12 July 2006

Look-A-Likes



I went swimming early this morning. Having not heard from Janine since Monday, it looked as though Barker Ross had not been able to come up with the goods a second time around with the NTU job. I was therefore on a new mission to do more job seeking. While I was waiting for my interview in the Barker Ross offices last Monday a Polish couple had come in asking for 'factory work'. The receptionist told them that they didn't deal with that sort of work, but recommend a place which did called Turner Stubbs.

Recalling this and thinking that factory work would be easier to find at such short notice and for the short period of time I was requiring, I looked up the number in the Yellow Pages. I called and registered my details there-and-then.

That day, purely coincidentally I received a Spam email with the subject 'home job'. I was instantly drawn to it. I read through, amused by its blatant spam-like tone, but also intrigued about what would happen if I replied.



I did so from my Hotmail account, so as not to illicit more Spam at my main email address as a result. Later that day I received a reply with more details about vacancies in Australia. It was so dodgy; the company Tollis Co. was Polish masquerading as an antique dealership. The job advertised involved excepting payments from local clients and then transferring them into the Tollis account.



I had nothing to lose, so I replied again asking if they had any jobs based in the UK. Two days later I received another email, this time only one line, simply saying 'no'. Ha! I couldn't even get a shitty spam job with a bunch of rip off merchants! Was there really any hope for me?



After lunch I popped to the corner shop to buy a copy of the Evening Post. I rushed back home and spent an hour scouring through for suitable jobs. I was disappointed at how many 'proper' jobs were advertised - with the council, the universities of at local hospitals. Nothing for a loser like me to get at short notice with the hope of starting first thing Monday. Out of the whole paper there were only a handful of potentials.



One was at Powergen, working as a customer services person in a call centre. They had a recruitment hotline, which I decided to call. I was told that I could complete the application over the phone, but that it would take about half-an-hour. I needed to get ready for work so I said I would call back later.

I arrived at Broadway Cinema at 14:45. I was told as soon as I got there that the event, which was another end-of-term schools special, had been delayed. I wasn't going to be needed until 16:00, but they would pay me as rota-ed from 14:45 - 17:30. Fantastic!

I just wanted to find somewhere quiet where I could sit down and write some more day diaries. There wasn't anywhere in the Broadway building, as the place is in a complete mess at the moment. It is being refurbished and extended with two new screens added. It is basically a noisy, dusty building site, which happens to have two functioning cinemas inside it (most peculiar).



So I left Broadway for just over an hour. I went to a pub in town called The Priory, bought a drink and sat in the beer garden writing in my notebook. That day I got through a few more days' diary entries and in doing so I ran out my pink Muji pen that I'd had for a year-and-a-half.



I went back to work and opened Screen 1. The event was so late in starting that I had another 20 minutes on my own upstairs waiting outside the screen. I took the opportunity to take a few photos of the cinema and the usher's chair to document my working environment (these are published on this blog).



The guests started arriving about 16:25. It was a strange event where Chillwell School were premiering a short film they had made for a media project. There were lots of school children, teachers and proud parents flooding in to take their seats. They had also invited some 'celebrity guests' who were quite entertaining.

They were Elton John, Pavarotti, Simon Cowell and Ozzy Osborne look-a-likes. One of whom (Ozzy), kissed me on the hand on his way in. They screened their film, for which the credits featuring all the kids' names, lasted nearly as long as the action. Then they left. There wasn't that much mess (I found a pen on the floor, which is always a bonus). I was ready to leave at 17:30.

That evening I called Powergen again and went through the first stages of my application. I was then booked in for a multiple choice test the following day, which I had to complete in order to be accepted onto the training programme. With this, alongside the other jobs I'd seen advertised, I knew I'd be making a lot of calls the next day.