...............................................................................last I posted.
Why? Well things have been kind of nuts. The family have been ill - one after the other, one of my wife's reli's died and in general I've been very busy with work, two job interviews and other things.
This doesn't stop work being the usual randomn chaos I've grown used to, but enough of them, I have no desire to talk about them right now. What I will say is that they have pushed me too far, which has caused me to decide that enough is enough. It's time I moved on. I'm 41, I have no real desire to change my career direction - again - but when one gets to the point where stress starts to affect what you do, or should I say the idea of stress as I'm not 100% sure I know that I have experienced stress yet, close though. Anyway, I digress, it has come to the point where instead of just looking at the jobs, I have actually begun to apply for them.
So, just over a month ago I go for this interview. It wasn't billed that way and I was told a pre-requisite would be an MCSE, I don't have that but I do have a few MCP's, but they still wanted to "have a chat with me". Anyhow - weird part is that the owner of this company used to be one of my clients way back when I still worked for Computacenter which was weird. She hasn't changed - still the same air of superiority and way too much makeup, but I still like her and used to get on with her. End result is I have "this chat" for an hour or so and she says I shall leave it up to my technical man to decide. Well he walks in and does a "When Harry met Sally" over my CV and the fact that what I do meets all their needs and they can see a use for the extra stuff in the future.
I walk away thinking the job is as good as mine. However, the wife has a gut feeling - usually this is wind - but after a few days thinking I come to the same conclusion. For better or worse I'll stick it out at my current place as this job doesn't seem quite right. Two weeks later I enquire as to the outcome and get told they are doing a round of interviews and I'll know sometime soon. After another two weeks I get the "Dear John" letter - yup, they turned me down because "I didn't meet one of their prerequisites", namely the MCSE. So I fire off a polite thank you via eMail and wonder why I was put through a wasted two hours and 60 miles journey when they knew I didn't meet this prerequisite.
No surprises that they haven't bothered to reply. Seems my wife's gut feeling was right all along - she didn't want me doing a 60 mile daily commute.
Onto interview number 2. This one so different. A colleague initially found the advert, then the company contacted me anyway because they "had my CV on file" - I've never believed that line until now though :) Long story short, I attend and there's a panel of 4 (should have been 5, but one was sick) as they have 16 jobs up for grabs this time around ..... I thought the interview was pretty weak by my own standards but I ended up having to return the following day with my passport, as employment law now requires employers to determine your right to work in the UK
Main contact says thanks for dropping in and can he give me some feedback - sure .... tells me I had "an excellent interview" and that they are considering me for one of two posts and which one would I prefer. I think I managed to fudge that enough without burning my boats on either ..... still, should find out today, tomorrow or Monday at the latest.
One thing I have remembered though - is that how very different private business is to public. Here I am, barely two weeks after initially writing in waiting to hear if I get the job or not. Were this my current employer, they'd not even have got an advert to HR yet .......... Anyway - the post is local, so still only a 6 mile commute in total and if I get the job I really want, I'll be able to climb back on my bike and restore my health as well as save the planet a little.
I'll let you know .................
