The Official Nonsense Thread

[Caspin]

Oh dear! You have been put through some horrifying ordeals haven't you. Going to visit some of these places must surely leave you feeling like the worst possible outcome would be to get the job and have to return there everyday!

The one with the compulsory dancing reminds me of place that my friend worked, a recruitment agency of some sort, at which whenever a client was placed, the successful agent had to ring a massive bell in the middle of the office. She found it so demeaning. I think you have to be a certain type of person to thrive in those sorts of environments.

Since you showed me yours, I'd better show you mine. The weirdest interview I ever attended was about ten years ago. I thought at that time that I was going to leave London about a year later (yeah, that didn't quite work out!) but I needed to stay for a little while to write my thesis. So I was looking for a temporary job to get me through that year. A friend was working at some office in the city and her boss wanted someone else to do the same, so she suggested me. It sounded ideal and it would have been fun to go work there with her so we could go for lunch together etc. I went along at the appointed time and was sent through to her boss's office. When I walked in the guy was naked.

Yeah, that was a little more informal than I had expected. I'm no prude, but I do expect a minimum number of clothing items to be donned in the workplace. I think I said "no, please don't get up!" or something. He seemed alarmed that I was acting normally in the situation and he kept wanting to explain his nakedness, but I just kept cutting him off asking random questions about the business and the job. At the end of a fairly brief interview, I left the room at top speed and did not offer to shake hands.

Anyway, it turned out that the poor guy had got caught out in massive rain at lunchtime, very shortly before I arrived to be interviewed. He had a towel and shorts with him at work, as he liked to play tennis or something at lunch. He had been in the process of getting dried off and changed in his office when I arrived. Apparently he was in fact wearing his towel still, under the desk, so he wasn't entirely naked after all. It was a funny day, that.

Back in the present, the temperature is ten degrees lower today and there is a cloud! Happy happy day! It would be nice to have a day or two of not feeling like I'm in an oven. I am not a soufflé. It was good having dry weather yesterday - my friends and I hung out on the South Bank and had a great time eating Mexican snacks and drinking mezcal cocktails. I had hoped it would be a bit cooler than it was, being by the river, but not to worry.