An English Diary: Albert & Victoria job search lunchtime break

Phew.

Another mad day job hunting. Up at 7am, down to Coffee Society by 8am and the search began.

It's led me to Victoria Street, as I had a hair cut on Tottenham court road and then nipped to Victoria station and decided to get online and start phoning.

Got in touch with 4 new recruitment agencies, sent out 6 job applications, spoke to about 6 people and emailed a buddy here kinda semi-begging to see if there's anything workwise his company can offer - they do PC hardware stuff.

Got two calls to make this afternoon, one has me holding thumbs that I will actually be given the chance of an interview - I'm steeling myself for the worst.
The other is a brilliant temporary opportunity if I can just prove I'm the man for the job - 3 days a week, £100 a day for 2 months. That'll get me through December and Jan until the Web Design scene picks up again.

For the love of good beer, all this effort has to pay off at some point. Hauling myself out to search again today was just so much of a mission, I have to overcome a cloud of despondency each day and just get out and keep trying.

My actual mission today was to personally visit a few agencies in London city - I've been to a number of them down SW London over the weeks. I wrote down 3 potential candidates and decided to phone them first. Fired off a few CV's - got a response, if they like what they see in my CV, I'll pop over to meet them.

It seems that the agencies don't like to meet people off the street - that makes sense.

I've also learnt that you cannot rely on the big jobsites that all the rectruitment agencies use, to get your details to the right person in the agency. You absolutely have to follow it up the traditional way and not rely on all the automation that these job portals offer. I've learnt that the hard way, discovering that agencies that should've had my details never actually received them.

Live and learn I guess.

Oh yeah, another thing, the Brits do actually take lunch, so from 12.30 till around 2pm it's often hard to get hold of the right person. Many of them also seem to go down the pub for a bite and a beer - I think they are allowed to drink a pint at most. Good idea, I say !

I just nipped in here at 1.10pm and will be out just before 2pm after a slow pint of Directors, then it's another 2 or 3 hours job searching and the commutte back to Wimbledon for a break and an evening at The Swan following up on things.

The Albert is a great pub, as you can see from the photos I took this very afternoon.
I'm sitting next to the fruit machine - and look ! - a spare wall socket to powerup the laptop, not to mention free wireless ! - super. (although the free wireless was so slow, I hooked into BT Openzone instead)

You get to be good at this kinda thing, although I did get told of in the library yesterday for plugging the laptop in.

"Sorry sir, you cannot plug your laptop in here"
"Why ?"
"Because it's a fire hazard and someone may trip over it"
"Fire hazard ? I'm not going to bury the cable under the carpet and take a nap !"
"Sorry sir, we need to test any equipment before allowing it to be plugged in, this country has strict rules"
"Test ? Test ? - this is a British bought laptop, look at the plug - I'm not trying to draw 330v from a 210v circuit !"
"Sorry sir, you cannot -... " blah blah blah blah.

I said a terse "Thank you very much" and made a mental note to keep an eye out for this small minded drone. I fully intend to plug my laptop in again, if only to see how far I can push it. I will be a bit more sneaky next time. I'll bury the cable under the carpet ...