photo credit: misterbisson
Years ago when I first starting working I missed out on a job. I saw my interviewer at the pub one night and after I’d finished moaning to my friends that he didn’t give me the job I went over to see how it had all worked out. He said that the person they’d hired was more interested in her boyfriend than her work.
He asked me to give them a call, which I did, and then went in for a chat with the Director and he offered me a job on the spot. If I hadn’t got off my backside at the pub that night and chatted to my interviewer goodness knows where I’d have ended up.
This article talks about following up with the hiring manager if you didn’t get a job you thought you were suited to. This wasn’t quite my scenario but it’s something to keep in mind.
My experience was going back some time ago where I was the ‘office girl’ amongst a goup of men. It was my job to make coffee which I did willingly except when I was busy. During my time in this job we got a computer at the front desk to replace my typewriter (see I am going back a bit). So at the beginning I had to type all the correspondence on a typewriter and because my accuracy was a bit questionable I had to do a lot of retyping. My accuracy improved a lot.
For one of my first jobs I didn’t mind it but it all went quite sour when there management interstate took my boss to court over something or other. He ended up being thrown out of the company and it all went downhill for me after that. I stayed on for a little while but ended up quitting without another job to go to because it was literally making me sick and I didn’t have much work to do so I was quite bored.
I had two months out of work which coincided with living in my first share house so I lived the life of a night owl which suited the clocks of my housemates who worked in the hospitality industry. The downside was of course that I didn’t have much money to play with.
I’ll never forget going on a second interview with a patent lawyer during this time and one of the lawyers (interviewers) told me point blank that they wouldn’t hire me because I would probably go and have children soon. Of course these days they’re not supposed to say that! I’ve always wanted to go back to him and tell him what a mistake he made because it wasn’t for at least another ten years that I would have a child.
At the job I ended up leaving after the management infighting I was sent on a receptionist course after my boss heard me say ‘okey dokey’ to someone on the phone. At this course we learned how to use some switchboards including those old plug ones, but in a couple of jobs later we had a secondhand switchboard at the front desk which I had to occasionally use. It was really clunky and awful and I had a hard time putting a caller through one day. Quite a few expletives audibly left my mouth while trying to put this man through which unfortunately he heard. I told him that I wouldn’t be saying who I was then would I? I can’t even remember apologising – poor man.
I lasted a couple of years I think in this job but they were the type of employers who expected you to work really long hours with no paid overtime. They weren’t paying me enough to compensate me for this extra work and then I found out that they were paying other office staff overtime so I refused to come in on weekends after that. I was hoping they would sack me but because I was really good at my job, they didn’t.
I resigned when I went overseas on an extended backpacking holiday glad to be gone. My holiday was a time for me to have a good hard think about what I wanted to do, including what I wanted to study because I could see a university degree in my future.
When I left high school I’d thought I wanted to be a social worker and at that time you couldn’t study social work until three years or so after you left high school. All I can say is thank goodness for that. There was nothing else I wanted to study although I wish I’d just done something because higher education was paid for by the government then.
Nowadays I’m miles away from the office girl that I used to be but those typing skills sure do come in very handy.
