It’s been a while since I wrote ... it isn’t like I haven’t
had time on my hands. However looking for a job has pretty much been the
priority, and so yes I have written, for hours on end: cover letters,
application forms and CV tailoring. All to nought it seems. And by the time I’ve
finished that sort of brain draining stuff I’ve not had anything creative left
to say that wouldn’t be a string of expletives describing recruiters and
recruitment agencies.
Technically I’ve been messing about with cloud storage, and
moving our thousands of pictures and video, plus every word I’ve written on to
Onedrive, (this is a terabyte for £5.99 per month, of which currently we need
to use 200gb, therefore paying £9.99 to Google for 2tb wasn’t good value for
money. And especially so when you consider your free 15gb, that you can use
just for blog stuff via Picasa ... see there is a nerd in me still). It’s an
ongoing project despite having unlimited broadband. There is a bottleneck, and
it’s our now `old’ laptop.
Moving swiftly on, and to cut a long story very short, I
have a job at last. It came via our next door neighbours visit to our local
garden centre. It could almost be my perfect role.; Plantsman in a garden
centre, cycling distance from home. The money is scrape by, but enough when
pooled with Amanda’s. The hours vary week to week but there is always a
minimum, and I have a qualification that is actually relevant and the
opportunity to expand the skill-set in that area.
Fascinating for me was the fact that when I asked the
interviewer why the job hadn’t been advertised on recruitment sites, they said
it was pointless exercise that had a cost for almost no benefit whatsoever. The
much discussed `recruitment black-hole’ described so often on Linkedin is
tangible on both sides of the recruitment divide. I actually took the time one
very grumpy afternoon to write to a recruiters CEO, to complain that after
three weeks of conversations and hours of research regarding a project
engineers role installing automated pharmaceutical dispensaries, that I had
been left high and dry by the consultant dealing with the client. About an hour
later I got a phone call from that agency apologising for the lack of
communication, and that the company looking for project engineers had decided a
different approach was required. Why it took a grumpy letter to be told the
truth is beyond me. There is very little integrity at the sharp end of
recruitment.
Amanda also has a new job that provides proper job security
and benefits after almost a year of contracting for a quango. Things are
looking up ... he says tentatively.
But Amanda has also been on the sore end of recruiter shenanigans,
trying to keep her in place in a role she is sick to the back teeth with. While
trying to explain to the recruiters client that Amanda has to serve a notice
period way in excess of the courtesy period required for a contractor (five
days). Anecdotally it also appears as if Amanda’s new employer has suffered the
rigours of the recruitment bandits playing both ends against the middle. So for
all our hours of letter writing, CV tailoring and follow ups over months, I’ve
bagged a job by word of mouth, based on a neighbours random visit to a garden
centre looking for a funky flower pot (absolute truth). And Amanda has (unwillingly
but at my behest) pushed back at the agency hard to allow her (what is effectively
her employee right) to give a weeks notice. So that she can at least get a feel
for the new role before we travel to Cyprus.
Looking on the positive side of these changes; it is quite
liberating, to be able to contribute financially at home again on a regular
basis, not just blocks of finite cash earned by spending weeks away at a time
in London and the surrounds living out of a back pack. It’s pleasant to be able
to go and do my hours (that literally race by) and then have all this other
time (now I have my head in the right place), to write, to look after house and
home, do lots of cooking etc. Of course a Premium Bonds or Lottery Jackpot win
wouldn’t go amiss. But after the other 70 million people in the UK wishing for
this concession from the fates, I’m sure I’d be first in the queue.
Aside from all the job hunting and settling into new
routines, we have been out and about at the weekends, fossil hunting, yomping
and being agog at what a fabulous country this one is. The bike is finally out
of the shed after an entire winter without a single use (be ashamed, be very
ashamed G). We are swimming twice a week, though we’d like to do more. And we
have hundreds of new pictures from our wanders to post. However, remember
techno bottleneck above? Well it’s genuinely holding things in abeyance. Before
I can really get back on top of pictures and words I need to sort out the
groundwork. And it’s at time like this, I can only put my hands together and say
a little thank you to the vastness of the cosmos, that I have an IT background,
because If I didn’t I really wouldn’t know where to start.
So without further ado, I’ll bid you adieu, because I need
to link our external storage drive as our Cloud Folder, for the final big
synch, spec out a new PC with wireless to be our central server, format this
laptop and rebuild it from scratch as a: typing while sitting in the comfy
chair machine (did I mention I bought a second hand MAN chair ... it’s wicked).
Drop the Onedrive app on our phones and tablet and then set up the synch
settings to ensure, local deletions don’t affect cloud data. And then find a
relatively convenient way to get files from Onedrive to Blogger, sure in the
knowledge that someone somewhere is making sure all our precious data is
multiply redundant on many servers ... as well as on our 2tb external unit.
