Do You Employ Horses?
Shortly after New Year, I found myself in the familiar position of needing to earn some money. I went to several office temping agencies, thinking that surely it wouldn't be hard for a smart, presentable English Literature graduate like myself to get a job in an office. One of the agencies I tried was Reed Employment.
In Reed Employment, however - despite the fact that I was friendly, well-spoken and enthusiastic about the prospect of getting an office job - I was given an interview of about thirty seconds in which I was treated with a thoroughly discouraging mixture of indifference, patronisation and suspicion. They weren't rude to me, exactly. I'd really have preferred it if they had been rude, because then I would have been justified in making some clever, cutting quip and swaggering out the door (perhaps whistling a protest tune such as 'Maggie's Farm,' although that's probably fairly hard to whistle).
But rather than being rude outright, they wordlessly managed to impart the opinion that I was totally wasting my time; that no-one like me would ever, could ever, gain employment in a reputable office. They didn't tell me this, of course. They kind of did it psychically, by clever positioning of plucked eyebrows and lips, and by giving me those condescending over-the-glasses looks. And then they told me very sweetly to go away, and come back some other time when I had written a better CV.
I was so put out by this treatment that, when I got home, instead of writing a better CV, I carefully scribbled some stuff on the business card of the girl who had interviewed me: Patricia McAleer BA Hons. I intended to derive some small satisfaction by posting this card straight back.
As it turned out, what with having better things to do with my time (including eventually finding a job - in an office, no less - in your FACE, Reed Employment!) I never got around to sending this card back to Patricia McAleer BA Hons as I'd intended. Instead, I submit it to alittlepoison - everyone's favourite graveyard of half-finished efforts and aborted ambitions.
NOTE TO PATRICIA MCALEER: If you ever happen to see this (perhaps while Googling yourself one day, when there isn't much action in the office), I never meant it to offend, alarm or upset in any way. I was just feeling sore and unemployed, and I wanted to baffle you. Plus, I am a silly man, and find this sort of thing amusing.
The last time I was temping I got on very well with the nice lady at the agency. Always polite and interested on the emails and the telephone. I was even invited to a temp Christmas party. But perhaps this good will was motivated by the fact they took a large chunk of my money before I even got it, each month, for the lengthy time I was there. Hard to say.
If I direct a man to a great place to eat pizza – am I justified in eating two big slices of it when it’s served? And can he please ask for black pepper?
If I introduce two mutual friends to each other and they end up in a relationship, what do I get?
I just googled her and found no link to this website which was a shame.
It’s the same with Actor’s Agents – they have a big old bite out of every biscuit you try to snaffle.
I’d just like to say to Patricia, should she ever find her way to this website, which seems increasingly unlikely now that a crumpet has done the research that I myself was about to undertake and found no google-route to this place, that I would VERY MUCH like for you to be insulted and hurt by all of this and more. Much more. Horrible middling woman that you are, contributing nothing to society, snaffling the biscuits of those who create and give as you do.
And what precisely WAS your BA in Patricia? It obviously wasn’t a BA (Hons) in “How To Fit Details Of Your Education On To A Business Card” was it? You suck at that. In fact, I’d be quite willing to put large sums of money on the line, Patricia, that your BA (Hons) was in fact in “Clever Positioning Of Plucked Eyebrows” from the University of Poo Stains and Horribleness.
Now get away from this website before I can condescendingly suggest over my glasses at you that you do not belong here, less so, even, than Under scrutiny does in any stinky office.