Well, after nearly four months of not working (including one month travelling around New Zealand) I start a new job tomorrow. I can’t believe how fast it’s all gone. At first I was pacing around the house counting down the hours in the day but I soon got into the swing of things - I installed broadband, wrote some software, attended some interviews, did a small amount of DIY (not enough for my girlfriend’s liking), played a lot of football, didn’t watch much TV, didn’t play on my Playstation 2 much and did a thousand other bits and pieces. It came to the stage where I don’t know how I’m going to fit a job into my day! (Okay, it won’t be that hard).

So I got lucky in the end. I was offered a job in my number one choice location - Leeds (a short train journey away). The role seemed the most relevant to my skills of all the interviews I had and the people I met seemed very genuine and switched on. Oh, and it seemed fun, which is the most important aspect of all. After the interview I’d decided that if they offered me it I’d take it straight away, despite some interesting second interviews on the horizon. I just had a good feeling about them.

It’s true what they say though, practice makes perfect. The more interviews I attended the better I got at being interviewed. I didn’t really do a good job of selling myself early on but as I had more interviews I relaxed and was better able to just be myself without trying to second guess what they were after. At this stage I was actually enjoying being interviewed and meeting new people. Despite getting a few rejections I didn’t let it get me down as my philosophy is that you’re getting to meet the real me at an interview and if you don’t want to give me a job then that’s fine - I probably wouldn’t have fitted in anyway.

My playlist.

Anyway, much more importantly I found the excuse I needed to buy a particularly cool piece of kit. As I’ll be taking the train to work and back I need some form of personal music device to make the time fly by. Naturally I’m talking about the beautiful iPod from Apple. I was initially going to wait for the iPod mini 4GB to make it to these fair shores but as soon as I looked at my MP3 collection on my hard drive I realised that it already exceeded 3GB and I had hardly made a dent in my actual music collection! So I opted for the 20GB iPod and I’ve spent the last few days ripping my CDs onto my hard drive in preparation of the beast turning up.

First of all, the software iTunes is extremely impressive. It’s pretty much along the same lines as Windows Media Player 9 but allows you to save as MP3 instead of the proprietary WMA format. It’s a very nice piece of software and surprisingly for a Microsoft fan like myself, I didn’t have any qualms about using it in place of Media Player. Then the iPod itself turned up… The first thing that struck me as I carefully opened the intricate packaging is how small the player is. I’d read people being amazed at its size and I still was. It’s tiny!

After an hour or so fighting with it and then realising that it just didn’t like my USB 2 card despite the claims that the optional cable I got would work, I bought a cheap firewire card (which made me laugh as I spent a lot of time learning all about Firewire at my previous job for a project but that’s another story) and as soon as I plugged that in it was happy and copying my music in a flash. I won’t go into a long review about the iPod itself as there are around a million out there on the net already, but my initial impressions are that it’s a beautiful piece of kit and will allow me to play the right music to match my mood in the morning or evening on the train (pretty much anything from the 80’s ought to do it).

I’ll let you know how I get on. Oh, and about the job too!

All my stories have happy endings!

The view down the hill.

What with all this job hunting, football playing, redecorating, net surfing and TV watching I’ve been doing lately I felt I needed a few days rest. I did this by driving back to my father’s house and staying there. It’s a big, quiet, relaxing house and the one place that I can feel truly at peace. I spent a great many years there growing up and all the happy memories from that time are there. It’s a quiet neighbourhood in a nice little village and it’s only when I go back that I realise why my parents settled there in the first place. It’s a really nice part of the world.

The relaxation starts as soon as I hit the motorway heading north. If I head south the roads just get busier and busier until it’s a standstill (I’ll write an article about why all lorry drivers should be killed another time) but northwards has the opposite effect until I’m driving all on my own. I set my cruise control to 90 mph and never needed to touch it all the way home - there just wasn’t any traffic (it’s okay, I did slow down for roundabouts).

I visited some friends and their son (who is 1 already, I can’t believe how time flies), I went running around my old playground (Tenstmuir forest), watched some films, listened to some music and just recharged my batteries. I also had a bit of fun getting the cat to chase around a laser pointer (all I’ll say is I’m glad I’m not a mouse, the cat’s reflexes are incredible). Anyway, back to job hunting and interview preparations…

One of the minor annoyances I didn’t expect during my time out of work is telephone related. My land line phone number is ex-directory, meaning it’s not listed in the phonebook. I only ever hand out my mobile number because when people call me their best chance of catching me is on that phone (I move around a lot). In fact the only people who know my land line number are people like the utility companies that you have to hand it out to (and of course our phone service provider). Oh, and my girlfriend’s friends and family. So when the land line rings I know for a fact that it’s 99% most likely to not be for me. So when it rings during the day I just know it’s not for me.

To my dismay I discovered that sales people phone and try to sell you medical insurance, get you to change your gas and electricity suppliers, sell you house insurance and a whole host of other things I’m not even vaguely interested in. I didn’t know this. It started when one of these guys from some call centre in India (I could tell it was in India because I’d read reports of how the people can’t understand you and vice-versa, and this was exactly the case). He wanted to send me a quote to change my utility suppliers. Naturally I couldn’t care less if it would save me some miniscule amount each year so I told him I wasn’t interested. He continued to press while I just told him that he was wasting his time. He just wouldn’t give up, he must have said “what’s holding you back Mr. Conners?” about 7 times. Finally he gave up and slammed the phone down - no manners! (If it had been on my mobile phone I could have terminated the call myself but you can’t do that on a land line - caller’s privilege).

Anyway, I’m a bit paranoid over the phone and am keen to neither be scammed nor tricked into buying something I don’t want. So here are my top tips to avoid getting caught out:

1. Never give out your address to someone who calls you that you don’t know.
   As far as I’m concerned, if they’ve phoned me they should know who I am. Plus, if you give away personal information like this it wouldn’t be hard for someone to steal your identity and apply for credit cards, etc.
2. Never give out your credit card or bank details to someone who calls you that you don’t know.
   See point 1. I don’t care if you believe they’re genuine or not - don’t tell them, they could be anyone!
3. Don’t agree to anything.
   These people know that the best time to get someone is when they’re not prepared for it, hence why cold-calling catches you off-guard and makes you agree without due consideration. And they’ll press you.
4. Don’t give specific reasons for why you’re not interested.
   They hate that. They’re ready to counter most reasons you can give but if you just say you’re not interested and don’t give them a reason, then they find themselves a bit stuck.
5. Be polite but firm - don’t waver.
   Any hesitation or weakness from you and they’ll pounce on it. Keep your game face on (or is that game voice?).
6. Remember, they’re only human.
   So there’s no need to be horrible to them. They’re just doing a job.
7. Don’t feel guilty, you’re not going to make them bankrupt.
   Just console yourself by remembering that some other person will be sucked in and they’ll make their commission even if they don’t with you. Hey, a sucker is born every day.
8. If all else fails, lie.
   If you really can’t get rid of them, just come up with a convincing and amusing lie and run with it. Maybe you can say “I’m sorry, the line’s breaking up, I can’t hear you” and hang up. Or you can put on a deep German accent and start talking rubbish. When they ask you what’s going on you can pretend it’s a cross line and get them to hang up. Or you could just say there’s someone at the door and that you have to go right now. Alternatively you can simply repeat everything they say to you back to them. It’s a bit immature and it’ll drive them nuts - but they’ll hang up pretty quick (remember, calls may be recorded for training purposes).

You know maybe I should just stop answering the phone. I know it’s not for me. If it’s important they’ll leave a message. And if they’re a sales[wo]man they won’t leave one and I’ll know I did the right thing.