I'm late. I'm tried. I'm bored. Clare has come down with some sort of illness that looks akin too winter vomiting virus, Jason has gone off to his dad's, Tim isn't back until tomorrow and all I've heard out of Rachel is the sounds of occasional swearing and the wrapping of Christmas presents emanating from her room. (From what i can gather she is not getting on well with the sellotape.)

On the plus side an event i like to call: Jonbar's Winter Assault, is only days away. An airsofting trip in the planning since the end of my last one (with Jason back in September), i have been looking forward to this for a while now. I've managed to rope in nine people to come along with me. That's like a proper team! I say "like" a proper team as going into the field I'm currently our most experienced player, Al'bar has never been, Stiz is also green, as are Steven (Emily's boyfriend), Emily, Tams and Gina. With the later three i have no idea how much experience they've had with any sort of gun, even in video games (which i believe Al and Stiz will find is nothing like Airsoft about 10 seconds into the first game, so that wont really help them much). However, along for his second time we have Tim who I've been fighting alongside in various guises for about 8 years now, and last and by no means least, our ace up our sleeve Jason who is in fact a professional soldier. He's also been along with me once before. No doubt a full retelling of the events of Sunday 23rd will be posted up here after Christmas and i definitely want to get a couple of photographs of everybody while we are there.

Anyway, i said this blog would try at least to contain something of my exploits in the world of job hunting, so here for all your enjoyment is:

How to Get Ahead in Sales.

Sales seems to be suited best by people possessing, as the recruitment websites would have you believe, drive, determination (are they not the same thing?), confidence and desire for a “challenging, fast paced and competitive working environment.” In other words, people who take them selves far too seriously, like working under pressure, and will thus end up over worked and over stressed, but at the end of the day will go home with a massive pay check. Even if they might not actually have enough free time to enjoy such vast sums of money. Although I could, hold that, am biased against the sales industry, it turns out I don’t like it and in return it wont employ me, I just don’t see these things as attractive to a job. I mean some people would, however some people also prefer CSI to Midsummer Murders, I don’t understand it myself, as American shows such as CSI and Without A Trace all seem to be less, sophisticated than their British counterparts such as Taggart, Silent Witness, Waking the Dead etc… But that's all entirely subjective right? An opinion, not an irrefutable fact. The kind of thing that the Internet is full of….
Now there was a pointless tangent that took us right out of the subject area! Right, where was I……Oh yes, why I hate Sales. High stress, high pressure jobs just don’t appeal to me, maybe that’s why I am having little success, probably is come to think of it, but this is not the point here, the point is, well actually I don’t really have a point, all I do this for is for a bit of self gratification and amusement. Oh hell! I only dislike Sales because of the lucky bastards who possess, “it”, (we’ll be covering that at a later date), get the jobs and go on to earn huge pay checks that I can only dream about in my current situation. There I said it. Happy now?! No? Because I didn’t do what the title promised, and told you how to get ahead in sales? Well I think it should be obvious by now that I have currently no idea how to get ahead in sales. I just chose the title because I enjoy stealing things from those bastards at Pareto who turned me down.

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On a more happy note i was asked earlier this week to reply to all the kids at South Kilworth Primary School letters to Santa. They were drowning in the sheer amount of stuff they had to do just before Christmas so i lept into the breach and heroically gave them at least one less thing to do. Some of the letters were very sweet, a lot were what you would expect from the materialistic youth of today, asking Nintendo Wiis and the like. However some were after less expensive gifts. One highlight for me was the letter from a little girl called Saskia who wanted a typewriter! Luddite! They are obviously being taught far too well these days as even though these were all from 5-7 year olds, the hand writing on display put my own to shame, embittering me still further against the "education" i received as a nipper. Almost all of the kids were also strangely worried about Santas health and that he should come in through the door instead of the chimney. One was especially concerned as to if Santa would be able to find his house. I pointed out to him that Santa "had a very good view from the air". Apparently they got the replies today and were thrilled to hear what Santa had written back to them. Guess that has got me what they used to call in the old country "major Jesus points". I am expecting the sainthood any day now.

Blarg!

I know, i promissed a better post this week, but i have a valid excuse this time! I'm ill. With tonsillitis. Again... I'm not sure what i have done to deserve such a resilient bug inhabiting my throat, but seeming though it first appeared in early November, just before bonfire night, and that since then it has only caused me pain, tiredness and to sweat more than i thought possible, i've got to say, me and it, well lets just say that he aint doing his fair share of the washing up, he hasn't helped with any of the bills and when he does move out, i dont think i am going to get that deposit back!
On the plus side i've been given a paid job to do from South Kilworth Primary. (Yes Al, this must be the start of my slow realisation that i'm destined to teach all your little bastard children!-Your such a playa!) The job is to reply to the kids letters to Santa. I've already read through them, a lot of them are standard for the material obsessed children of today, but some of them want more traditional things. Anyway, i'm saving that for next weeks post, the last one before Christmas, as i am not spending Christmas day on Blogger and paint!

Ok! On to today's article about the employment sectors of britain in 2007, which is imaginatively titled:

The Employment Sectors Of Britain 2007.

There appears to be only three main areas of employment currently in this country: Sales, Engineering and Recruitment. None of these at present seem to want me, nor do I want them (so I say, but honestly I’d take anything at the moment, I am sure its only a temporary falling out). So as I understand it, Britain currently works by recruitment people recruiting sales people, engineering people and even more recruitment people, who in turn recruit still further sales, engineering and recruitment people. The first two make perfect sense, companies need engineers to make things (or repair them, develop them or whatever…), thus sales people are needed to go out and sell them. However specialist recruitment companies or consultancies as they like to call themselves seem to have developed what I can only call, a "self perpetuating employment paradox". Let me explain my little theory, the recruitment consultancies I have come into contact with seem to number in the thousands (I am not kidding, and that is only a portion of the “industry”, I say “industry” because in my opinion an Industry, notice the capital ‘I’, can only be called one if it actually makes something, a dated notion I know, but what the hell right!), each one lists many, many jobs on their variously well or badly designed websites. Of these jobs many are for, sorry recruitment guys, proper companies, however many more are also for other recruitment firms. Thus we come to the paradox affect that I mentioned. Recruitment agencies, firms, consultancies, all recruit for themselves and each other and thus keeping each other going on indefinitely. They have created the employment equivalent of the cold fission! It is utter genius! It is like a game of musical chairs where instead of taking chairs away, you keep adding them in so that more people can join the game and themselves adding more chairs and more people. However, at some point no doubt, some clever charismatic young stallion, an individual of extreme cleverness and wit, is going to point out the reality of the current state of affairs, that there is in fact an edge to this great infinity pool of employment, and the whole thing might come crashing down in a massive wave of common sense, as companies that do actually make or do things realise they don’t require the expensive services of quite so many recruitment companies after all and decide do go back to advertising in the local paper. Or it might not, and the recruitment industry will continue to grow until the only thing people are employed in is recruitment. Then we’ll all starve or freeze to death as society grinds to a halt. Or maybe not.

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Oh and do you eat or drink soup?

(Desperate attempt to get the comments section going a bit....)

Black Out.

I was going to give you a posting about the employment sectors of Great Britain. However we have had another power cut, mid upload, so your getting this one instead.

How difficult could it possibly be to do just one thing? Well if Powergen are to be believed it must be quite difficult, as for the second time in two weeks half of Naseby is plunged into darkness. I say half of Naseby, as the top end of the village is, for reasons best left to the morons at the electricity suppliers, on a different line to the rest of us and thus are enjoying all the benefits of the modern age as I write this, on a piece of paper, with a pen, by candle light. They got a much better fucking deal with the power grid, that’s all I can say. Actually so do they most of the time. Before you all start to think I am making something out of nothing, I mean how bad could losing power for an hour or so be? I’ve got to tell you to “Fuck right off!” Firstly, the power will be off until god knows when as the approximate time until power is restore is about 11:45 tonight and that is only if Powergen can be trusted, which of course they cant as last time the power went off they quoted us that length of wait as well and then proceeded to push the deadline back until about 4:30am the following morning. And secondly, I rented a DvD which needs returning tomorrow, which I only got out for tonight and with power cuts not really being Blockbusters problem that was £3.55 well spent. I suppose Powergen will come back at my “how hard could doing just one thing be” with that they “provide water and gas these days too.” Well how’s about that, they do three things! Makes me question the quality of these services though, I mean what does a power company know about water or gas? Especially if they can’t even keep the power going in the first place. Honestly, would you trust them with gas, a volatile, flammable substance?
In all fairness to Powergen though, the first power cut was due to freak, heavy snow fall. However as far as I can tell, its actually pretty mild out there tonight, well it’s a bit cold, but then it is December, so they don’t really have the weather to hide behind as a decent excuse.What is fascinating about being put 100+ years back is the realisation about just how much modern life depends on electricity. The house, dimly lit as it is, is full of now lifeless objects, the detritus of the modern lifestyle....

Oh! The lights are back on……..oooooOOOOoooo the colours……











(The next post will be better. I promiss.)