Bank of Poland...."  Oops....big time mistake, you can't even read, fuckwit.  I pointed out this wasn't actually the case, and politely suggested (biting my tongue all the while) that he had another read through.  "I don't need to," says Jack the Lad, "I've been doing this for four years...."   What I felt like saying was, hang on a minute - I've been a BA for three times as long as that, and working in the banking and finance industry for probably longer than you have existed, you poisonous little toerag, so don't gave me that bullshit, and do your job properly.....  What I actually said was - nothing.  Bugger all.  There was no point, because the snivelling little cretin wouldn't have listened or changed his mind anyway.  I gave up and cut the connection.

Sadly that seems to be par for the course.  It's soul destroying, really.....



What's also soul destroying is the way your mates, people who you've traveled with, shared hotel bars and airport lounges with, frequently helped and supported in all kinds of ways, suddenly disappear.  Calls to their mobiles cut straight to Voicemail.  Text messages and e-mails go unanswered.   Those that do bother to respond usually pledge their help and say they'll let you know if they hear about anything - but they somehow never seem to hear of anything quickly enough, and by the time the word of this project or that opening reaches your straining ears, via an increasingly inefficient grapevine, and you apply - it's already gone to someone else (who as often as not is less well qualified).  Unemployment definitely clarifies who your real friends are, that's for sure.....



So my days are spent trawling the internet for openings, keeping in touch with old acquaintances (who I actually thought were mates....) to try and rustle something up, swapping leads and gossip with the handful of real mates about possibilities (it's interesting that my closest mates now seem to be in the same position as me and those still in work are reduced to mere acquaintances).  And reading news items and stuff from an assortment of on-line journals and news sources, in an attempt to stay abreast with what's going on in my workspace.  And reading various books.  And of course watching a bit (not a lot) of tv.  Doing the school run with my kids (sometimes, now the weather has improved) on the bikes, which is nice.  Ironing.  Cooking.  Gazing wistfully at outgoing aircraft from the nearby airport.......

I should really write more - it's not as if I don't have the time nowadays.  This blog for a start - I've neglected it for a while now, sorry about that.  I should finish the task of revising The Match, my long-written but unpublished novel about sex and booze and football.  I should start writing my autobiography - not for publication, probably, but more for the benefit of my kids and their (eventual) kids, just to remind them of their heritage and show them perhaps what the world was like when their old man was a nipper, because it's what made their old man the old man he was....and that's in their genes, too.  That could be fun......

But it's finding the.....how can I put it?.....the oomph to actually get started.  To get those creative juices surging again.  To drag from somewhere the sheer energy to do something about it (I've noticed that the more time I'm at home with nothing to do, the less energy I seem to have and the more I seem to want to sleep....it's a paradox.  My doctor told me earlier this year that for a man of 60 I have the physical body and well-being of a man of 40, which cheered me up no end.  Now sometimes I feel like I'm a 60 year old man going on 80..... It's not nice.)

So here is a New Years Resolution (ok, I know it's June 6 - so I'm a bit late.....).

I WILL finish The Match.  I WILL start on My Life.  I WILL blog more often.



Well, better get started then.....