Thursday and my trip up to Town.

...or two interviews, one meeting with the agent, a job offer and a little light shopping.

An early start, smartly dressed this time, to meet the CTO of the digital agency. This is the first time I've gone to an interview and had to apologise for being too smart!

It was quite a tricky meeting with him asking lots of questions about Agile and Scrum and how I think things should be done in an IT department. So we talked and I've done this so many times in the last couple of weeks I'm trying to make all the answered sound like I've just made them up rather than said the same thing before. Also I'm trying to watch my body language so I send all the right signals with mirroring and stuff like that.

We ended with him saying good luck in the interview that afternoon and then he changes it to good luck making the right decision. I wasn't sure how it went and so I headed off to do some shopping while I killed 2 hours until the next interview.

The Seventh interview was with a small company with an amazing TV studio setup. They film and then broadcast company TV across satellites and the web. It was a good interview except for the interviewer asking me the same question several different way. I guess it was to see if the answers where all the same. I had a tour around the offices and got to see the huge TV mixing desk and the studio they do some green screen stuff.

OK by this stage its about 3pm and I'm trashed. but it's off the Agent for a debrief on the day's interviews. It's right across town and I'm wandering around Bank and Monument for a while trying to find the office, despite having been there before with a desperate need to go to the loo.

When I finally get there the Agent is as chipper as ever and was just getting down to grilling me on how the interviews went when he was called away to the phone.

He comes back in with a slightly bemused, stunned look on his face. 'That was [the digital media agency] on the phone, they really like you and want to offer you a job...for [the same amount as the other offer], which is er... 3 grand more than they were willing to pay!'

Hurrah ! I'll take it! I said and my job searching is over. They print me all the package details and send me on my way. I travelled home in a slight daze (well until I got my PSP out to play WipeOut) and broke the news to my Dad when I got home.

So I'm starting on Monday and I'm slightly scared at trying to match up to the person I come across as when I'm being interviewed. But at least I won't have to wear my suit again for a while.

Sixth Interview and a Decision

Otherwise known as what I did on Wednesday

So I've had overnight to think about the offer and still don't know. Anyway the sixth interview is at 11 am and I said I would make a decision after that.

The interview is at a digital media agency based north of oxford street. basically they make online adverts and viral marketing like the Sony and Lynx themed game sites. It's a very different prospect from the other interviews so much so I've been told to go in casual clothes. It seems to be a lively place and according to Mel (who runs the IT department) who interviewed me its got a lively social. Also she said that they get all sorts of perks like drinks evening and yoga classes! So I'm pretty impressed and I think that it went well as the technical guy I met was saying some pretty positive stuff as I left.

Well I got about 200 metres outside the office and into a nearby shop before the Agent rang to say they wanted me back for a second interview. Blimey that was quick it could have only taken 20 minutes. So I'm due back on Thursday (11am) to see the CTO. although next time I will be dressed smart as I'm off to interview number seven in the afternoon.

So the rest of the day is mine to do a little Xmas shopping and wonder what I going to do about the job offer. Actually by this stage I had decided, I didn't fancy it and the work place didn't compare at all well with the place I had just visited. So I found a nice quiet place to ring the agent and give him the bad news, it was in the stairwell in Liberty's.

Two phone interviews and a job offer

At this rate I'm going to need a job just so my life quietens down a bit.

Today started with me heading off to the first meeting with my new Physio in the NHS, Nipun. Interesting differences with my last physio. Apparently I'm still favouring my left leg and limping a bit so we are going to work on that. Its a case to stretching out the hamstrings and learning to use both legs the same.

In the afternoon it was phone time first the second part of yesterdays interview and then a HR interview with a streaming media company based in St Martin's lane.

The results of which were from the latter an invite to a second interview on Thursday and a Job offer from the first phone call. Well from the agent late after he'd spoken to the company.

It's a standard package health care, pension, 10% bonus and 22% increase in pay from my old job. pretty good

I've got over night to think about it and with it being a scary job I don't know if I'm going to say yes or not!!!

Fifth Interview and the Arrival of Edith May

Friday evening and I'm sorting myself out for a weekend away and all of a sudden the agents go crazy and all start ringing at the same time. One of the agents who contacted me thought LinkedIn had a position with a financial opinion news service. They must be a bit desperate to fill their position because from first phone call to me it took about 40 minutes to get my CV to them and fix up an interview.

So Monday morning I went down to Liverpool St (not to Guildhall where Google maps had located them) to a small company hidden down a side street. The interview was fine but the job sounds a little scary, basically I would be the only developer/architect in the company surrounded by business users. A huge opportunity to shape a whole department but only I would be needed to IT support an entire company! According to the agent it went OK and I had the second part a fairly simple technical phone call with their current third party IT supplier on the phone on Tuesday afternoon. One of the questions he asked was 'What upcoming technology in the near future really excites you' to which I guess I was supposed to say something related to IT but I said the new Virgin One spaceship!

Also on the Monday as well as going to see one of the agents and doing a very odd multiple choice technical screening test, we had some good news...

I'm an uncle again.

Edith May Golding (7lb 7oz) arrived early in the morning and is doing very well.

Fourth Interview part deux

Well it went well enough for them to ask me back for a second interview. So yesterday I went back to see them. This time it was in Angel.

This time is was a full technical test, which was alot like a written exam. Fortunately we were late as the person who was seeing me was double booked in another meeting across town. So I didn't have to do it all just have a good go at it for half an hour. There were questions on asp.net controls c# sql queries and creating tables, state management and requirements capture.

It was quite hard as these things test more your ability to remember stuff than whether you are any good at coding. But I got a chance at the end to talk around some of the topics to show I a little of what I know.

The last question they asked was 'How would you work out how many hairdressers were there in London'. It's quite common in my experience that interviewers ask something a little left field in an interview just to see how a person would react. I normally, when interviewing someone would ask 'tell me something interesting about yourself', a question I picked up from my old boss, Julian. Well this time I answered it a couple of different ways including using a phone book and making a worm hole out of a couple of stars to freeze time and going around counting by hand! At least I will be remembered!

So still fingers crossed.

Fourth interview

I thought this one went OK too, er like I did the last three.

This time is it was at the end of the day so I went in a little early and went for a wander around the British Museum. I visited the money section, since I was going to an interview at an investment bank, and the Painting and Drawing section. Most people don't even know the Drawings are there, hidden away at the back of the building, but you can see some wonderful things in there, like sketches by Michelangelo.

So the interview, that was a little different again from the others as I was interviewed by two people this time, for a bit and then asked some technical questions by one of them in a different room. Also I got chaperoned to the interview by the Agent, which was a little strange.

The reason for the slightly odd way of doing things was that they were holding a sort of 'open evening' and meeting a couple of candidates, so we will see what becomes of that.

One draw-back of my amazing cheap suit is that is quite thin and as the temperature dropped today (6C with wind) it got a bit chilly on the way home.

Third Interview

From two guys at an investment bank by phone.

Didn't go too well as they asked me loads of how web pages work type of stuff which you never need to know when you are actually writing them.

Also doing it by phone is never as good as face to face.

So I'm not expecting anything more...

Second Interview

Well the suit has now paid for itself.

This one too seems to go OK and nice place in Angel.
but I've had no reply back from the agent so I figure that one has gone to someone else too.

Still early days yet. It's only the end of the second week of looking.

(the agent rang on the Sunday evening (the interview was Friday morning) to say the guy that got the job was someone who had worked with them before and so knew their systems, you can't really compete with that!)

First Interview

Today was my first interview had a long trip down the district line all the way to Hammersmith.
It seemed to go ok


but they gave the job to someone else

the agent thinks it might be some one cheaper

English Sporting Weekend

Saturday, the English rugby team, got through to the final, amazing. It was a bit of a long shot but we dared to hope. A painful match to watch (watching England nearly always is) and a bit sad in the end.

Still there was Lewis on Sunday to win the Grand Prix and cheers us all up.

Oh dear perhaps next time.

I think I'll stop watching sport for a bit, not that I watch much before.
Still in both cases an amazing achievement to get as far as they did.

CV go live!

Finally managed to get my life on to two sides of A4 and ask my Mum to read through it to check it made some sense.

Posted it up on to Jobserve.com on Thursday and got about 20 email straight away
and the phone has been really busy for the first couple of hours.

One agent said said it had been download 10 times already and then was in a couple of hours. I looking for a contract in Central London around the 300 a day mark, to start with. I figure that about right for 12 years experience in IT.

So fingers crossed and I had better start revising for any technical tests I may be asked to do.

Complaint Letter

Dear Lastminute.com

I wish to complaint about my recent holiday to Rhodes as booked through your web site (I reported my complaints to the local rep on 8.10.7). I wanted a quiet, warm, stress free holiday to recover from an operation I’ve just had. I wasn’t after much, a nice room, some nice food, a swimming pool and a gym to help regain my fitness.

I paid 600 pounds for this holiday and I don’t feel I got my moneys worth by a long stretch, In fact I feel I have been miss-sold too. The holiday was advertised as a ‘dreamlike Deluxe 5 star hotel’ however the room was very basic needed and multiple maintenance work was needed to be done on it, in the first case just to make the room safe.

The holiday was rated as 5 stars and this definitely wasn’t. You do point out on some of your other holidays that standards are a bit different in some countries, but that is clearly stated in the advert and was not in this case. I don’t expect any 5 star accommodation include two single beds, of slightly different heights, push together to make a double when the room is clearly designed for a double bed (the double bed head board was nailed to the wall). Supplied in the room was a single hand towel and a single medium sized towel (not even bath towel size), 2 rolls of toilet paper and nothing else. Nothing to make it a 5 star experience at all not even a bar of soap. When advertising a 5 star experience you think of such things as mini bar, a kettle for tea making, a range of TV and radio channels, furniture that isn’t worn and shabby, a room which doesn’t need things fixing and perhaps even some toiletries.

Where I would agree the all-inclusive part of the package was good, the main lobby and the swimming pools were fine; but practically nothing else was of even a moderate standard. The Fitness Centre and Sauna was a shabby little basement room with a nearly unusable multi-gym and no sign of the sauna at all. The advertised Scuba diving lessons and hire were non-existent.

The room was in such bad repair, ignoring the minor faults, I had to call out maintenance 4 times. First time was to fix the high cupboard door that was dangerously hanging off making entering the room unsafe. Then it was twice to try and make the hot water work. Finally once more to repair the patio door which fell off its hinges.

Room facilities were not as advertised or perhaps only the barest minimum to cover the legal definition. The ‘Satellite TV with international channels/ music radio’ was 1 English TV channel only, BBC World, and that was only after I had retuned the TV to get it. No radio channels that I could find.

You advert specifically lists what is not included in the holiday and you didn’t mention that the In-flight meals were not included as you do on some of your other holidays – on the way out as I wasn’t warned and so I was pretty hungry after 14 hour journey there. And on the way home, 9 hours stuck with Thomas Cook only a single drink and sandwich at the airport and nothing on the plane during the appalling journey home.

All these problems left me much more stressed and tired than before I left and I now feel I would not want to wish your organisation on my worst enemy.

Last Physio

Now the insurance money has just about run out (the day after this visit), I went to see my physio for the last time and get a list of stuff to work on in the future.

He said my goal should be to do 20 one leg 'squats' with weights either in the hand or perhaps a rucksack. He also said I could join a gym and use my bike again.

At the gym I want to focus on the leg press and leg curl and he said my skiing trip in March is a good target to work towards.

The leg is still shaking and I need to keep up with the stretches the goal of the 20 repeats is a still quite a long way off. I can start kneeling down and siting back on to my heals (that's really painful at the moment!).

In the future I should always include the stretches the balancing and one leg squats in an gym routine from now on to try and keep the level of use up.

Basically his message was build up the muscles and good luck.

Off on Holiday

its raining here
is not raining in Rhodes
so I'm packed and I'm off for a week in the warm tonight.

Iliotibial tract

"Rhodes... where we're going we don't need Rhodes"

Had my last meeting with Mr Parmar, well the last one should be in six months but the money runs out. Everything is fine and it was all quite jolly! Apparently the main issue I still have, a clicking, sore bit on the outside of the knee, is cause by my Iliotibial tract rubbing on the drill site and should lessen with time. the rod is sticking out a bit and rubbing on this tract thing but should smooth off and get absorbed into the bone.

Also we've sorted the lawyer stuff to quite a tight deadline, set by the Company. Funny really because it was mainly them causing the delays. But once they had sorted all the typos and got the amount right we had an agreement to sign and that should be that.


On the trip front I went for the third option in the end and just book something quick. So I'm going to Greece. I've booked a week on Rhodes. It looks like a nice place with a gym and several swimming pools. This will be the first time I've been on a beach holiday as normally its all activity
for me so the difference should be interesting.


Now I just have to get some beachwear and some reading materials and then I away from this England of constant rain!

Skiing March 2008

Yeap

I've just booked to go on a ski trip next March. It's six months away so I should be fit enough by then. It's important to get straight back on the horse as the saying goes.
The trip is with my friends from Ware it should be a nice gentle re-introduction to Skiing as its a group with a full range of abilities.

To aid the recovery, and because I have a little time on my hand, I've been going to for walks around the village each day. the government say you should do 30 minutes of moderate exercise 5 times a week. so I'm got a nice little route worked out which has some ups and downs to get me slightly out of breath for an hour.

The route runs up behind my Parents house, through the woods, across a couple of fields until I get to Mill Lane. Then its up Mill Lane, the steep climb stretches out the knee) and then across the huge rolling field above the Lamas until I get to the point Walkern road bridge goes over the bypass. Then its reverse course and return home.

I great walk with good views of the village, as it runs along the ridge, but not to good when its raining.

Suits you sir

I'm impressively unprepared for looking for a new job. Not only do I have to fix up a 3 year old CV, I find that all my smart clothes are in storage.

So I had to go out and buy a new suit today. This is probably a good thing as I haven't used them much in three years they are probably too small. That goes for shoes that aren't trainers as well. The fit is now up to a 40" Regular although the trouser are still 34". I guess if I put on the old jackets I would now look a bit like a bouncer.

Still writing my CV. it's like pulling teeth. I'm doing a full permie CV has I will probably need it at some point and then cutting it down into one suitable for contracting. With a full CV you give lots of detail about yourself, as well as your skills, so a company can work out if you are a good fit. However for a Contractor CV it should be much short, not more that 2 pages, and only concentrate on the skills the company is looking for.

And no word from the lawyers, I guess my old company are still messing them around.

Lawyers and leg bending

The beard has now gone and I've had a hair cut so I'm looking professional again, partly for the future interview but mainly because I needed a passport photo that didn't make me look like a nutter.


Thursday was a trip to the Physio

He said that there had been no progress in the last three weeks despite me walking in this time without the crutches. I was thinking that he could go and get knotted. OK the progress isn't amazing but I definitely moving around better.

I told him about the redundancy and about the end of my medical cover. We sorted out that we could have a couple more sessions until it runs out on the 17th Oct (one month from me signing the letter on Monday). That got him off my case a bit but he still wanted me to do the exercises 'every hour'

Friday night in the pub

A company tradition even if most of us now don't work for the company anymore. It was Christians leaving do and most of us had already planned on going before events happened.

I did get a call in the middle of it, after I had had a few pints from the lawyer to say that the company wanted the contracts signed by the by the close of business on the Friday, but as they hadn't actually sent mine yet and the ones that they had, needed some correction, then it wasn't likely to happen. I said it was no bother to me and repeated to them that they didn't need to tell me what the company is like as I had worked for them for three years!


The other event that evening was that Matt turned up, so he had recovered from the shock on Monday and seemed ready to get on with job hunting.

CV Writing

Mostly this week I've being doing a bit of revision, watching season three of LOST and trying to update my CV.

Man its hard I haven't touched my CV in three years and to try and sum up your time at a company and then sell yourself on paper is really difficult. So its slow going. Fortunately the management at my old company had a bad attack of buzz words towards the end so I can just put them all straight in; Agile, TDD, Scrum, WCF, SOA, Continuous Integration, Product backlogs, etc.

LOST is fine. I had put off watching it as I got fed up with it during the second season but I find I have free time on my hands and so I decided to get caught up.

and the revising, well starting interviewing again means technical tests which meant reading around the subject to be able to answer questions about .net development which you never really need to know when you are actually developing.

Passports and Postoffices

Its a case of bad timing but my passport is about to expire so I've been rushing around trying to get it renewed.

So I had a trip out to Hertford to the big post office to use their check and send service. I got there a bit early and it was deserted so I went for a wander until 9am. Quite how there managed to be a 10 person queue outside in the 5 minutes I went to the cash machine I don't know. The trip home was fun as well, I got the bus back with all the OAPs.

Anyway the reason for the sorting my passport is that I was thinking of doing something like the last time I was made redundant. I decided it would be a good time to take a long break and went on a trekking trip around some of the national parks in America. I did a big loop from San Francisco via Monument, Yosemite, Dead Valley, Las Vegas, Bryce Canyon and Moab, down to Los Angeles.

So my options are

1. get another permanent job.
2. going contracting - setting up a company and finding a job for a couple of months and then do a big trip.
3. going sailing perhaps a tall ship cruise.
4. going trekking although my knee is not really up to it.
5. or go on a smaller holiday and sort my life out when I get back.

So now I'm waiting for my passport to return in the post.