Ah Mr. Jones, Please Take a Seat...

So anyway At my last interview I was asked a question that took me a little aback
No, it wasn't "Are you wearing fishnet tights under that suit?"
That would have been sexual harassment (and also a spookily good guess)
The question was:
 "Has any manager or supervisor ever had cause to question your practice ?"
Now I'm used to the bit about criminal convictions:
"Have you a criminal record?"
I usually answer:
"Well I've got "Abba's Greatest Hits". Does that count?
Brings the house down.
Or you'll get:
"Have you ever had disciplinary proceedings brought against you?"
But not:
"Has a manager ever given you grief about anything you've done"
The real answer I should have given would have been something like:
"Look. I've worked with vulnerable people since 1986.
I've seen some changes.
When I started my professional career I worked in an old fashioned asylum where some staff would beat up the patients. I didn't like it, I said so and I got into bother.
I worked with young people before the Children Act was passed.
When The Management rule was :
"Ask the child, tell the child then make the child"
I didn't like that.
It got me into bother.
I've worked with some pretty unprofessional, non-client centred and sometimes hysterically illegal  outfits.
I've worked with people who did illegal things routinely.
Condoned by The Management.
So if you're asking me to provide an honest answer in this little interview room that doesn't make me sound like an egotistical paranoid nutter then I'll say:
"Nope. Nobody ever questioned what I did. Not ever"

You what now....?

Mrs. Newt rang me : I hadn't got the job.

"Oh well, thanks for letting me know...."

"Would you like some feedback?"

"Yes, sure"

"Well you knew your stuff but next time you might make more eye contact."

"Oh, erm...ok....."

This had me puzzled. I was making a pretty conscious effort to make eye contact.

I'm getting the hang of this interview lark..."eye contact", that's paragraph three,

Just after the part that tells you not to stare at the interviewer's tits.

"You mean during the interview I wasn't making eye contact?"

"Oh no" she replied "During your presentation"

I had to do a ten minute Powerpoint presentation on a subject they had given me and I had prepared the night before.

I had to use their laptop.

There was no projection facility so I had to read from a laptop screen which faced 180 degrees to the interview panel.

 I know ideally you don't read your presentation from a screen but as it was a subject they had just given me, I didn't exactly know it by heart.

And  I did keep turning round to them (with lots and lots of eye contact) when illustrating my points with some (admittedly largely fictitous) anecdotes from my working life.

I felt I should give some feedback to my feedback:

" er...how could I possibly make a lot of eye contact when I was reading off a little laptop screen, and the laptop was at the other end of the room facing the other way?"

"Yes" she said" I can see it would have been difficult"

I hope I had pressed the "end call" button on the 'phone before I screamed some rather harsh language.

So I have a plan:

 Next time I shall wear antennae, so that I can look two ways at once. 

And possibly paint myself blue.

These things may stand me in good stead.

I read that these days employers have to value diversity.



Frogs!

Well it's been an interesting week
On Thursday and Friday of last week I had three interviews and today, Tuesday, I've had another.
It was at "The Frog Centre" in Middlesbrough.
I tried putting this in the satnav ...nothing....ribbit
I looked for a map on Dr Google....nothing...ribbit ribbit.
I headed for the nearest place that my satnav could find....ahhhhh...there's a van with a frog on it!
Nowhere near the van was there any evidence of a Frog Centre.
 I pressed the doorbell of the nearest building.
Nothing. No answer.
ribbit ribbit ribbit
I drove around the block looking for random amphibians....aha!....sitting outside a local school was an ornamental green frog.
I asked a guy walking past:
 "Frog Centre?"
and.......... he pointed me back the way I had just been
I looked at the building for any reference to "Frogs" or "Centres" but reference was there none.
I was now ten minutes late for my interview.
After much hammering on the suspect door a small newt arrived and said she was expecting me.
"Is this the Frog Centre?" I asked
"Yes" she replied "it is indeed"
I looked her for a moment. Then at the building. Then back at the newt.
"How can anyone tell?"
She looked at me contemptously and swam off.
It was not a good start.
On Friday I had another treasure hunt.
The headquarters of a local charity in Middlesbrough
It was a sensible address.
No frogs, no aadvarks, no drysophila to squeeze into the satnav
I parked the car and looked over to the building.
There was a row of shops, and a sign for the Job Centre.
I investigated further.
One of the shops was a large off- licence.
It looked like any other off -licence until I looked a little closer.
Bars.
Not the kind you drink at.
Yards and yards of steel bars reached from floor to ceiling separating the customer from the booze. Enough Lambrini to refloat the Titanic, but sadly out of reach.
There was a little hatch, like a bank teller's window where you could put your money through and take your tinnies, but other than that there was no browsing allowed.
Odd really.
I mean I haven't really come across a place that sold anything that had to be built like it was expecting a frontal assault.
Interesting though. The place was enormous, so obviously was doing quite well.
And the fact that it existed at all suggested that the usual places for cheap booze-supermarkets- were keeping we away from the hood.
A nifty place for an entrepreneur with three tons of scrap iron and a sawn -off shotgun.
Anyway....back to the treasure hunt.
I entered the gates of the Jobcentre, a place where all the locals gather to worship, bringing offerings of Stella and pork scratchings
Past the (spookily unmanned) reception area.
Past the signs saying:
"Don't leave bikes here"
"If you leave your bikes here they will be stolen"
and:
"If you leave your bikes here they will be stolen and some bastard will come back for your legs"
I took the lift. It delivered me to the floor above the Jobcentre.
I don't think people normally came this far...
There was a long corridor with several dividing doors.
I walked through each of them.
I examined each door.
They all had very temporary looking signs on them, one of them read:
"The Deaf Centre", which had been altered to read:
"The Hard of Hearing Centre" and then changed to:
"The Differentially Enabled Auditory Association"
I suspect the sign had been there for some time.....
I walked past my door - I'm not sure what was written on the sign- it referred to other services the organisation delivered and the company logo was teeny tiny.
In a darkened passage where I was in imminent danger of being bushwhacked by an unemployed cider-swilling cyberman I had missed the vital clue.
I entered, did my thing, strutted my stuff and went home
So there you have it.
Sometimes actually finding where you need to be for an interview is a challenge.
Prospective employers may think:
Well I know where I am, therefore everyone else will know where I am.
Or maybe it's an initiative test.
Or maybe, as most of these jobs have already gone to someone's cousin who works at the company already and therefore knows where it is....or maybe they are trying to head me off at the pass.
Nope.
I got there.
I got to all four of my interviews
Four in three days.
Frogs and all.
Ribbit!