Friday 27th August

Funny old week it's been, that's for sure. Firstly I managed to pick up a heavy cold from somewhere, which hasn't helped, and secondly, it's become clear that some of the potential employers in Glasgow just like messing people around. It makes you so damn angry that they do this! And there's nothing you can do about it, you can't even complain because if you did you could kiss goodbye to any future chance of employment.
Basically as you may or may not know, I went to the hairdressers on Monday, and whilst I'm sitting there getting my hair cut - dripping, the mobile goes off, so I answered it. There's this bloke on the phone, saying he's from this call centre that I'd sent a cv to recently, and he asks if I can talk, he wants to do an on-the-phone assessment to see if I'd qualify for an interview. I say it'd be a bit difficult (this is supposed to take 15 minutes) as I'm in the hairdressers, and he says ok, no problem, if you call us back, I'll send you an email with a reference number that you just quote when you call. Fine, I say I'll call you this afternoon.
And I did. First I called when I was back home, about say what, an hour later? Answerphone. Oh he'll be at lunch I thought, and went off to an appointment I had and rushed home and called him again. XX is unavailable. Ok, I thought, maybe a meeting. (I should add that I'd left messages each time, to say that I'd called, with the reference number which he had indeed sent.)
I called perhaps another four or five times on Monday. No problem I thought, I'll be bound to catch him on Tuesday. I started at nine o'clock, and I was a tad surprised to find that he was already engaged. No problem I thought, leaving a message, again, I'll keep calling, and I've left a message, he might call me back.
I called three times an hour for the entire morning. Frankly I'm not sure what else I could have done. I'd found the only other number available for the place, and rang that, only to get another answering machine, on which I left another message. Not one of these multiple messages got any sort of response out of these people, and at no point did I get a ringing phone that didn't get answered by an answerphone. I must have called them fifty times. My guess - now - is that they have a number of vacancies, and they go through the applications on a call them once basis, and if they don't answer, or can't talk, move on to the next, but to cover ourselves, we'll send them a reference number so if there's any comeback, we can prove that we've tried to contact them.
What they don't bargain on is fools like me who keep on ringing, still thinking that they might have a chance of some sort of work. What they don't take in to account is the amount of money we spend on our phone bills to do this. God only knows what this has cost me, because it's not simply a ring, no answer, hang up. There's that answerphone which when it answers starts my bill ticking. All those bloody messages.
No wonder when the cold kicked in I was feeling really quite down.
Then yesterday, I got a call from someone else I'd sent an email to. Could I come to an interview? Of course I could. I'd've needed to have been on my deathbed not to have gone to an interview. Chit chat about the position. Then comes the fatal news, no it's not a part time position, it's a full time one - so there's no point in going to an interview, I'm not about to junk my uni course. So that was that.
I keep cruising the job sites, and I keep on sending my cv off, and yep, things must be picking up a bit, because I'm getting more responses to the cv than at anytime for the last 18 months. But it's soul destroying to have potential work dangled in front of you, and then snatched away, either because they've made a mistake in their advert, or they won't call you back. But then why should they? There are thousands of people out there looking for work, and to judge by the news last night, a few more hundred as of this morning. Oh well, onwards and upwards.