With the passing of my full-time yet temporary job of Dogsitter, there are no excuses left, and Your Humble Scribe is going to have to square up and find a job. What I'm in the field for is one that combines doing cryptic crosswords, codewords, drinking tea and getting up at 10:00. Preferably working from home, thus with no dress code.
Oddly enough, there aren't many of these. Art!
 |
| Job hunting is dull. Have a super-tank instead |
From previous experience Conrad knows what jobs to avoid: ones where the company's website makes it look like a party in the office, or those which are exclusively populated by Bright Young Things. Being a Grumpy Old Thing would cause friction, I feel.
"What can you bring to the deal, Conrad?" I hear you ask. Both sarcasm and irony. A way with words. Many, many pens. Toast. A teapot with a tea cosy that all women go 'Awwww!' at*. Scissors, sellotape and a very sharp knife (not my best Stabbing one, obviously!)
I will have to tickle up my Curriculum Vitae, which is the long-winded way we here in the Pond Of Eden (yup, chucking it down again outside) refer to the more compact South Canadian 'Resume' - yes yes yes, there should be an accent over the second "e" but I can't remember the Symbol option to get it. Art!
 |
| A CV90 |
Because a piece of A4 covered in print is the last word in boring.
Here an aside - hey, Conrad's job hunting is dull stuff that needs a bit of leavening - because the South Canadians, with their peculiar nomenclature, use the abbreviation "CV" as a prefix when they talk about their aircraft carriers. Art!
This bruiser is the 'USS America", also known as 'CV-66'. The South Canadians have 11 of these monstrous floating metal cities in service, although by some interpretations they really have 19. Unlike "The Sum Of All Fears" woulld have you believe, they don't sail solo but as part of a Carrier Task Force with escorting destroyers, cruisers and submarines. There is currently one such TF in the North Sea and another in the Mediterranean, just in case the Ruffians get a bit too frisky. Can the Ruffians retaliate by sending out a Carrier Task Force of their own? Short answer - no. Their only aircraft carrier is the 'Admiral Kuznetsov' a.k.a. CV-0, which has been immobile in harbour for four years now. Art!
 |
| As of August 2022 |
ANYWAY I need to add in a paragraph about my work at Sainsbo's HR. Originally this was with HRS, taking calls from stores and colleagues. Then we changed databases and O! the backlog that came from a two-week hiatus in porting information from the old to the new. One extremely angry chap told me he'd been on hold for three hours by the time I took his call; 'Well nobody forced you to waste your time' instantly sprang to mind. However, I was professional and gave him a lot of flannel. When we moved to Taleo I got moved sideways to Recruitment, which dealt with creating vacancies, matching candidates and adding them to the database. Art!
 |
| Another atomic tank for you |
Interestingly, in addition to the usual e-mail and phone contact methods, we also had Livechat in Recruitment. This was a real-time messaging service. Typically what would happen is that the phones would get busy and callers would have to wait THE HORROR THE HORROR! because we were only human (er most of us). Because the callers felt they were too important to either wait or call back later, they immediately jumped to Livechat, only to end up in a queue there, too, because, as I said, WE WERE BUSY.
Then it was off to HR Ops, who took over responsibility for people once they became colleagues, on from candidates. Change of address, weekly hours, job title, pay raise, pension contributions, new contract required, they were all actioned by us. Even an action so simple as changing a start date, which happened all the time, needed to be done by us. Sounds simple, right? WRONG. Changing a start date affected pay, and especially Right To Work documentation. Art!
 |
| Ruffian mobile nuclear reactor. What can possibly go wrong? |
I have already re-activated my old CV-Library account. We'll see what comes of all this effort. O I forgot to mention salary, didn't I? £18K plus, ta.
The Haul
The travellers returned yesteryon, and as is traditional they bore gifts for Conrad due to his diligent dog-sitting. They were full of praise for Rejkyavik Airport, of Keflavik, as it's more correctly known, so I just had to Google and see what the fuss was about. Art!
Quite stylish. Don't mention the w
ANYWAY let me cattle-prod Art into wakefulness
Don't fret, you'll get an item-by-item breakdown O yes indeed.
"Set In Scotland"
Yes, more of the picturesque architecture and landscape of Scotland. Castles seem to be particularly well-represented in Hollywood takes of fair Caledonia, probably because my fractious ancestors needed lots of them, as they would war on each other at the drop of a hat, unless they happened to be at war with the English. Art!
 |
| "Hamlet" |
This is Dunottar Castle and one can immediately see why this promontory was fortified: it has a single narrow approach that can be easily observed and blocked. That didn't stop William Wallace in 1297, when it was held by the English. I won't go into the grisly details but there were no English survivors and the fish were well fed. Art!
"The Sea Of Sand"
Despite being prisoners, the British and Sarah know that something's afoot.
"They are pretty nervous," concluded Albert. "Considering they've captured the depot with hardly a casualty, no British nearby and no alarm raised. There are three armoured cars patrolling the perimeter at all times, and sentries on all the high points."
Sarah drew her legs up under her, thinking. Maybe the Italian lieutenant didn't believe what he'd been told, maybe he did. Whatever, he knew that strange events were afoot in the desert.
"We have to be ready," she declared, trying to sound determined whilst staying quiet. "Because those aliens will attack us here. The Italians might not believe it, but I do and you should, too."
Roger looked up at the ferociously determined young woman and felt a smile spread over his features, despite the seriousness of his circumstance.
"Very well, Miss Smith, what do you suggest we do?"
Sarah picked up a divider from the desk and wielded it like a baton.
"We start with this!"
Sitting inside the mud hut allowed them the luxury of watching the desert dawn arrive. The uniform blackness outside became uniformly grey. Major objects and landscape contours began to differentiate, slowly. A sliver of sun poked above the horizon and initiated dawn, a brief display of fantastic golds, fawns, yellows, tan and browns that lasted until daylight, abrupt and radiant, arrived. In the mud hut darkness became greyness, which became daylight, in a matter of seconds.
The calm before the storm.
Finally -
The Wanderers have definitely brought Hurricane Nicole back with them, the weather up to now (mid-afternoon) has been dreadfully wet. Conrad confidently predicts no blue skies today. Luckily the party going on in my head 24/7 keeps me happy. Along with the gin.
* If I could bottle that I'd be a billionaire.
No comments:
Post a Comment