Woe indeed

It’s been a funny old week – and, as you would expect from me, I don’t mean funny ‘ha, ha’. In fact it really began last week…

Friday two weeks back I went for an ‘informal’ interview at the British Library for the post of Partnership and Project Manager in their Higher Education department. I thought it went well and held out hopes for being called back for a second. “We’ll let you know either late today or Monday” I was told. Monday came and went. So did Tuesday. Then Wednesday and by that point I felt sure I was not being called forward for a more formal second interview. I will confess that I felt rather disappointed by this as having been told that the role was essentially to “launch a charm offensive on the UK’s University librarians’” I thought if anyone is capable of doing that it is me. Anyhow come last Monday, I get a phone call at 2:30 in the afternoon asking if I’d be available for interview in two days time. I was then told I’d have to give a ten minute formal presentation, preferably using PowerPoint, and that this would have to be submitted by Tuesday afternoon (i.e. in less than 24 hours). Yikes! So I promptly set about drafting a presentation, which I submitted in time, and completed writing the wording of on the Wednesday morning. I turned-up for my interview, gave the presentation, and then the questions began. Of course, having spent the entire two days working on the presentation I hadn’t given a moment’s thought to what kind of questions I might be asked and how to tackle them. So, in short, I then proceeded to completely balls the thing up. Marvellous! “Can you give us examples of how you have influenced strategic thinking in your current role?” – errrrrrrrr……….. fuck!

The annoying thing for me is, of course, had I listened to the Wing-Commander, or indeed paid heed to Wendy Bristow’s horoscope in the ‘Metro’ (which spent the entire week telling me how now was a really positive time for Aquarians looking for new jobs), I might have done the interview preparation in advance rather than just thinking “they ain’t called; I ain’t got it”. Doh indeed! Trouble is, I find it so incredibly difficult to locate a job which I have even half an interest in that when one comes along which really gets me excited (as this did) it is quite rare. A lesson I’m afraid; I shall try not to be a jackass in future.

The other thing troubling me is, of course, OD. When doesn’t she? Towards the end of half-term she decamped to Richmond to send a few days with boyfriend Chris whose Mother had gone to Ireland for a long weekend to visit her family. Clearly I knew what this meant: non-stop shagging for a few days, despite the fact that they are both only fifteen. So on Thursday morning, I left her a note before I went to work saying ‘ALWAYS use a condom. If you run out, don’t have do anything’. I returned home to find her handwriting beneath my own: ‘Jesus Dad, you’re so embarrassing!’

Sunday night she was due to return as half-term ended on the Friday and she had school. I spoke to her in the afternoon. I texted her in the evening. At 9:15 I got a text back: “I feel sick so I’m staying at Chris’ house. I will be back in the morning and go in for the afternoon”. I rang her and instructed her that she needs to get a bottom on the train and get home now as school was important. She hung up. She didn’t come home. In fact, she returned on Monday evening, so the afternoon lessons went the same way as the morning ones. Tuesday morning she got up as I left. The school rang at 9:45. She wasn’t in. “She must be”, I said. She wasn’t. She didn’t get in till break time. I quizzed her about later. “Do you want me to be in school or do you want me to be pregnant?” she asked. I took this to mean she had been to the family planning clinic to get free condoms. “It shouldn’t be an either/or” I said: “You should go to school and sort the other stuff outside of school hours”. On Wednesday she didn’t get to school until break time again, except on this occasion she was sent home sick at lunch. “I’ve been feeling ill for about a week” she explained. I sniffed. However I went to work late on Thursday in order to take her to the Doctors who informed me that she had a virus. No school for her that day either. And on Friday, I left her in the bathroom but she texted me at 9:15. “I feel sick; I’ll go in lunchtime”, which she did. So, about two days attendance out of five then.

Hanging her school blazer up last night something fell out of her pocket. It was information about that which is commonly referred to as ‘the morning after’ pill. So that’s why she had to get to family planning on Tuesday morning; she had unprotected sex the day before. Brilliant – doesn’t that girl know anything! I rang the Beast to tell he as OD was spending the night at her house (for the very first time since she was chucked out last June). She said she’d have a word. Great. So that’s smoking, drinking, unprotected sex and truancy all in the same week. Fucking marvellous.