Box-set repercussions

I am forever berating myself for not getting enough done in a day. It was bad enough when I had a regular structure and real-life objectives immortalised in my monthly appraisals. These days I generally force myself to get up – no one’s going to fire me if I don’t – and make an improbably long ‘To Do’ list in order to assure self that I’m putting every last second of my abundant free time to good use. Never works. Never end up ticking everything off said list and consequently feel perpetually angered for not working quicker. And I fear I have discovered the root cause of this problem: The Complete Seven Series of the West Wing.

I became a West Wing aficionado late in life – only last December did I begin to flirt with the idea of US politics after the boy bought the entire seven series on DVD – but oh my, I’m four and a half series in and am wholly converted.

President Bartlett and his loyal team of fast-talking, implausibly efficient and oh so beautiful advisors (Rob Lowe is almost indecently attractive) are my heroes. I want to be able to argue my case with the deputy chief of staff, citing a ridiculous amount of legal and political knowledge purely from memory; I want to read an amendment paper and digest the entire thing in two minutes before advising the President on foreign policy; and I want to speak really, really fast using complicated words while walking down White House corridors, and I want to do all this before I have eaten breakfast.

And herein lies the predicament. Every day I am subconsciously trying to emulate these characters. These FICTIONAL characters who deliver their lines to a FICTIONAL President and were created for a FICTIONAL US drama series about the White House and, importantly, get A LOT done in a single day.

Do I need a reality check?

But surely if I’m going to be influenced by any work ethic it should be that of senior White House staff? I mean, is there really anything wrong with imagining that one day I’ll be addressing a room of journalists on the President’s re-election campaign, before influencing a very important decision on international relations with the Middle East? Nah.

What to take away from interviews

A job interview is a very stressful experience. It requires a lot of preparation and, if at the end of it you are not offered the position, often results in that empty, desolate feeling of disappointment, not to mention an empty wallet thanks to the train fare you’ll never get back.

People harp on about them “all being good experience”. Well cheers, but my interview experience bank is pretty full to bursting right now, it’s my monitory bank that could benefit from a serious credit injection.

Something I prefer to take from interviews (in addition to the obligatory “what could I have done better” crap) is the amusing anecdotes, which for some reason seem to stick in my mind.

For example, I recently had the good fortune to be interviewed by the most demeaning character I have ever come across. It was a very relaxing experience, as half a minute in I decided there was no way in hell I was going to end up working for the man, and he came out with some pretty corking lines.

An excerpt of dialogue from minute four:

“So, what’s this Global Competition Review then? You weren’t there very long, what was that an internship?”

He was referring to the longest period of employment on my CV, so that was quite heartening.

He went on to describe his publication as “utterly global” – I’m glad I now know things can be semi-global – and then accused me of lying on my CV because I couldn’t fire off 10 QuarkXpress keyboard shortcuts. So that was pleasant.

I’ve tripped up on occasion too, of course. I was once giving a critique of a very serious business newspaper to the editor and publisher, and told them that several sections resembled the terms and conditions of a competition, they were so small and boring, and that they should really consider introducing some colour onto the features pages to lift the words off the page. They laughed. I thought, ‘oh marvellous, at least I’ve made them laugh,’ until mid de-brief, I pretty much realised they were laughing at, and not with, me.

Far and away the best one-liner I’ve come across in an interview though has to be this:

“Country Companion? That sounds like a 70s style porno for countryside dwellers.”

It is in fact a very safe round up of book reviews, readers letters and countryside news regularly published in Country Living magazine. Brilliant.

Is no news really always good news?

Urgh, waiting. I don't like waiting. It's a tedious, tragically necessary pursuit one is forced into practicing at all too-frequent junctures in life. Waiting for the kettle to boil, for example, waiting for exam results, waiting to hear post-interview if you’ve been hired for a job you really want.

Often, in reference to the latter, friends delight in reassuring me that, ‘no news is good news’, to which I shrug and reluctantly agree is probably true. However, in true SATC style, it got me to thinking…

When is no news really not good news?

No news is not good news when a post-first date text message does not receive a response within 24 hours.

No news is never good news for relatives of those involved in any kind of crash/natural disaster/general emergency situation, no sir.

No news is also not good news in a hostage situation, but let’s move away from such gloomy examples.

No news is the worst news ever for a 24-hour news channel.

No news probably isn’t the best news for newspapers either, but as long as Jordan and Kerry Katona are still alive and debauched, they’ll at least be able to fill a few column inches.

How to have a giggle and be a bit naughty at a wedding

I love weddings. Free booze, free food, everyone's happy (well, after the speeches are over) and you get to admire a lot of nice shoes. Such occasions do, however, invariably include a certain amount of hanging around, waiting for the bride to appear after being papped for the millionth time or metamorphosing into "Evening Bride", waiting for the speeches to be over, etc.

Anyway, it is at these junctures that you can indulge in what I like to refer to as 'fake careering'. The clue is in the name.

This is an especially fun pursuit if you hate your job (or indeed, wish you had one). Some people might call it lying. I prefer to think of it as creative research and an excellent tool of self-amusement.

To illustrate: More often than not, the seating plan will reveal you have been placed between two complete strangers, and it is very unlikely your paths will cross ever again. The champers is flowing and before you know it you're a make-up artist to the cast of Madame Butterfly at London's Coliseum theatre.

This is exactly what happened to me last Saturday at a friend's wedding where I knew precisely 1% of the other guests.

But I didn't stay a make-up artist all night - mais non! During the course of the evening I was a midwife, a set designer and a bonsai tree surgeon. Granted, the latter was at the height of inebriation, and whether the guy I was harping on to believed me, I doubt it, but at least it was a tad more interesting than answering “I’m unemployed” to the “so what do you do?” opening gambit, which inevitably sparks furious chatter about the severity of the recession. And honestly, who wants to talk about that at a wedding?

Weddings are meant to be dreamy occasions, so I reckon using them for a bit of personal escapism is allowed.

NB: Practice caution if it is a small gathering, or if you know over 6% of the other guests.

Hang Loose

I have a confession to make. I have become a closet fan of Loose Women. Well, closet until now I guess. How did this come about?

As a student, my daytime TV ritual started with The Wright Stuff, incorporated Trisha and This Morning, and ended with the lunchtime edition of Neighbours. It categorically did not include Loose Women, which I frivolously wrote off as a bunch of past it personalities moaning about the early onset of menopause and talking in cringe-worthy fashion about sex. No ta.

Imagine my astonishment when I tuned in – by accident – a few weeks ago only to see a glamorous new presenter, find myself laughing at Coleen Nolan’s jokes, and see that Carol-mayor of moansville-McGiffan had gone blond and bagged a toy boy! I was even giggling at the cheeky Malteser ads that appear before and after every break. When did all this happen?! I was hooked until the end of the show, and the next day a tiny bit annoyed when I saw it was 1pm and that I’d missed the first half hour.

I now make sure I have a really early breakfast so as to be sufficiently hungry to eat my lunch at 12:30pm whilst indulging in my daily dose of the loose ladies. And after shunning her for all these years, yesterday I was even disappointed to find that Carol wasn’t on the panel!

Maybe it’s because I’m older. Perhaps it’s because you let certain things into your life when you need them. Is it simply because they make me laugh or am I becoming a sad appreciator of daytime TV? Who knows? At least Wimbledon starts in two weeks and I can have a proper reason to turn on the TV in the middle of the day.

Will somebody please press play?

The blasted birthday. Just typical of it to have the audacity to fall right slap bang in the middle of my personal career crisis, now made all the more poignant by a new digit smirking away at me.

Why are we so hung up on age? Is it a female thing? Us being inherently programmed, thanks to our biological gift of bearing children, to constantly review where we’ve got to and whether we’ve ticked all the boxes on our life lists we made at the ripe age of 16.

I'm not too worried about not owning a house yet or being nowhere near walking down the isle. What I find hard is being in some kind of career limbo, and feeling like everyone else I know is whizzing past me on their respective career ladders while I stay rooted to the spot.

To illustrate: when I found out that former Apprentice candidate Deborah Barr is 23, I literally fell off the sofa. Whether it was the TV camera’s influence or not, she does look older, but regardless, to be so confident and to have arrived at such a point in her career that she was in the final three, incited in me pure panic. What have I done in the last four years? I ended up questioning my past decisions and doubting my ability to succeed as a journalist.

Admittedly, the Deborah debacle was short-lived, but what I can’t seem to shake off is this feeling that I’m on standby. That the recession has hit the pause button on my career and I’m incessantly fighting to get it back on play.

Make your commute work for you - an update

The bloomin loves at TFL know how to show they care, hey? A two-day opportunity to walk all the way into work, arrive refreshed and alert, and then make your way home either on foot or by buses so rammed you'll have lost half your body weight in sweat by the time you alight - what are the chances?! Thanks guys.

Make your commute work for you

Could it be possible that I miss my commute? Am I really pining for a bit of blatant elbow shoving and the suffocating heat of the underground?

Yes, actually. Why? Vanity is the simple answer. To clarify: Because it was a bloody effective (and my only) form of daily exercise, and I loathe to admit it but I may have gained several centimetres on my hips since the commute became a part of my former life.

I was a serious pro in commutersville. I had my journey planned down to the last second, which of course gave no time for error/customary delays and frequently saw me running to make the several connections required in order to arrive at work on time. Hence, a great work out.

Thinking about it, my commute offered every type of exercise a girl needs to maintain her figure.

Cardio: Running for bus, running from bus to train, running from station platform to tube, running from tube to office.

Resistance training: Maintaining perfect balance on said bus, train and tube, whilst simultaneously checking phone and reading book.

Working up a sweat: Northern Line. 8-9:30am.

Increased lung capacity: Holding breath on aforementioned line when faced with proximity to a large armpit.

Poise: Learning to stand a millimetre apart from all surrounding passengers but under no circumstances ever touching them.

Step and tone: Storming up and down escalators, barging those who dare to stand on the left out of the way as you go.

Weights: Heavy handbags/shopping bags ensure upper arms remain toned.

You could even take it a step further and introduce chin dips or pole dancing using the abundance of cylindrical shafts in the tube carriages. I wouldn’t recommend in rush hour but it’s something to consider.

So what are you waiting for? All you need to do now is set a PB, try to break it on every journey and watch the pounds disappear.

Don’t thank me, thank TFL.

mADness

I am losing all patience and rationality when it comes to job adverts. Can they not just get to the point? Here’s the problem. I’m a journalist - I’m used to skim reading to the fourth line of a press release and knowing if a story is contained within. Actually, I rarely have the self-discipline to read to the bottom of anything, which just adds to the frustration and anger that befalls me on reading a page of job ads. I will illustrate my displeasure using a recent example:

An ad for an editorial assistant role catches my eye. I can instantly see that the pay is good and the subject matter is interesting so I read on. Editing experience – tick, liasing with contributors – tick, working on journals – tick. I’m getting a flutter of excitement butterflies and start mentally drafting my covering letter when - bam! At the very end of the third paragraph, more than half way down the ad reads the line: “Knowledge of classical Arabic is essential.” Seriously, you didn’t think that could have appeared a tiny, weenie bit higher up?

And while we’re at it, here’s a crazy thought. Why not think out of the box a little and say what the job actually is? It would sure save us poor potential candidates a lot of time and energy finding out we didn’t want to work for you in the first place.

Take Foxton’s, for instance. A prime example of a job ad that tells you positively nothing, except that you get to parade around the city in a mini cooper – oh and that maybe it has something to do with surfing or extreme sports?

Perhaps they do it because the job itself is so utterly soul destroying that they’d rather you figure that out once you’re contracted into a three-month notice period.

Anyway, my point is please can job ads be a maximum of twenty words and include any middle-eastern language requirements in the first line. Thanks.

Rant over.

Wake up call

When I got the letter telling me I had to attend a ‘Back to Work’ session at the job centre I literally laughed out loud. Guffawed into my porridge. The very thought of sitting with a bunch of unskilled, lazy and let’s face it, probably grimy, people was, in my mind, entirely absurd. Without delay I called the office and explained in my most well-spoken manner that I really didn’t think there was any reason why I - a well-qualified graduate no less - needed to attend, and that I was quite alright searching for work on my own, many thanks all the same.

“It’s mandatory,” replied the voice. Ah, right then, better brace myself in that case.

I marched into the waiting area, praying that it would be a one-to-one so that I could quickly explain my situation and leave, only to be told gleefully by a ‘greeter’ that today’s was a group session. Great. I promptly dodged the camouflage-clad TA who were in situ trying to lure unsuspecting victims into a life of war games, and swiftly found a seat opposite a scruffy John Lennon look-alike. I could see the others out of the corner of my eye, all casually dressed, some sniffing into tissues – I almost had to ask for one, but managed to stifle the tears of humiliation.

When the session began I kept my head down and avoided all eye contact. It progressed well, just a bit of easy listening and stating of the obvious, nothing too taxing, over soon, I told myself.

Then a bombshell. The cheery women taking the session asked if anyone would like to share their work action plans with the rest of the group. Not one for sharing at the best of times, and certainly not under these circumstances, I kept schtum. “I’ll share,” piped up John Lennon. “Oh god this is going to be so depressing,” I inwardly moaned.

“I work in social care and I’m also an artist, so I’m looking for work within the voluntary sector. I’m currently volunteering for a charity and hopefully they will be able to give me some paid work soon. In my spare time I teach art to youth groups in the city.”

My head slowly rose so I could take a long look at this man. What did he just say? Before I could think anymore about it a second voice:

“I’ll go next,” said the guy sitting next to me, whom I’d written off as an out of work bouncer about 20 minutes ago. “I’m a gas engineer, so I lay new gas pipelines and do maintenance work on existing ones. I’m also a qualified builder, so my next plan is to contact the 2012 Olympic contractors to try and get some work on the site.”

Wow, I didn’t see that coming. “I’ll read,” hollered another man sitting at the end of the table. “I used to work in public procurement, but work has dried up of late, so now I’m looking to be a project manager in a related field. I’m still in touch with my old employers and they are helping me find work.”

I continued to hold my head up for the remainder of the hour.

The three men who were gracious enough to speak to the rest of us were qualified, articulate and humble. And I was surprised. Then ashamed.