Kris’s interview

Kris is a bright lad and he’s had a bunch of awful jobs. He is working abroad and often comes back to the UK on leave, and decided to go for a job in the UK. I asked him how his interview went for an emergency planning job in Durham.

K – The Durham emergency planning job doesn’t seem to be good

CA – So how did the interview go?

K – It went really well, until I asked them questions

CA – I wish I had been a fly on the wall! (I know Kris fairly well)

So, the interview went like this…..

K – What particular role will I be undertaking, seeing as there are 11 EPOs, and specific tasks assigned to them?

Interviewer – Sorry Kris, we just don’t know until a decision is made on whether the EPO unit will remain as is or to split up to represent their service areas.

K – Well, who will be paying my salary and pension scheme, is it the Fire Service?

Interviewer – Sorry Kris, I do not know the answer to that until we know what happens with the unit. You may be funded by the local authority, fire service, police or the NHS.

Kris was sat there, thinking, why the fuck are you interviewing?

K – When it is likely a decision will be made with regards to the future of the unit?

Interviewer – Sorry Kris, we don’t know when that decision will be made, it could be next month but it will be before April 2009.

(LOL)

So it’s back to Cambodia for Kris. For the moment. After he heard all that, he told them he won’t be available until April.

Today’s memorable client

Kris told me about the number of jobs he’s had.

He started off as a farmer’s helper, shovelling cow shit from one pile to another and back again, then worked as a construction helper where he had to poke out the mortar from the stonework of a country house. Then he worked as a park attendant in a run-down estate where they burnt his office with him in it (they eventually decide to smash up the cricket pavilion and burn down a marquee tent when it turned out that he wasn’t that combustible). After that lovely job, he was a shelf-filler of exclusively washing powder boxes and household scents (he thinks he’s lost a few cells in his nose), then a warehouse porter where he ripped the skin off one of his thumbs, then data entry where he typed in 8-10 digit numbers for 8 hours, then a kitchen porter washing 20,000 dishes a night, then a hotel porter in a ski resort in France, then emergency planning for a council, then data quality control in Holland with the boss from hell, and now he’s quality controlling stuff he doesn’t understand in the oil industry in places like Libya and Cambodia.

And he’s got a job interview next week. Wish him luck!