Muggings, Internships & Boredom

So it has been a long time, it has also been eventful. I have completed two internships. Well one two week one in a PR Company...and then a went back to the charity for a week. My lack of paid employment is starting to really de-motivate me. Not only did I go back to the charity to work for free...but I was covering my old boss...doing her job, for free...and her boss...the only other person in the department, was ill for three days...so for three days I was running the department...for free! Sounds fair don't you think.
Anyway that was last week. The week before I was interning in a very good pr agency. This was a really good internship. I learnt lots and got to actually do some work. I even went to the pub with them a couple of times. I tell you what...it must be a bloody stressful job...because no joke they all smoke. I literally felt like I was in an Auschwitz gas chamber I was surrounded by so much smoke.
Tomorrow I am moving to yet another internship...unpaid! this time three months! hell yes does it get better than that! Can you see me getting more cynical? This one is actually a bit more politics related...which is my degree. I have decided to put it towards some use by helping organise events for a political charity/think tank.

Moving on from jobs on to a more happy topic...I was recently mugged. That wasn't irony...it actually was a better experience than my constant slave labour. Me and my ladychum were returning from a joyous Halloween evening, 5am we missed out stop and ended up in stratford...bad place. A man then came at us with a broken beer bottle and threatened us until we gave him her bag and my wallet and phone. Bugger. Now some of you more manly men may be suggesting I should have fought him off. Sadly at the time I wasn't feeling my most intimidating. After all I had just woken up after having fallen asleep on the bus...hence missing the stop. I was also absolutely sloshed. And finally, I was still in my costume. I had gone as John McEnroe. I was wearing short white shorts, a white polo and a wig with a headband. It is safe to say I was not the scariest man around. My ladychum was basically wearing normal clothes except with horns on her dead...she was supposedly the devil. The police made the whole night that much more interesting with their racist ways. Without any description having been given they asked "so what did this black guy look like?" Our response, "We never said he was black...he was white." Was received by much shock from them. After having been mugged we walked to a nearby hotel in order to use their phone. The receptionist, an asian man, suggested the reason for our mugging might be "too many blacks in this area." Our retort of, "well this guy was white so probably not." Was again received with much shock.

Other than these intriguing events I am becoming ridiculously disillusioned with my whole situation. It really is no fun at all. I need a job soon...or at least something exciting to happen. I feel like im just floating through life in a state of poverty. My dad described my life as a 'riches to rags story'...sad times.

Another one bites the dust...

So this week I finished yet another internship. I am now no longer an unpaid worker...I am now just unpaid. Now come on! I never thought I would look upon the slavery on interning and miss it. In hindsight I actually really loved my last internship. The people were legends...and some weren't bad on the eyes...but generally the work was all common sense, plus working in charities is a total doss. The invention of "wine o'clock" has to be my favourite thing ever! It basically means that on a Friday at 4:00, everyone stops working, and starts mingling whilst enjoying a glass of cheap wine. Its pure genius. Good for morale I think. However, alas I missed last weeks wine o'clock, which would have been my final one amongst my new friends. Instead I finished work their on Thursday. I got a few people down the pub for some after work farewell drinks...which was very enjoyable...a few of them I will look to keep in touch with...some I will keep in touch with if they are a huge success and the possibility of a job arises. The reason I had to miss Friday and the splendors of wine o'clock is that I had a job 'trial' that day. By the way can you tell by my consistent mentioning of it that I am a huge fan of wine o'clock. Anyway, on Friday I had this job 'trial', which essentially means that I passed the interview phase. Woohoo! First time that has happened. My hopes were up! I then had to go to try doing the job for a day. The job was ppc marketing (Pay Per Click), basically their the annoying wankers that put people in the sponsored links bit of google. The job seemed fairly easy, it was all on excel, and I did feel a little bit like a tard being taught excel at school, which is how I spent most of my IT lessons at school feeling. But still I feel like I could have done this job. I am honestly not being big headed here, the job has a seven week training programme (unpaid of course)...in seven weeks I could get a monkey doing this job. So I could definitely do it. However, they decided they didn't want someone who could do the job in seven weeks. They decided they wanted someone who could do it now...with seven weeks free work. Not being funny, whats the point of a training programme if your just going to have someone that can already do the job. Just give them the job...or let me train! I hate companies, I actually do...I understand its recession and all, but come on...stop squeezing every penny by making us work for free in jobs we can do! Anyway, so I am clearly fairly bitter about this. Its not that I didn't get the job, I didn't massively want it (as all rejected people say), it was a bit too excel heavy for my liking. The thing that really pisses me off is that I cancel work experience at one of the top pr companies in London for the job I didn't get. Yes I know its more unpaid work experience and after all my moaning it seems odd that I would volunteer for more, but not being funny you gotta play the system as much as it plays you. So I lined up this quality work experience at a high profile London PR company. But then this job came, I passed the interview, the trial day was on the Friday, the job started on the Monday - the work experience started on the monday also. If I got the job I would have to cancel the work experience. I couldn't wait to hear about the job after the trial, nobody would be left in the PR agency to tell I wasn't coming in on the monday. They would arrive monday morning to a voicemail from me saying something like: "hi, its erm..."_____" I am erm...meant to be start..erm...work experience on monday, but I have got a better erm...offer...its paid...hope we can erm...work together in the future...bye" Yeah not the best message ever, I've always sucked on voicemails

(N.B. This one time I phoned my ex-girlfriend, 'J', on her birthday, it went through to voicemail, I was in America at the time in a hotel room with my current girlfriend, 'S', - my message transcript read - "Hi s-erm-j, shit!" Nice Birthday message right?)

So yeah I decided that rather them arriving in the morning to my failed attempt at a friendly voice-mail telling them that I would not be coming in, ever, that I should cancel before - I assumed I would sail the trial. So I did just that. Now that I failed the trial I now had nothing to do this Monday. Luckily, the PR agency - being the class act they are - let me work a different two weeks. So on the 26th October I will be starting another two weeks on slavery/interning. Brilliant!

On the plus side my middle-class status has meant that fun can still be had during these worries. Luckily when you are middle-class you generally know other middle-class people. These people will often pay your way out of misery. So with a few financial boosts (working it banking style!!) I was able to enjoy a damn good weekend. It was my brothers birthday. I used this fact to get rather merry. On Friday, his actual birthday, we hit up our very middle-class home town of Canterbury. I wouldn't say we painted the town red...we painted it all kinds of colours...the main colour we painted it in was the colour of heck...that's right...we raised heck! We enjoyed a few drinks, and a few shots, and then some more drink. I enjoyed the sight of girls who clearly have enough money to eat...there fat thighs definitely told that story. How did I enjoy that sight you ask? Well I enjoyed it because Canterbury seems to have managed to gain itself quite the selection of slaggy gals since I moved to London. The ones I am thinking of had, yes rather big thighs...but rather large breasts to go with them, and they were wearing dresses that extenuated their rather large breasts. These dresses also seemed to cling on to their rotund arses for dear life...in fact only just covering them, so much so that whenever they sat down you could easily see the top of their tights...and wen they bent over...Full Monty Baby!! So it was fun mocking them and slightly perving yes I will admit...and then I shook my thing to some Jackson 5 chooons...good shizzle! Quality night all in all! Problem was, 8.45 the next morning...I was directing my family to a paintballing site. I claimed to know the way, I went two months ago, surely I remembered the way! I did not! I not only took us the wrong way, but when someone suggested we go a different way (the right way) I told them they were wrong and it was definitely not that way - "Anyway but that way I am sure of that" - I can be very stupid. So yes we were late to paintballing, and then it turns out being shot, a lot, if paintballs isn't the best hangover cure. Hiding is. I would recommend hiding if you find yourself very hungover in a war-zone. In fact if you can find such a good hiding place that you can catch a few minutes sleep undetected than you are having a very good hungover paintballing session. I was not so lucky and I was shot, a lot, and it hurt! This was not the best hungover cure...I know people say that fresh air cures everything...but no...in this case those woods were not the place I wanted to be. However, I survived. I made sure I text my friend at Sandhurst and told him that I now knew what he had to expect in Afghan and if I could do it hungover he should be fine. These larks were then followed by a round in the casino. Now given my unemployed state...should I be in a casino...no! I lost 20quid of money that I just don't really have. Never good! So I guess will have to be tight on the shopping this week! Such a berk!