A be-suited and be-spectacled wreck

Excerpt of actual email to Elaine, with sensitive information exorcised and/or adjusted:

My life seems a bit trivial in comparison. It turns out that job I went for in work is actually a lot more than I thought. While it would be part time, it actually means working at it full time every third week and being responsible (imagine; me, responsible) for a group of trainees in their final week of training; helping them and evaluating them amongst everything else. I went for the first interview for it last week with a lady called Penelope (you talked to her that time you nearly went for a job there but then came to your senses!) and she grilled me. I mean, she was very tough and were the room not so cold, I’d have sweated. The state of me that day; unshaven and with my 80’s poloneck. Oh God.

Amazingly, they liked me and I went for the second interview last Thursday. I had to do the regular interview, followed by a ten minute presentation. In other words; homework! I stayed up til 1am typing it all out and practicing, then woke up at 5.30am and got ready for work. In a suit! The whistles I got were….a figment of my imagination. So I did the second interview with the Training manager and his deputy – they just constantly bombarded me with questions and comments and theories and asking for my opinion on this and that and I was gradually beaten down with Training stick until 40, yes 40, minutes in when they asked me to get up and do my presentation. By now, I was a be-suited and be-spectacled wreck (as usual) but I stood up and did my thing, during which they pretended to be trainees asking me questions. My God, I just wanted to run. But I suppose I did keep smiling and talking and maybe I left a good-ish impression. I’m up against a few others for the two positions available and most of the others have much more experience at being in charge of people than me. So…..y’know…..I’m not incredibly confident I’ll be a trainer by the time you get back. But at least I got my shit together and went for it.

In the meantime, I’m saving €100 a week in the credit union towards……something. I’ll stop at €3200 and see what I’m doing. I haven’t gone out too much, which helps a lot. I went out two weeks ago to see a play by this friend of Aidan’s that was really good, it was part of the Dublin Fringe Festival and it got five stars in an Irish Times review. They’re a company from Cork and it’s being put on there some time this month. Anyway, after we saw the play, Aidan introduced me to his friend Dave, one of the cast, who introduced me to everyone else and before I knew it I was getting mildly pissed with the cream of Irish alternative theatre. So lah dee dah etc…..

This week has been seriously tiring. I can’t believe I’m going to be put in charge of people. In a way. After two and a half years in my job, I’m going to be “babysitting” my team in work. I know I should have put the word team in inverted brackets too, but it’s the terminology that’s used and I can’t think of a better word for a semi-autonomous group of people working together. I won’t have to take late calls or be disciplinary-like because I’ll “still be a member of the team as opposed to their boss”, but I’m telling everyone I’m boss, so you shall bow to me as well you worthless ODheads!!!

Sorry, dunno what came over me there. I’m tearing home all week upstairs on the bus watching the autumn sunsets and falling asleep again, so a lot of my life is dreaming. I dreamt last night I was in Cork. I was in some department store and suddenly I saw at the bottom of these stairs two people sitting on a couch like the ones in Bewley’s on Westmoreland Street in Dublin. Red one’s, very bouncy and springy. And I saw the back of Dave’s head and who I presumed was…his ladyfriend. So then I went off (which is a bit silly because the chances of meeting Dave in a dream…..I mean I should have at least said hi) and I’m outside the department store and then I go off to the left and I’m behind this huge branch of Superquinn. I’m such a corporate sell-out I have product placement in my dreams. I then walk down this parade thing that looks like the one beside the castle in Kilkenny and that’s all I remember. So I’m going to presume that was my brain’s feeble attempt at recreating the much-heard-of-but-never-seen Grand Parade in Cork. The holodeck that is my brain is known for such farces.

I’m playing hand-footsie with a girl in work, a call centre-based sport which involves me banging my hand randomly down on Cute Rachel’s keyboard til she grabs it and tries to push it away. Then we kinda arm wrestle and…..ahh…..physical contact with a woman! How Repressed Irish Catholic of me. She’s got great little perky tits. How un-Catholic of me.

I don’t think I’m Catholic anymore. It fell off years ago, but this time I’m only going through the motions. I go to mass every week, but only because if I didn’t it would start a civil war in my house. I think it’s like when Fianna Fail swore an oath to the King so they could sit in the Dáil. I’m going to mass simply to be able to do the things I want to i.e. live at home. But I make no secret of my anti-Catholic-ness. I prefer Protestantism, and I think if the majority of church-going Catholics had Protestantism explained to them properly then it would sweep the land. But right now, I believe in God but not in an organisation that thinks it’s led by an old Polish man who they believe was appointed by God. Which makes it all sound even more bizarre.

Speaking of Poland, up next is The Great JayeL Nice Entry. You knew it was coming.

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