Finally,
after sending out an insane amount of job applications with no response (or at
least no good responses), I was starting to lose hope. How long can Sarah and I
stay in London if we are unemployed? On a frustrated whim, I applied for a job
advertised on the BritBound website Wednesday morning. That afternoon they
called me and we had a phone interview. I was invited to attend a group
interview Friday at their offices. Finally! Some progress. The only frustrating
thing was I had to purchase their standard uniform before the interview. Which meant Thursday Sarah and I ventured
into Bromley to visit The Glades Shopping
Centre and pick up the articles of clothing. Sarah was getting some too, as
she had applied for the job shortly after I received my phone call.
Before
we began hunting for clothes we ate at a restaurant recommended by Imogen
several weeks prior, called Belgo (www.belgo-restaurants.co.uk). I
love mussels, which some people know better than others (my Mexico peeps) and I
have been talking about wanting mussels for awhile now. It was the perfect
opportunity. They have a ridiculously cheap lunch deal where you can get a
half-kilo of mussels and a drink for £7.95.
Needless to say, it was delicious and I will definitely be going back.
After a satisfying lunch we started looking for the items we needed: a black
tie, a black long-sleeved collared t-shirt, and black pants. The pants and tie
were found easily at Marks & Spencer.
The shirt was difficult. First, it took forever to even find a men’s plain
black t-shirt. Then we had to figure out the size. How do guys do it? And how
do girls figure out their guy’s shirt size? I am not built like a man and I
have these things called boobs. So after three different stores we found some
passable shirts at Debenhams. They
are rather bulky in places but I didn’t have time to get a fitted shirt. I had
been dreading the price tag on the shirt since the last time I picked up a
men’s shirt was when Sarah and I dressed like Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson
for Halloween two years ago and it was expensive.
Much to my surprise, the shirt was actually the cheapest item!
Friday
was interview day and I wasn’t actually that nervous. I am quite confident in
my interview skills and I have had a group interview before. Sarah returned the
company’s phone call (they called while we were shopping Thursday) and ended up
being placed in my group interview, which alleviated the pressure even further.
We had to head all the way to Knightsbridge for the interview and, as we tend
to do, arrived quite early. We wandered around Hyde Park for awhile before
heading in to the interview.
I would
talk about the job but I had to sign a confidentiality agreement. Sorry.
Suffice it to say that we both got through the first part of the interview and
were invited to attend an all-day assessment – the final stage of the interview
– Saturday. From 9:30am to 5:00pm. In Camden. And the trains weren’t running
again this weekend. Sigh. So we woke up really early and took a bus, a tube and
another bus to get there. Early again. We finished at 3:30pm which was earlier
than anticipated and nice. What was even better was that we both got the job!
Yay for no longer being unemployed! The best part of the job is that it’s
flexible and you pick your hours, which means we can continue our job search and
even get another job on the side. It’s actually kind of perfect for right now.
And we can find a flat!
When we
got back to the flat we both got emails scheduling us for shifts for the week. I’m
more nervous about the first shift, which Sarah is not working with me, than I
was about the interview. It’s also intense – I work two shifts in two different
parts of London Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I guess I’ll really be getting
the hang of public transport. And Sarah will have to figure out how to find
places on her on. We should really probably get phones…
You would think we would
celebrate getting jobs but we were exhausted after three days of preparation
and interviewing and whatnot so we just ordered some pizza and watched Gossip Girl and went to bed before
midnight. Because we are the coolest.
Sunday we stayed in the flat
enjoying our last day of doing nothing. Monday we technically weren’t working
but it was still a very busy day. We had to go to Camden for 9:30am again to do
a training course required for our job. It was supposed to go from 9:30am to
4:30pm but fortunately ended at 2:00pm and was ridiculously easy and boring.
After the session Sarah and I, along with our friend Jeremy who also works with
us, went to Camden Market to try and find the last remaining uniform items. We
were semi-successful and ended up wandering the entire market trying to find
things. I’ve heard about Camden Market and it lives up to its reputation. They
have the coolest shops and stalls. If I had money I would buy so much stuff.
Sarah and I were booked to view a
flat at 7:00pm and we finished our Camden wandering around 4:00pm. We decided to
pop into a pub to wait and we chose The
World’s End. I don’t know if I mentioned this from the day we went to the
zoo but we died when we saw it. For those of you that don’t know, The World’s End is a movie about an
alien invasion pub crawl. It’s British, obviously. So the first time we saw a
pub actually called The World’s End we
died of shock. So it made sense to pop in there and have a couple drinks while
we waited.
We then hopped on a bus to West
Kensington. It was a bittersweet flat viewing. We knew ahead of time that,
realistically, we couldn’t afford it. We were hoping it wouldn’t be that nice
or it would be too small and we could justify it. We were wrong. The flat was gorgeous and all the furniture, bedding,
utensils, etc. was included. We wanted it so bad but at the end of the day, do
we want to be able to eat out or go to clubs or go to movies? Because if we got
this flat it wouldn’t be happening. So the search continues…
Tuesday was my first day at work.
Like I said, I can’t talk about it because I signed a confidentiality
agreement. But it was not as worrisome as I originally predicted. The guy they
had me working with is kind of my favorite person ever and most of the people
are really nice. By Wednesday I was put in a position to boss people around,
which I liked. It’s pretty exciting but I hadn’t worked in two months and
worked ten hours the first day so I was exhausted
by the time I finished. I’m shocked I managed to get back to the flat.
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