November 2013 began with an announcement and ended with another interview. In between there was numbness and gallows humour. It all felt a little like judgement day from where I was standing.
1 November 2013
When I got in the lift this morning I almost gagged. It was empty but someone had obviously recently farted in there. Either that or there was a dead rat somewhere rotting away. It takes a while to get to the fourteenth floor and I began to get a touch paranoid that someone else would get in and think it was me. Then I began to wonder how long such a stink takes to clear in a closed lift and if it would still be there later when I went back down.
Arabella was in the kitchen making Earl Grey when I went to make my first honey and lemon of the day. While the kettle boiled we looked out at the demolition work below. A good two thirds of the building has gone now. Arabella commented on what a tidy job they were doing. It seems a pity we won’t be able to watch the new building going up.
After yesterday we all knew our fate would be finally sealed today and some kind of announcement would be made. It was pretty obvious too that the COO With No Balls wasn’t going to turn up to speak to us personally. In a way I think most of us were glad because we have all worked together as a tight knit team with no outside input and it seemed fitting that we should deal with this alone. Even so it was harsh and unfair to expect Aneka to pass on the news. Having said that, it was hardly news, even the most optimistic of us knew what was coming.
The whole thing was strangely low key. Aneka gathered us together, told us the decision stood and the office was closing. Alice, who’d been up on the mezzanine all morning stuffing final document letters, didn’t even bother to come down. She just leaned over the railing to hear the ‘not news.’
We were all standing around chatting about what gonadless, snivelling cowards all the top brass were for not coming to tell us face to face and how badly they were going to struggle without us, when there was a crashing sound on the stairs. Everyone stopped and looked up as Alice appeared, bumping the post sack down the stairs behind her.
“Sorry,” she said looking at our alarmed faces. “I’ve got the sack.” Cue hysterical laughter.
Then we went back to work. No one cried, no one was in the least surprised. All in all it was a bit of a non event. Suddenly, my second interview seemed all the more important though. Personally I think I’d rather have a morning interview and get it over with. That way there’s less time to obsess about it before hand. There’s also less time to drop something down my front, rip my tights or ruin my makeup. All morning I was on tenterhooks, convinced I was going to do one of the above, or maybe all three. Clock watching was the order of the day.
Eventually it was time to go. I shut down my computer, not if sure I’d be back in the office afterwards or not and, with everyone’s good wishes ringing in my ears I set off. Thankfully it wasn’t raining, although it was a bit blustery and the sky looked like rain was imminent.
After the short cut debacle last time I was slightly more switched on about the route even though I was starting off from the office rather than the bus stop this time. There was plenty of time so I calmed my nerves by taking the scenic route along the old walls. Those walls always make me feel batter, something about all the years they’ve stood there, through plague, famine, wars. They make me realise how insignificant my own worries are.
When I reached the shortcut, from a different angle this time, I was way too early. I may have mentioned that I am almost pathologically early for everything but this was more than half an hour which is taking early too far and might have made me look over eager. In the end I spent fifteen minutes walking around the building very s l o w l y until my earliness was less freakish and more in the realms of the acceptable.
Once I’d picked up my visitors pass I sat in reception waiting and looking around. There were two other chaps waiting there, also with visitors passes and I wondered if they were interviewing for the same job. I eyed them nervously, trying to gauge if they were better qualified than me. Eventually Katherine, the woman who interviewed me last time, came to fetch me. Katherine is pretty, blonde, stick thin and, more worryingly, young. She greeted me like an old friend which was nice.
As we walked into the office I saw Aiden, one of my old Mad House cronies, I’d forgotten he was working there and had no idea he worked in what could end up being my department. He said hello. Unfortunately Katherine didn’t miss this little exchange. Aiden was always a bit of a lose cannon at Mad House although he seems to be getting on well nowadays.
The in tray exercise wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d expected. Nowhere near as involved or complicated as the practice one I did. There were only eight emails and the priorities seemed fairly obvious. A decommissioned life raft that needed replacing, some fire extinguishers that needed adapting, urgent then. A few other things that sounded like they needed further investigation, questions to be answered, follow ups to be done. Two unimportant things, one someone asking again about something there’d already been told no about and another I can’t remember now. Then again, maybe I missed something obvious and didn’t do as well as I thought.
After that there was one of those question and answer type things with Katherine, the head of the department and someone else whose name I forget. You know the ones, “tell me about a time when you demonstrated…” I came up with answers for all of them, but barely. Why is it you always think of the best answers after the event? Still it was quite a cheery cross questioning, lots of smiling and a few laughs. They really do seem like a happy team and I’m pretty sure I’d enjoy it.
Once all the question and answer stuff was done the head of department told me I had done very well to get this far. For a minute I thought it was going to be one of those, “you’ve done so well but…” conversations. It wasn’t. He went on to say there had been one hundred and forty applicants for the job and now there were just three, me and two others who they’d yet to see for second interview. They said they’d let me know by the end of next week so it’s back to the waiting game again. That and going over and over the whole thing in my head convincing myself I’d said all the wrong things and they won’t want me at all. Still whatever happens I have to remember I beat all those other people to get to the finals!
By the time it was over it seemed pointless going back to the office, especially after the announcement. Noel had left shortly after we’d been told, Arabella was packing up as I left for the interview and I had a feeling everyone else would have left pretty early. Dusk was falling as I walked past St Mary’s Church and I stopped on the corner and looked back sadly towards the office.
It’s been a wonderful fourteen months. I’ve met some great people, I’ve learned a lot and I’ve enjoyed every minute. What a shame the party has to end…
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