This will be the final entry for August 2004. It will be really hard work after too many pints in The Herne. The concentration needed to write this is doing my brain in, but it has to be done.

  As you will probably guess I have had a pleasant afternoon drinking in The Herne. It was very nice to to see Max. She is looking great after a fortnight in the the sun, but it was also very nice to see Ruth. Ruth had been spending the day at Bexhill-On-Sea, but somehow found the energy to spend a couple of hours in the pub with myself, Iain and Howard.

 When Iain dropped me off home I was ravenous having only eaten one Tesco pre-packed sandwich this morning. Tonight I had two cold sausage rolls while cooking my main meal of kidneys with some assorted vegetables. Also in the mixture was a can of minestrone soup labelled best before Jan 2002.  I guess I was a little late for that one, but it seemed OK. If I never update this website again you can rest assured that the soup tasted OK even if it kills me later!

   I guess that is all I have to say for the moment. I now face the horrendous task of trying to print this lot out so that Max can read it and give her seal of approval to all my words. (Not that Max can do anything now. All these words are now effectively in the public domain since I hit the upload button - which will happen any minute now !).

Ignore this - only a test

In the back row, left to right, Bryan, Carl, Victor, Pauline and Patricia.
In the front, left to right, me, Paul and Scott.
(Missing in action - the two Chantelles and Dominico)
With thanks to Jenny, from the office, for taking the picture for me.

   Yesterday morning I had a job interview. It is rather hard to judge how it went. The interview was a complete contrast to the type that school was trying to prepare us for, but not so different to what I was expecting. It was for a tiny company who (probably) rarely take on new staff, and where the manager is also the owner, and carries out a multitude of assorted duties including doing interviews. There seemed to be no problem with my technical abilities and they were barely duscussed at all. I think the real purpose of the interview was just to see if my face fitted. I think I could fit in very nicely. The workshop was organised chaos and felt very homely, and I seemed to get on OK with the managing director. He was easy to talk to and had a pleasant attitude. Being and engineer himself, and still doing occasional work in the workshop, did allow us to talk the same language. I think I am in with a chance for this job. There are only three other candidates that have been selected for interviews. Those have presumably been pre-selected on their technical merits like me. I can only hope that they are either too scummy to fit in, or so silver tongued that they appear to be a threat in a place that is too small for big egos. One or more may be put off by the tiny size of the place, and where there are no prospects of promotion (yet) as they will already be working directly under the head of the company. In reality I would not be surprised if the final choice were made by putting our names in a hat, and the lucky one will be the first name pulled from the hat.

   After the interview I went back to school for the final session of the morning. At dinner time, as I had pre-warned, I announced that I had some follows to the interview and would not be back until this morning. I am not sure how it has been recorded, but we are allowed one whole day of unauthorised absence so I am safe. Inevitably I ended up in The Herne. Max has already started her holiday with Mick, so I didn't get a hug there. Ruth turned up for a quick drink but had to nip out and pay a bill. She said she would be back, but Sophie was complaining that it was boring in the pub and obviously managed to persuade Ruth not to come back. So I didn't get a hug from Ruth either. So I spent most of the time drinking with Iain until Paul joined us. I can't remember the time we left the pub, but it was fairly late. I do know that by the time I had changed ny clothes and turned on the TV I had just missed The Bill, and that finished at 21.00.

    So, today is the last day in school. In a funny way I'll miss it. In between a lot of boredom, some bits have been fun, and I really liked talking with Patricia. I have promised that I will pop back in when I have heard the result of my interview and let her know whether I have got the job, or not. I expect today will be a short day, and we may well finish at dinnertime, but I hope it goes on a little longer because I want to drag Patricia into the pub again for one last drink. Hopefully this time she will be able to stay and finsh her drink. Last Friday she was called away before she had finished.

       I enjoyed last night in the pub. It was not an exceptionally exciting drink, but definitely worth going for. In a fit of total discipline I went straight to bed, via brushing my teeth, as soon as I came in. I was probably asleep sometime before midnight. Unfortunately I woke up at just gone 03.30 and only managed some intermittent sleep for the rest of the night. I rather expect I'll be doing a lot of yawning in class today. It might also affect my intention to go and have an early evening drink with the lads, and more importantly, the lasses at The Herne.

     When I woke up at 03.30 I had been dreaming about being in class. I can only remember the last few moments which was Patricia saying that it was one O'clock and time for lunch. She then added that we would resume at two O'clock, but that the first hour would be "creative studies", and that she would see us again at three O'clock.  It was a coded way of giving us a 2 hour lunch break. It could be a shame that it has not happened for real, but on the other hand 2 hours could be a little boring unless it was spent in a pub. That would be nice if it were not for the fact that it would make the afternoon very unproductive.

      One unexpected, and probably unintended, positive effect has come out of this course so far. Against all the things we were supposed to learn, I have found it to be a useful yardstick to judge myself against the others on the course. Such things are highly subjective, but I think I come out quite well. It does give me confidence in one potential job I am going for. That job is Worshop Supervisor. It hovers periliously close to management, and is something I have only done in small, easy to swallow, doses before. (Although having said that I was in charge of Rushey Green telephone exchange for over 6 months, and that included the upheaval of a major building extension taking place). Since observing others on this course I believe that I am far more focussed on what I want to achieve (by comparison), and have far more to offer than just my talent for electronics. So perhaps being a workshop supervisor is now a little less scary that I once thought. If I get the chance I would like to mention this to Patricia and see what she says about it. Maybe she'll boost my ego a little more.

     Since starting this ridiculously intensive work search some feedback has come in.  So far nothing positive has come for employment prospects, but I was pleasantly suprised to get a positive comment on this website. So thanks to Chris Price at Enterprise Recruitment for saying you enjoyed my website.