Current status
Apr. 13th, 2010 06:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
king_pellinorLadyofAstolat has reminded me that I haven't posted anything for a few days, so I thought I'd let everyone know how things are going :-)
Let's see:
I'm happily unemployed again, after my maternity cover contract ended, and knuckling down to finding a new job.
In the meantime I'm abusing the benefits system. I signed on again last week, to keep the NI stamp, only to confuse the advisor a bit by being far too qualified, ready to work and organised to fit into any convenient boxes. He's letting me look for a job I'd like for three months, after which I may have to take anything that comes along... but the hourly rate he put in as my minimum would rule out almost any job that might just come casually along, so that's almost entirely pointless :-) He also suggested that I might like them to pay for me to take some courses at the college, which I'd already booked on and was about to pay for, which was nice :-)
I got the paperwork for that today, and I don't think I fit into those boxes either. There was a very small space for qualifications, so I just put down my MA and didn't bother with the GCSEs. After completing that form with the "Last College attended" box, I found the next two things were a literacy test and a numeracy one. So I might not get to go on the course if people disagree with my understanding of what signs saying "slippery floor" might mean, or of how to pay for sandwiches. Actually, if anything they're more likely to object to the caveats, like "If you work 7 hours a day at £5 an hour, how much do you earn a day?" - "£35 (before tax and assuming minimum wage legislation doesn't apply)". It's very hard fitting all that into a multiple choice answer box :-)
To be fair some of the questions were rather harder than I expected. One involved foreign exchange rates, and another the correct use of a colon. So all civilisation is not lost ;-)
The other interesting thing is that having gotten sick of breaking glasses I have not only bought 400 unbreakable ones for my bar, but I've also signed up to have my eyes resculpted. Apparently I have very thick corneas, which allows for some high relief work to be done; it all comes with a lifetime parts and labour guarantee, too, which is nice. So as of this time next week I should never need glasses again :-D Except when it's sunny. Or until the presbyopia hits and I need reading glasses, confidently predicted as "any time now, you're nearly 40 aren't you?" :-)
Oh, and I spent a pleasant few hours waiting for my appointment yesterday pottering around the Wallace Collection, or at least a small section of it, without having restless people wanting to move on and look at painted canvas or old mugs or something instead of the old iron any sane person would rather inspect. I've come away with lots of interesting stuff I shan't bore you with, and two questions:
1) Why do they display everything the wrong way round? Yes, yes, the pretty embroidery on the front is all very well, but how's it strapped together? What are the fastenings? How does it articulate? What's that almost-but-not-quite-obscured buckle doing?
2) £450 for a simple 4-1 mail necklace? £450.00? FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY POUNDS? I'll do you one of those for half the price, and I'll do it in gold-plated platinum! Right, sod the job market, where are my pliers? :-D
Let's see:
I'm happily unemployed again, after my maternity cover contract ended, and knuckling down to finding a new job.
In the meantime I'm abusing the benefits system. I signed on again last week, to keep the NI stamp, only to confuse the advisor a bit by being far too qualified, ready to work and organised to fit into any convenient boxes. He's letting me look for a job I'd like for three months, after which I may have to take anything that comes along... but the hourly rate he put in as my minimum would rule out almost any job that might just come casually along, so that's almost entirely pointless :-) He also suggested that I might like them to pay for me to take some courses at the college, which I'd already booked on and was about to pay for, which was nice :-)
I got the paperwork for that today, and I don't think I fit into those boxes either. There was a very small space for qualifications, so I just put down my MA and didn't bother with the GCSEs. After completing that form with the "Last College attended" box, I found the next two things were a literacy test and a numeracy one. So I might not get to go on the course if people disagree with my understanding of what signs saying "slippery floor" might mean, or of how to pay for sandwiches. Actually, if anything they're more likely to object to the caveats, like "If you work 7 hours a day at £5 an hour, how much do you earn a day?" - "£35 (before tax and assuming minimum wage legislation doesn't apply)". It's very hard fitting all that into a multiple choice answer box :-)
To be fair some of the questions were rather harder than I expected. One involved foreign exchange rates, and another the correct use of a colon. So all civilisation is not lost ;-)
The other interesting thing is that having gotten sick of breaking glasses I have not only bought 400 unbreakable ones for my bar, but I've also signed up to have my eyes resculpted. Apparently I have very thick corneas, which allows for some high relief work to be done; it all comes with a lifetime parts and labour guarantee, too, which is nice. So as of this time next week I should never need glasses again :-D Except when it's sunny. Or until the presbyopia hits and I need reading glasses, confidently predicted as "any time now, you're nearly 40 aren't you?" :-)
Oh, and I spent a pleasant few hours waiting for my appointment yesterday pottering around the Wallace Collection, or at least a small section of it, without having restless people wanting to move on and look at painted canvas or old mugs or something instead of the old iron any sane person would rather inspect. I've come away with lots of interesting stuff I shan't bore you with, and two questions:
1) Why do they display everything the wrong way round? Yes, yes, the pretty embroidery on the front is all very well, but how's it strapped together? What are the fastenings? How does it articulate? What's that almost-but-not-quite-obscured buckle doing?
2) £450 for a simple 4-1 mail necklace? £450.00? FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY POUNDS? I'll do you one of those for half the price, and I'll do it in gold-plated platinum! Right, sod the job market, where are my pliers? :-D
