The worst week... in the world... ever!

And I kid you not. In the past 3 days I have managed to misplace/lose (on three seperate occasions) my wallet with all my cards, my new phones leather cover, and my Oyster card with £20 worth of prepaid fare on it.

Now either I'm losing my mind, which is a possibility, or someone up there is having a laugh!

I'm also almost positive that both my wallet and my Oyster card are somewhere in this flat... and probably in the same place. The phone cover disappeared in literally the 7 steps it took me to move from Adrian's couch to his room to answer a call.

I also have an interview tomorrow in Maidenhead. I have £5 in cash, no travel card, and no recourse to money before 6am when I'm going to have to head off to get to Maidenhead for 08:30, which is the start time for the interview. It's time to try and sponge off housemates I guess.

And incidentally, the interview is due to end at 5pm. What kind of effing interview takes 8 and a half hours?!

Small Things

I love my bank. My wallet hasn't resurfaced yet, so I just called up Lloyds TSB to cancel both of my cards and reorder new ones. Now usually the worst thing about calling any help desk is being stuck in an automated queue for 15 minutes listening to annoying pan flute music probably intended to keep you calm while you wait for someone to answer your call. I for one am only further maddened by having to listen to repetitive MIDI renditions of music only found appealing by a miniscule niche of people.

So imagine my delight when I spent less than two minutes in the Lloyds TSB card services queue and got to listen to Anna Johnssons' 'We Are' off the Spiderman 2 soundtrack!

10/10 in my books.

Thames Water

Sometimes I have to wonder at my own madness.

Last night started out at a relatvely sedate pace. I met Eric, Ruth, and Anne at my place and we headed down to the Walkabout at Temple to hook up with Rhona, Tam, and Ester. In all honesty, at the beginning of the evening it didn't look like it was going to be a late one. There were trains and tubes that needed to be caught before they stopped running and that looked likely to draw the curtains on the night. Well it looked likely right up until Rhona challenged us to make it an 'all nighter'. Clever girl that she is.

We were never going to wuss out of that kind of a challenge... even though none of us had any idea where the hell we were going to go once we left the Walkabout. I mean, pulling an 'all nighter' in London is way harder than you would think. Back in Cape Town it just involved going to your favourite club and not leaving. In London there's the question of where to go after 11pm when the pubs shut, followed by where to go after 2 or 3am when the club you're in shuts. I've lived in London for a year now and actually don't know any place I could go after 3am on a Friday or Saturday night! How sad. Feel free to drop some recommendations if you want. Anyways, I digress. To the madness...

Once we'd all decided to go large we got stuck into the evening in earnest. Tequila, Vodka, and Schapps flowed freely. Pleasantly washed down by a number of pints of Snakebite (why I do these things I really don't know). There was laughing, dancing...

...and then a brief intermission to go skinny dipping in the Thames. Do you see! Now do you see the madness? These are the evils of alcohol I tell you! Who in their right mind goes skinny dipping in the Thames, in central London?! Well me for one. The mentally challenged idiot that I am. So far everyone that I've told has looked at me in horror. It seemes that the idea isn't quite the giggle I thought it was in my innebriated state last night. Of course having said that, it has drawn it's fair share of laughs, although those have all been at my expense (and at the expense of my health, which I will be monitoring quite closely for the next couple of weeks!). My current nightmare involves a small water-borne parasite with the ability to swim up a persons penis and lodge there, where apparently it gestates or something. The image in my mind is something along the lines of Aliens... but located further south, if you get my meaning. I've been told by helpful housemates that these beauties actually exist in Egypt... although Google's not finding any reference to them existing in the Thames. Still... I worry.

Anyways, after the swim the evening carried on brilliantly, although I was near frozen for a while. I think we headed home sometime just before 2am, so not quite the all-nighter we planned, but still a great evening. Definitely worth doing again... although I'd probably leave the swim out next time...

On the work side of things I'm still waiting to hear back from GSK. It's a bit nerve fraying but I would love the position. They actually sent me a form asking me if I wanted to apply for a management position on the GSK account?! I'm actually not sure if that's tied into the interview or if it's because they have me down as having previous people management experience. Who knows. I've indicated my interest in the position so we'll see if I get shortlisted or not. Right now though that seems like taking giant leaps when right now all I really want is to get standing again.

The company who deal with the Nestle account also dropped me an e-mail asking me if I wanted to interview for them. I said that I did. Wicked. So things at the moment stand like this: waiting on the outcome of the final GSK interview; have final Red Bull interview on Tuesday; due to have first Well's interview around the 8th; due to have the first Nestle interview around the 10th. So everything is ticking along really well at the moment. What I really need though is some kind of closure.

Anyways, that's me for tonight. I'm still hanging like a dog.

PS. Forgot to mention that it appears I lost my wallet sometime last night. Hmmmm... 2 debit cards, 1 credit card, 1 Nectar card, 1 Boots card, 1 National Insurance card, 1 drivers licence, and around £2.25 in loose change. Damn, that's a pain in the arse.

Just desserts

Complements of the Times.

"Ban on smoking: bad for business?

Shares in Gallaher and Imperial Tobacco, the cigarette manufacturers, slid by 2 per cent this morning on news that smoking was to be banned on all workplaces and anywhere serving food in England and Wales."

Who knew that 10 (or was that 12?) Corona's could make your head pound so?

It's already 14:30 and this is only my third forage downstairs from the relative hangover-easing tranquility of my bedroom. The first expedition was the obligatory 06:00 trip to the bathroom (which I'd already postponed for as long as humanly possible). That one was alright... I was still drunk. The second trip was for a shower, because nothing soothes an aching head like a 20 minute long stream of hot water aimed at the base of your skull. Well, it's what works for me anyway.

And then there's now. A proper trip. Fully clothed. I think I'm making progress.

I have some work to get done before my final GSK interview on Wednesday, but for now I think I'm going to continue boycotting life in general. My bedroom is dark and quiet and my book is brilliant (I so didn't know that it was the basis for Betrayal at Krondor!).

Oh ah. The rugby is on as well!

E92PLUS

So I start a temporary marketing role with the above company on Monday morning. It's a 3 week contract, which is about perfect given the timeframe I'm working with regarding the other interviews that I've been to, but the position could also lead to a permanent role within their dedicated sales team. Really I'm quite excited at the possibilties it could open.

Other than that, my interview with Red Bull went really well and I'm expecting to hear from them soon to confirm that they would like to have me through to the final interview. I only say that because my interviewer told me as I was heading out the door that she was really happy with how it went and that I came across really well. So holding thumbs there.

I have another informal first interview this evening, which is hashing up plans that I had to meet up with a good school friend who's in London at the moment, but as I'm not yet back in full time permanent employment I have to keep as any options open as possible.

Final note to any UCT Alumni in London who still read this site: They're having an informal meeting on the 6th of December at Champagne Charlies. I've RSVP'd and will be attending.

PS. Will write something of actual interest in the near future.

Doors Opening?

After the whole debacle with Gallaher (yes, ok, I finally mentioned the name of the old company... fuck it and any consequences) I felt like I was in the middle of a rather epic career crisis. Heck, I didn't just feel that way, it was fact. In most ways I still feel that old fear in the back of my mind... 'What am I going to do now? Where will life take me from here?'. But things are looking up.

I had my first 1:1 interview with Glaxo yesterday, and they let me know today that they would like me to come back for the final interview! That alone is good news. What makes it even better is that the interviews were conducted by a number of people from the agency handling the GSK account and one person who was from GSK itself. I was called to be interviewed by said single Glaxo representative, which I took to be a good sign (I already felt that I had stood out by being the only person to be able to state the prices of their products in both independent and multiple stores). My interviewer then asked me if I prefered to work in the independent channel or with the multiple stores. Obviously I have experience in the independent channel, which I mentioned, by said that I would relish the challenge of the multiple grocers, and would in fact regard it as almost a promotion. Her reply was that yes, it was in fact a promotion and the salary reflected as such, and that she was there specifically to look for people to work in the multiple sector.

So for the moment I'm feeling confident. My next interview is on the 17th and for it I have to plan a 10 minute presentation on my favourite product. What the hell is my favourite product? I could go for brownie points and choose one of theirs, but I think that may be trying to hard. Any suggestions for products are welcome.

As a side note, as an employee of one of the UK's biggest companies to an ex-employee of one of the UK's biggest companies, she then asked me, in her words, "What the hell is happening at Gallaher anyway? We've had so many people coming here from them?" I feigned a bit of ignorance... not wanting to give her the full brunt of my opinion.

Anyways, I have to be off. I have an interview for Red Bull in a couple of hours.

Update

Ok, so first up I guess I need to apologise to you regular readers of the site for the disgusting lack of updates. It's a long story, but one which will unfold over the course of this post.

For the last 3 months I've been working my rear end off for one of the largest tobacco manufacturers in Europe, travelling all over the UK, and generally enjoying just about everything work related. I got to drive a nice car, stay in big hotels, and hang out with some great people (which included some rather epic drinking binges - Salisbury and Cardiff spring immediately to mind).

I have however resigned my position with said company, not really because I wanted to, but rather because I was left little choice. Following the 3 months on the road (I should mention that I was away 6 days a week) the team was subjected to a number of individual audits on our work. Mine was second. The girl who was first was given the option to resign or be dismissed on the basis of an insignificant discrepancy on her part, worthy at most of a brief warning and maybe some extra training. I was then given the same option based on a complete load of bollocks. 40% of which was just innacurate, 55% fabricated (or least appeared so), and the remaining 5% exaggerated beyond belief. Needless to say I kicked up a fair stink about this rather apparent unfair dismissal (which is what I feel it was, whether or not I had the option to resign). I had meetings with the top people in HR, as well as the top training managers in the company, all of whom confirmed that it appeared there wasn't proper grounds for dismissal.

My option was then to either resign, or take the whole affair to a hearing, of which the outcome would either be me keeping my job, or me being dismissed. Great. Following 2 days of weighing up my option, and the pro's anc con's of each, I resigned. My reasoning was as followes: I was inside of my 6 month probational period and so the company could have let me go for no good reason if they really wanted to. The manager who did the audit on me is in fact my managers manager. The person who would have presided over the hearing was his counterpart in the north of England (hence they're probably mates). Based on how high up said manager is, could the company really afford to overturn his decision? I didn't think so. And lastly, I couldn't afford to take the slightlest chance that I would be fired by a blue chip company... and so I resigned. Pissed off to the max, and now unemployed.

At this point I should mention that at the time of my resignation I was, if not leading, then very close to leading, my teams campaign figures in Wales. Which doesn't make me feel any better, but it's still in my mind.

So long story, but that's the reason for the lack of updates. 3 months away from home, followed by 3 weeks at home in a slightly depressed/pissed off frame of mind. I guess I didn't blog about it all sooner because I was still making peace with it. In some ways I think I still am. I don't get fired! I am not the type of person who gets fired! But I feel like I have been. And it sucks!

So that's that. Moving on to some slightly more light hearted material, I obviously have a load of applications out there at the moment, all in the same line of work but for different companies. I have an interview to work for GlaxoSmithKline tomorrow at 12, and applications with Well's brewery and Heineken. All of which are great opprtunities, and probably even better suited to me, as technically I was responsible for developing cigarette brands when in fact I don't smoke myself. So we'll see I guess. Maybe eveyone is right, and things do happen for a reason. God, I hope so.


Other than that I've just been trying to keep the old chin up, seen some old friends, hung out with some people who still work for the old company, and generally just tried to stay in a semi-sane frame of mind. It's been hard, but I think I'm through the worst of it.

More to come later.