h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

After 18 months of unemployment, I was offered and accepted a job this morning.

It's a huge relief. I've always been confident I'd find one sooner or later, but the length of time it's taken has been a real problem. It's eaten up all my savings, and now I have to somehow go and buy a car so I can commute there (it'll be an hour's drive each way).

It'll be nice not to have to spend half my time scanning the job boards. In the end I had applied for over 840 jobs, and was interviewed for around 15 of them (twice I got to the second round of interviews). It was beginning to get difficult explaining to every recruitment agent and prospective employer why it was taking so long to find a job. "What have you been *doing* in all that time?" they'd ask, incredulously.

Eventually, I got some funding approved by the job centre to do some relevant management training, and achieved all the certifications by January this year. Since then, I had a lot more interest from agents, and I was able to talk with a bit more authority at interviews. It eventually paid off today.

I've been putting off a few things until I get a job, and one of those was going out for a curry. I'll certainly be doing that soon, maybe this weekend. In fact, I've put it off for two birthdays now, so that makes two curries I'm owed.

Poppadoms and Kingfisher lager all round!

Congratulations!

I'm so truly delighted for you Icy You really deserve a new start after all your hard trying.

Woo-hoo

Well done!

As for 840, someone has to point out that it is 2^3*3*5*7. If you change 2^3 to 2*3 = 6, swap it around with the 3, and forget about the 7 (because, well, 7), then you get 365. That cannot be a coincidence.

what great news! A red letter day indeed

and

Well Done, Icy!

Definitely a cause for great celebration!


Geggs

Well done I am very pleased for you, I take it your application for Chairman of IBM was succesfull even if it did take a while to get.

Very well done and good luck with your new job
PS. have 2 curries.

Hooray, excellent, well done, yay!

Oh, thank goodness. Well done you. I'm glad the JobCentre were useful as well.

crikey, I never thought jobcentres were intended to be useful.

At least you didn't get told to pretend you had less qualifications than you had.

A car, very essential for a job; round here there isn't buses when you want them and night buses are crammed full.

I'm not allowed to drive so it is a bit of a problem for me.

Wishing you luck, and don't forget us ordinary folk.

Thank you all

No, I didn't get very far with IBM, Bob. You've just reminded me of when I worked in Portsmouth (where IBM's UK HQ is). People used to think up amusing acronyms for IBM (I'm Bloody Marvellous, etc). My favourite isn't repeatable here, unfortunately.

Thanks for that, TB, but I think that analysis only holds if you're a Pisces.

And yes, Vip, the Jobcentre were very helpful in the end. I've since learned how to get training approved a lot quicker than it took me (about 6-9 months), so if anyone else finds themselves in that situation, let me know.

Congratulations! (and curry).

This is wonderful news. All the best for the new job, break a leg!

Wonderful news.

Go and have your curries.

Don't break a leg; a single mother around here took a year off due to new baby, then got pregnant while she was off so she booked another year off.

Her employer was not amused

I suspect your new employer will like to see you at work every now and then.

Icy, I'm so pleased for you!! -- but best to wait for the weekend on that...

with the car search!

Congratulations! All your hard work paid off. I'm sorry that you'll have such a long commute though. You can think of all the curries you'll be enjoying in the future.

An hour isn't a long commute; It takes twice as long to go more than 5 miles here, and I live in a town.

Interestingly; when I was a kid a bus used to take 30 mins to get from and to school only 9 miles away, and there was a bus every thirty minutes.

Now there is a bus every twenty minutes but it takes 2 hours.

In the 1890's you used to be able to get a tram, and even the train.

I would get a car with front wheel drive and a little higher off the ground with good shocks.

Thank you

Well, it took me an hour to get to the interview, without traffic. I suspect the motorway network will not be so kind during the rush hour. I'll just have to think of things to do while I'm driving.

Write some hootoo Entries?

Beats teaching myself mathematical logic, I suppose...