Fast Forward

Here's a rarity, a post about my actual life... (Though, saying that, any activity on this blog is a rarity!)

I was feeling incredibly optimistic on Monday, I suddenly got a wave of e-mails through for job interviews, and not for awful food service or retail jobs, no, for jobs within areas I actually care about. One inparticular had me excited, I'd sent a speculative e-mail to a film production company, as their website has a section encouraging 'creative' people to send them their C.V. to a random jobs@ address.

So I did, I wrote a covering letter introducing myself and sent a C.V. that highlighted my film-making experiences.

Lo and behold, almost a month later, on Monday, I got an e-mail from them with the heading 'Interview' and an invite to meet their Head of Production.

The following day I woke up, went to the North Side of Soho, and dawdled about, my eyes brimming with the hopes and possibilities of this part of town. I stared into delicious looking cafes and cake shops, day-dreamed about where I'd go for lunch and then looked into a music shop window, imagining saving up my regular wage and maybe treating myself one day in the far flung future...

11am came and I went to the office, the receptionist called up to the Head of Production and after a short wait she came down the stairs. There was something peculiar about her attitude from the off, as if I had arrived out of my own insistence. She said she was going to make a tea as I was five minutes early, I could take a seat in the interview room. When she came in eventually she said that this would be an informal chat, prior to a proper hour long interview in the future. Which was fair enough, but her questions didn't feel informal or chatty, instead she seemed to be regarding everything I said with an air of quiet suspicion and harsh judgment. I felt like, rather than talking about my work history, I was giving an alibi to a lawyer who was just waiting for me to admit I was guilty.

It was excruciating, and this continued for ten minutes, until finally she asked;

'So, what made you apply for the role of promo producer?'

I had to stop, sometimes I perhaps would have tried to pretend things weren't awry and would've seen what would happen if I continued trying to lie my way around a baffling statement like this. But, I wasn't enjoying the interview enough to attempt that. So, I just asked out right;

'Sorry, what position?'

'Promo producer. What position did you apply for?'

I didn't want to be rude and say something along the lines of 'I didn't apply for any position, I sent you a speculative e-mail like your website suggests.' Instead I sort of chewed some words and shrugged a bit until she finally added;

'Because you're under-experienced for that role.'

'YES!' I wanted to say loudly and dryly, 'I know I am, I didn't apply for that role!'

She continued. thumbing idly through the papers she'd been scribbling notes on, she mentioned something about there being some confusion and something written down somewhere that was perhaps the apparent root of this mess. But, never did she apologise for their mistake, nor did she take the misunderstanding with even an ounce of good humour, because my first reaction was just to accept that they'd got things wrong, shake my head and smile. Her reaction was to skirt around acknowledging the mistake, seemingly attempt to make me feel like I'd made the error, before acting in a snide, belittling fashion; ultimately showing me to the door, which she opened, turning her entire body away from me, barely saying 'Goodbye' and limply letting it close quickly behind me.

What most rankled me was that this was like re-living my entire first attempt at living in London all over again, in fast-forward. The optimism decline, coupled with the awful mentality that some people in the Soho area have succumbed to, was all too familiar. I had, naively, hoped that things had changed, that I had changed, that they had changed; but it was like going to a school reunion where the bully still beats you up, the girl you fancied still wants nothing to do with you, and you still can't grow a proper moustache.

Anyway, rant over... It's been almost a week since this interview and I've only thought about it sporadically, unfortunately there is a peculiar hierarchy with certain people in the industry, and an inquisition-like way of phrasing questions that I think belies their own insecurities more than anything. I, perhaps, think that it's my self-deprecating nature that causes certain bouts of paranoia and discomfort when having to deal with these egos, and the knowledge that one day, if I make something of myself, that they'll be dancing around kissing more arse than Billy Bottomlips Champion Rump Smoocher of Arseington, New Buttock, on National Bum Snogging Day.

Ta ta. x