I am Alive and Doing Things

I’m doing a terrible job of keeping this place updated at the moment. Even my endlessly fascinating roller derby posts have dried up. That’s because I’ve missed a few practices, and there’s only so many times I can post pics of my bruises. But here, have some Carrie news:

Derby: I have come down with The Fear recently. I think this is since I graduated from Fresh Meat to Rec League and realised the others weren’t going to take it easy on us any more. This realisation probably occurred as I was hurtling through the air towards a wall after being properly hit by Sin for the first time. Oh. My. God. Wind knocked out of me, head hit floor, wanted to die…got back up again lest anyone think I am a big girl. Note to all: I am a big girl. Please stop hitting me! Alas, I am in the wrong sport for that. Although it is helping my agility as I then did anything to avoid being hit by Sin, which included some fancy footwork which saw her glide past me instead of being slammed.

I need to buy new skates, and not in a ‘need’ way that means I actually just want new skates (like I need new kneepads and wheels). My current ones are damaging my toes and as much as I like them and wish I could just get on with them, I think it’s time. I’m trying to work out sizing at the moment. My Anarchy skates are a size 6 (UK) which is the size I wear in shoes, but I know a lot of skaters go a size up for their skates. So maybe all that’s wrong here is the wrong size, which should be easy to fix, right? Well, maybe, but then I have to decide which kind of skate I want, how much to pay, do I want to worry about plates right now? (Short answer: not really.) There’s a lot of information out there and it’d be great if someone could just jump out of nowhere and say ‘Here! These are your perfect skates. Enjoy!’ Anyway, I’ve had some advice and narrowed downs ones to try, and will head off to the skate shop next week, hopefully leaving with shiny new ones!

Feet: I had another podiatrist appointment last week. It was a lady podiatrist this time because apparently my usual dude doesn’t work on Fridays, which it would have been nice to know when I made my appointment. Because I then had to explain again that I do roller derby and sorry sorry sorry for the state of my toes. And also forgot about my bruised shin until she asked me to roll my trouser legs up and I saw her wince. She has added yet more weird things to my insoles in an effort to fix my goddamn feet. They have been a lot better, the arch pain is gone, the heel pain has reduced. If I actually did the stretches I am supposed to do more than once a week they would probably be better. We’re now trying to fix the cramping I get on my outer foot, which is mostly caused by that part of my foot going ‘WTF? I’m having to take all this new pressure all of a sudden?’ That is my expert diagnosis. So I have these new circular additions to my insoles in the middle of my feet, which is weird.

I can maybe possibly maybe start running again in a couple of weeks. Maybe.

Work: Is work is work. Last week I was at a conference in Cambridge for the day and had to write about it for our blog. This is my first attempt and it’s been far more stressful than I expected. I don’t know what tone to use, or what voice, or how much of me should be in it. I think I’ve finished it now but we’ll see if they like it. The rest of work is not exactly thrilling me, but maybe it’s just a hump I need to get over.

Books: I am still making my way through the Song of Ice and Fire books, after being hooked on the Game of Thrones tv series. I loved the first three, they were quick reads because so much was happening and I had to know what was going on. A Feast For Crows isn’t holding my attention as much, but I’m getting there.

Films: I finally saw Harry Potter this weekend. I enjoyed it, for the most part, but I thought that damn epilogue was just as bad as it was in the books. Badly done and mostly unnecessary. No matter how hard they tried with the makeup, they still looked like kids playing dress up. In very dweeby clothes might I add. They’re supposed to be what, not even 40? You can be 40 and not dress in power suits and bad blouses. And you don’t have to have a gut, Ron. I think the first part of Deathly Hallows is my favourite of the films, it had the best mix of book/plot and down time where we got to sit with the characters a bit. The dancing scene is wonderful. The second part is more action-packed and mostly moves from battle to battle. I think the Harry/Ginny relationship suffered a lot in the films. I found it hard to care about them at all, which also added to the scene at the end’s misfire. Hermione and Ron get a lot of screen time as Harry’s friends, but Ginny only turns up every now and then, looking at him longingly or stealing a kiss, and then she’d gone again. Anyway, give it five years and they’ll reboot the whole thing, and we can start again.

Interview Hell

I may now have a new job but I have yet to let go of the fact that I had 9000 interviews (slight exaggeration, but only slight) over the course of three years before stumbling into a job with basically the sister company of those I already worked for. Obviously I am not good at interviews (though I somehow managed to get one job in London and worked regularly before that) even though I have spent countless hours reading books and online articles entitled ‘How to rock at interviews’. You know what you don’t see as often online? ‘How to be a good interviewer and not a total ass’. A lot of the people who interviewed me could do with taking a class in people skills. I left a lot of those offices thinking I never wanted to meet those people again, and I’d really have to think hard about it before answering yes when they offered me the job. Thankfully my conscience never had to face that conundrum.

So here’s Carrie’s easy steps to being a good interviewer.

1. Give clear details to the candidate when arranging the interview.
A lot of mine were done over the phone with no follow up email confirming the time or date or with further details on how to get there. Or a name of a contact person. Or anything remotely helpful, like part of the interview was seeing whether you could follow the cryptic clues and actually make it there on time. Perhaps it was. Perhaps it’s part of the game employers like to play, just to keep things interesting. But who wants to be the person calling back to say ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t hear you earlier as I was outside fighting traffic so no one would know who I was calling, could you tell me those details again?’ Strike One.

2. Be organised on the day.
This happened more when there were two or more interviewers, when they hadn’t rehearsed who was going to ask what or when. Lots of awkward pauses there. Or when the room they thought they were going to be in is occupied and you have to traipse about a building while they figure something else out. This person is giving up their time for you, (and very probably lying to their current boss about where they are) the least you can do is be professional and ready for them when they arrive.

3. Don’t ask stupid questions.
What exactly do you learn by asking the dreaded ‘What are your weaknesses?’ question? I hate that. It tells you absolutely nothing about me other than whether I am dumb enough to spell out areas that will impact that particular job, or how good I memorise an answer that doesn’t shoot myself in the foot. Be a bit more creative.

4. Offer the candidate something to drink. AKA: Be nice.
I’ve been to interviews where I haven’t been offered anything to drink, not even water (after climbing many flights of stairs). Dude, I’m here for an hour and you can’t give me water, when I am going to be doing a lot of talking and my mouth is dry? Ta very much. This sort of screams ‘I am far too busy to even be bothered with you, you’re beneath me, I don’t fetch water’ and speaks to the person you are. A person I probably won’t like very much.

5. Be interested. Or at least pretend to be interested.
A lot of companies had absolutely no interest in me outside what I could do for them. Which is fair enough, but not exactly what I’m looking for. I want to work in a place where I feel comfortable and fit in, where it’s a nice team of people who get on. I think a lot of people want the same, but how can they tell if I’ll fit in if they know nothing about me? I’ve had interviewers say fitting in with the team is extremely important to them, and then ask me nothing about myself. Not what I like to do outside of work, nothing that would gauge my sense of humour, nothing about my life whatsoever barring whether I can use particular computer software.

6. Don’t rely on personality tests.
Perhaps these have been certified by some swanky organisation as the best way to get to know candidates, but to me they’re utter bollocks. This is just a lazy way to get around my previous point. If you want to know about my personality, talk to me! Ask me questions! Oh but this would be far too time consuming. I think the least fun I’ve ever had at an interview was being given the results of a personality test and having to say whether or not I agreed and why, and basically saying ‘That’s nothing like me’ to all of them. I don’t think I hid my scathing feelings all that well.

7. Do respond to the candidate within a timely fashion.
Look, I know you’re busy people and you want to hire someone and forget all about those other nasty folks who dared darken your doorstep, but it’s just rude not to, you know? A lot of places don’t respond if you are initially unsuccessful with your application and that’s fine, they obviously get a lot and responding to them all is a waste of time. But when you’ve been invited for an interview, or second interview, I think it should be a given that you’re let know in good time what the outcome was. A standard ‘I am sorry you have not been successful’ email does not take that long and is really appreciated when you’re sitting around desperately hoping that this time, maybe this time, it’ll go another way.

8. Do give feedback.
This is not necessarily something I would enforce, but it would be nice. The majority of places that have responded to me in the negative have done so with the aforementioned standard email, adding a little ‘We do not give feedback on why you haven’t been successful’ line. And while I understand this may be time consuming and they’d like to wash their hands of you altogether, it’s not really helpful for me when it comes to future applications and interviews. Knowing where you’re going wrong, or that you’re doing fine but someone else had more experience, is extremely helpful and less damaging to your psyche.

And to sum it up more clearly, here is ‘Every Interview Ever’. It’s not wrong.

Not All About Skating For Once

No skating this week as I was resting my feet on Saturday (my blister has finally healed! My toenail has finally shuffled off this mortal coil!) and then in Exeter for work Monday-Wednesday. That was not remotely thrilling. Sitting in a by turns too hot and too cold room, being ignored for three days and missing out on tea when it was served, and also not selling very many books at all. It’s amazing how tiring sitting doing nothing all day can be, as every evening I would conk out at around 10pm trying to read A Game of Thrones.

I am totally addicted to GoT by the way. I loved the tv series muchly and was waiting until it was done to read the first book. I’m now onto the second and still loving it. I contemplated not reading it so as not to spoil the series when it airs next year, but who was I kidding, I couldn’t possibly wait that long to find out what happens. I am in love with the Khaleesi, and feisty Arya, and Tyrion and Jon. But I am worried about where it is going because George R.R. Martin is not afraid to kill off his characters, oh no. It’s wonderful writing and an amazing world that is so full of detail and so well realised I can only assume Martin is a genius. How does he keep track of everyone and everything he has created? It’s so vast. If you’re not reading or watching you should give it a go.

Something worth avoiding though is X Men: First Class. I didn’t have high hopes for this based on the truly awful film posters and so-so trailer, but I went to see it anyway, hoping it would take away the bad taste left by X Men 3. It didn’t and I think I shall have to go on pretending only two X Men films exist. For the first half I really truly could have walked out and not felt like I was missing anything. The child actors in the beginning were so earnest and cute it was impossible to take them seriously (and just seeing the revisited Magneto-as-a-boy moment showed you the difference in direction skills). In fact there was much eye-rolling all round as Kevin Bacon acted the villain and I felt like I was watching The Spy Who Shagged Me. It was just too cheesy. It got better as it went along, but still didn’t have nearly enough character development to make me give a crap about any of them. The teen mutants get a cursory montage of what their powers are, and that’s it. And I’m supposed to relate to them how? Root for them? Care when one of them double crosses the others? You’ve done nothing to show me what kind of people they are, so why should it come as a surprise? I’m supposed to care because I’m supposed to care, and that is just not good enough. It’s lazy and makes it impossible for an audience to engage. Also, James McAvoy was a terrible Professor X. I just about hated him in every scene he was in, and usually I quite like him. He’s no Patrick Stewart. Michael Fassbender fared better and I’d have probably preferred if they’d just concentrated on Magneto, at least I knew what he was about, and where his rage came from. I am also slightly worried about The Hunger Games film if that’s Jennifer Lawrence’s best acting. She was so good in Winter’s Bone, and so bad/pointless here. I couldn’t see anything of the Mystique to come.

And my one big peeve about the whole thing was Charles putting a finger to his temple every time he did anything with his mental powers. I understand that someone thought it necessary to telegraph to the audience with a big sign saying ‘MUTANT POWER GO’ but it was distracting and stupid. What does the finger do exactly, flick a switch? Did Stewart do this in the other films and I just didn’t notice? Gah. Hated it.

Back to skating on Saturday, with only two more practices left before I find out whether I can fully join the Rec League or have to start Fresh Meat again. Fingers crossed people!

Here We Go Again

It’s been almost three months of no blogging, and you know what? I kinda miss it. I realised this as I was writing maybe the fifth post in my head. If I can’t shut it off I might as well write it down. And there have been things! Things to talk about! (I have to say though, it’s a bit disconcerting to find that I get more blog hits when I don’t write than when I do. How is that even possible?) And so, here’s a little recap of the last three months:

1. I had Norovirus. I took almost a week off work. It was less than fun, as you can imagine.

2. I survived our office move, whereby two companies that had shared space for over thirty years went their separate ways. This involved throwing out epic amounts of useless crap that had been accumulated; packing up everything deemed essential (and stuff that was not but survived the weeding anyway); packing boxes, lifting boxes, unpacking boxes; suffering from sellotape burn; aching all over, being exhausted and ready for a holiday; being disappointed by people’s behaviour; trying not to lose my shit over said people’s behaviour; splitting myself in two because…

3. I got a new job. I have left my old company to go to the one we shared an office with but don’t any more. Following? It’s still in publishing but I’ll now be working in editorial, with some publicity/marketing functions until the position grows to full time. It’s very early days as I started at the beginning of the year, but as I’d been looking for a new job for almost three years all I can say is: PHEW! No more applications! No more CV writing! No more interviews with people who have obviously already chosen a person but have to advertise the position anyway! No more personality tests and stupid questions! I hardly know what to do with myself, or my free time. And so I…

4. Signed up for Roller Derby. I haven’t skated since I was about ten and I am lethal on two feet, let alone wheels, but still, I really wanted to have a go. I got my skates, will have pads etc soon, and start the fresh meat programme with the London Roller Girls in February. Am scared! But also very excited.

5. Cannonball Read III started over at Pajiba but I decided not to do it again this year. I want to read for pleasure and not race through a book to fill a quota. I am following those taking part though, and already have some books added to my wishlist based on their reviews. And I’ll still be posting my thoughts on books I’ve read, just maybe not every book I read.

6. Also there was Christmas in there and New Year. Christmas was lovely, excepting the car crash we had on Christmas Eve, when we hit black ice, skidded off the road and ended up in a ditch. Thankfully only the car died, but we were incredibly lucky. New Year’s Eve was a more sedate affair, with me and Max watching films and avoiding crowds. It’s the best way to do it you know.

And that’s it really. I will attempt to post regularly from now on.

Your Perfume is My Poison

I am in a bit of a grump this morning. I shouldn’t be, since it is Friday, and since in about a week I will be going on holiday (boo yah!), but I’m in a grump anyway because I have a headache and feel sick. And I feel this way because someone in the office is wearing perfume. She’s only in the office once a month but I dread it. I don’t know what her perfume is but it’s a scent that just kills me. It’s very flowery and…thick, is the only way I can think to describe it. She is in an office down the hall and I feel like I am sitting in a fog. That just seems mental to me. I can just about understand the desire to wear perfume (even though it seems like a pointless exercise to me, to each their own and all that), but do you really need to smother yourself in it? Should I really be able to smell you from all the way down there? Should I be able to know you’ve been here by your lingering scent? I don’t think so.

I am obviously a delicate little flower. I have skin problems anyway, with eczema and cat allergies and having to use products that were made for babies and anything with a tiny amount of perfume in it can make me flare up. Much fun. I have had it since birth and though ‘they’ said I might grow out of it, I haven’t. If anything it gets worse the older I get. Or maybe this flowery perfume is a new phenomenon. It seems to be very popular at the moment. I spend a lot of my time on my bus journeys unable to escape it, wishing I had sat somewhere else, contemplating moving to get some air. I know I shouldn’t begrudge people their desire to express themselves through perfume, but it’s hard when you’re sitting there trying not to vomit, when your head feels like it is full of the stuff and your brain is slowly suffocating.

So I come here and moan about it instead. Perhaps I will feel better now. I think, thankfully, my colleague is only here for half the day, so that’s a silver lining then.

But did I mention I’m going on holiday next week? I cannot wait!

Frickin Volcanoes

Last Wednesday I flew up to Glasgow for a work conference where I would be selling books. I flew because it was cheaper (which shocks me) and quicker than getting the train. Or it would be quicker if a volcano didn’t erupt and ground all flights in your country meaning you might be trapped in Glasgow for the foreseeable future. I mean, a volcano? Honestly, what are the odds? (This is a rhetorical question, should you actually happen to know the odds.) I didn’t even know about it until Friday morning, not having access to the internet and having only four TV channels in my room. Yes, I could have complained but I had DVDs and so was mostly fine, until I was faced with ‘The Day The Skies Stood Still’ on the front of the Metro paper Friday morning. What? I spent the rest of that day frantically trying to find out information and whether my flight was still on or how I would get back otherwise. I was expecting a mad rush on train tickets and, though Glasgow was very lovely, I really wanted to get home.

In the end it was fine though. I managed to book myself on a train, once I knew my flight was indeed never going to take off. I do like BA’s text they send you, which basically says ‘Your flight has been cancelled. Soz.’ And then I spent much of Saturday wanting to pack up the books and being annoyed by people wanting to buy things, so I could leave early and make sure I would get on my train. (I had a ten minute window at Edinburgh and that was just too nerve wracking for me.) I feel like this is nature’s way of saying ‘Ha! Carbon footprint ner ner ner.’ Yes, I should have just got the train in the first place. I’ll never do it again. Maybe.

The book fair was very slow. The volcano meant about 100 people didn’t make it, but I know we did better than some of the other publishers, who didn’t sell anything. The first day was mainly registration and no tea or coffee on. Refreshments are key at these sort of things, and I was positioned next to them, which is good in that you get loads of people storming past to get to them, and so good foot traffic. But then you also get people with mugs of hot liquid and grubby, greasy hands, standing pawing your books and spilling on them. And then using your table as a place to discard their leftovers. Honestly, some people.

Anyway, I am aware that I am very lucky, as I at least had the option of the train, and could stay on at the hotel at work’s expense if I needed to. A lot of people are stranded all over the place with no idea when they’ll be home, and with no money for hotels etc. It must be awful. Half our office is elsewhere at the moment. Two colleagues are in the US, having gone last week for the sales conference, and won’t be back til Wednesday at the earliest. Another was on holiday in Morocco, not sure when he’ll be back. But he’s quite happily wining and dining Richard Branson’s mother. Because of course he is. Also, it’s the London Book Fair this week, which will likely be very quiet, and as none of the US folk are coming over we’ll have to sort that.

We could all do with this chap to ferry people about, but it seems he’s too busy listening to bagpipes to offer assistance. Lazy.

List O’ Things

1. I think (touch wood) my cold is coming to an end. I can breathe through my nose again. Well, one nostril. No one seems as excited by this as I am. I guess that’s understandable. I made it into work on Tuesday, which may have been a mistake as I felt even worse yesterday. So I worked from home, having figured out my logmein problems. I think I should always be allowed to work from my bed wearing my pjs while the tv plays in the background. I did actually get stuff done too.

2. Unfortunately this lying about has led to me being sucked into Celebrity Big Brother. I am disappointed in myself. I can’t help it though. Stephen Baldwin has quickly jumped onto my most hated list, right next to his brother. But I can’t stop listening to the crap he spouts. He sounds mental. He talks in such a weirdly sort of breathless way constantly about God. I am hoping Vinnie Jones lamps him one at some point.

3. I have started swapping books through Read It Swap It and have so far received two books, with three on the way. I like it, though they are a bit militant about sending your book within two days damn it! And this added to my guilt when I was poorly.

4. As I have been working at my job for five years now, I get five extra days holiday. On one hand, this is great, more time off. On the other, I have been here five years. Someone take me out back and shoot me.

5. Last night I watched He’s Just Not That Into You, for reasons unknown to myself, and wanted to slap just about every woman who came on screen. Do women really act this way? Would you really tell a friend who is considering a relationship with a married man that he might leave his wife for her because you know a man who did and married the woman he was having an affair with, and they have been married happily for twenty years? What does this achieve? Oh, just the tip of the iceberg with how awful and clingy and psycho we all are. Especially when it comes to our desire to get married.

6. I cannot for the life of me find some nice winter boots. It turns out I am unbelievably picky for someone who doesn’t give a shit about shoes. I want ankle boots, that are warm, and preferably black. I think I’m veering towards lace up, but they don’t have to be as long as they are nice. You wouldn’t think that would be too much to ask, but can I find any? No. Grr. Poor little frozen feet.

Umm, I think that’s it. My nose is very sore, but I do feel a lot better.

How to Waste Time

We’ve been without internet at work most of the day. It was off and on yesterday too. It’s amazing how much I do here that needs the internet. What did they do before!? Actually, I know what they did, and everything took forever, I don’t want to go back to that.

I spent much of the day on the phone to a certain internet provider, trying to find out why our internet wasn’t working. I have been bounced around from customer services to technical support and back too many times. Also, their choice of hold music is shit. But eventually I learned they have recently upgraded their line, or something, and since our router is so old it is no longer compatible. We need a new router. Of course, I am not authorised to do anything, and both my boss and the office admin person who actually know stuff about our internet situation are away for three weeks. Excellent planning there. Why does stuff always happen when people are away!?

This is my favourite conversation of the day.

Helpline Dude: Your router is no longer compatible, we can send you a new one for free if you sign on with us for another year.
Me: I am not authorised to do that, what’s my other option?
HD: You can buy one, you just need to fill in a form, which is online for your convenience.
Me: Right, but I can’t get online right now, so how else can I get one?
HD: If you sign up online your router will be there in 5-7 working days.
Me: I can’t get online right now, that’s why I’m calling. How else can I get a router?
HD: I can send you a form, but it will take 12-15 working days, if you go online…
Me: OH MY FUCKING GOD I CANNOT GET ONLINE, TELL ME ABOUT THIS FRICKIN FORM!

No, I was totally calm the whole time. Really.

After I hung up he called me back, apparently finally twigging that I really meant it when I said I couldn’t get online, to tell me I could use dial up (what year am I in?), if I would like to call Technical Support (*cries*) they’d be happy to walk me through it. So I do, and talk to this woman who speaks very sloooowly at me and walks me through setting it up, except what she says I should be seeing isn’t there. She gets exasperated. “Under ‘Network’ there is a ‘whatever it was, I forget’, click that” “There is no ‘whatever it was’ option.” She so doesn’t believe me. Look, I may be shit when it comes to computers, but I can read. Turns out our system, lovely Macs that they are, don’t support dial up. ARGH.

The whole thing took way longer than it should have, and none of us in the office are sure why we no longer have a contract with this internet provider (we’re apparently on a rolling month to month one now), other than we all hate them and their customer service sucks and it’s possible we were going to get a new provider but someone forgot. Who knows?

I do know that we have borrowed a router until we can sort this out, and I can go back to actually getting emails and all that jazz, but this morning I was ready to punch someone.

Still, I did all my filing and tidied my desk, that was fun.

And I’m Gonna Be Forty…Someday

I am, as we speak, hurtling towards my 28th birthday. It’s out there waiting, and come Saturday it’s going to catch up with me. Don’t get me wrong, I loves me some birthdays, people making a fuss, sending you cards, cake! Oh my god, who doesn’t like cake? But every year is just another step away from where I thought I’d be at this age. And it kinda sucks. I know I shouldn’t hang onto an idea of a future life I had when I was 12, but I thought I’d be doing slightly better than this, you know?

Sure, I have a job, and I am technically a grown up, I pay my bills, I have a pension, I’m not a total loser.

But.

I have been in the same job now for four years, with the same company for almost five. Count them: FIVE! And as much as I like my job (sometimes), and like my colleagues and know my situation could be much worse, god damn if I wouldn’t just like a little break when it came to a so-called career. It shouldn’t be this hard. I swear I have skills. I swear I do a good job. I just can’t seem to convince anyone else of this fact, and it’s kinda hard on ye olde self confidence. I know we’re in a Recession and everything and I should probably just be damn glad I have a job and can pay my bills (and I am grateful, I am), but would a step up kill ya Universe?

I have spent part of my day creating address labels and stuffing envelopes with our catalogues. This is what my student loan enabled me to do? Fail.

Here’s another fact about me: I am an underachieving procrastinator.  I am not: Married; A parent; A high flying career woman with minions; Travelling the world living out of a backpack; Having adventures; Really doing anything of any consequence.

I am merely standing still, and it’s getting well old, let me tell you, for, as we well know, I’m going to be 40…someday.

Second Run

My run last night was MUCH easier than the first, thank goodness. And I didn’t have to bribe myself with cookies to make myself go. Maybe.

I thought it would be painful seeing as I was still a little bit sore from my run on Saturday, but I managed to run for longer stretches this time. I seemed to find the right pace and rhythm with my breathing, which was nice. Huh. Does my body remember this? I was also able to keep my earphone in. Maybe that’s the difference: less faffing with stupid things = more concentration for important stuff like breathing?

I had to properly dodge a huge group of kids who had been evacuated from a building and were taking up the whole pavement and not watching what they were doing. They’re lucky I didn’t body slam them. Then I had to avoid the firemen too. It is dangerous this running malarkey.

The aim now is to continue doing my 3K route until I can run the whole thing with no stopping, and then work up to 5K, which sounds doable (in theory).

Today we are having cake at work for an office birthday. Chocolate cake. I can undo all the good I did with my run. Excellent. This afternoon can’t get here soon enough.