Yesterday I learned that I will not be doing the internship. But the disappointment was made milder — or at least hope was encouraged — by the explanation that given the high level of my qualifications the company didn't think it right to ask me to empty the wastebaskets, etc. I had also requested to be kept in mind if there are any new jobs in the next three months, and this request was freely granted. Since then I've been afraid of a delayed bad reaction, viz. the feeling of being utterly crushed and defeated, but if it has yet to emerge it will certainly be minor. Frankly what irks me a bit is that the moment I decided to work instead of study, two years ago, it was with the implicit determination to accept any paying job — as long as the working environment is not sleazy or similarly degrading, the employer's modus operandi is ethically sound, and I can carry out the required tasks well. It is rather pitiful if I have to remain ignorant of and unskilled in the really practical things in life just because I have a predilection for acquiring foreign languages, for instance.
Financially I am still good for a couple of months, but spending money literally only on transit tickets to and from the Agentur für Arbeit, the bank, and the job interview, and on unexpected fees (*&@$#!) in addition to my monthly insurance payments is not the nicest state of affairs. I already have a list going of what should be paid with my first wages: firstly, the debt in money borrowed for stamps and transit tickets which I owe to Mama, then the cost of a new battery for the watch that my English aunt (as I like to think of her) gave me.
An overhaul of the closet would be good, for instance; I have an enormous quantity of clothes, but it is mostly a feast of the Tantalus variety. It must be admitted, though, that if I washed the shrinkable items carefully, found a way to repel the moths, did a round of mending, and provided a visual counterpoint to the clothing that makes me look like a porpoise for instance by wearing black tights or long pants underneath it, or necklaces and scarves over top, this motley assortment would be less of a torment. I would like to buy a nice pair of high-heeled shoes, the one perfect dress, a fresh supply of black tights, and one superlatively well-fitting rainjacket. But these things can wait. Besides, if my closet meant that much to me I would have summarily annihilated the objectionable items in a sort of sartorial Reign of Terror long ago.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
A Third Tilt at the Interview Windmill
This afternoon I went to an interview somewhere in the wilds north of Unter den Linden, in the hopes of being employed as an intern in the office of a tour guide company. I printed out a copy of my c.v., double-checked how to get to the interview location, put together the papers that a potential employer might want to see, etc. As for my clothing, I decided that it's best to wear something on the formal end of what I would wear anyway, so it was a fine chocolate brown corduroy skirt, a dark blue knit sweater, green tights, and a pewtery necklace inlaid with black and red enamel, orange carnelian, and purple amethyst (?) .
Originally I had intended to arrive at the nearest S-Bahnhof by 1:30 (half an hour early), but the weather was rainy though in a half-hearted manner and it didn't turn out that way in any case, so it was around 1:30 when I stepped into the U-Bahn. It was the A***straße 5a where the interview would take place; I found the A***straße 5 soon enough, but realized that it wasn't the right place and (after asking a lady who was sitting on a bench eating her lunch and who could only inform me that she wasn't from the area either and that she would advise me to look further along the street) continued on down the street.
With dismay I found that the 5a referred to a vast and near-abandoned courtyard, ringed in garages and workshops and former factory offices, shuttered in by a metal gate with a door suspended in its centre, and adorned in graffiti. The scene was peculiarly anachronistic and looked as if no one had been there since before the fall of the Berlin Wall, though the glossy handful of cars assuaged the sense of temporal misplacement. I walked warily through the middle of the scene and headed toward the building at the back, where an old and stately red-and-yellow brick cupola rises at the corner, and a young man in a (?) purple and pink sweatsuit was idling and gazing at the ground underneath a porch, perhaps on a cigarette break. Fervently hoping that I would not end up walking into a bizarre underground club, I entered the building and climbed the stairs until a sign pointed me in to the company office.
Once I entered the office, at pretty much exactly 2 p.m., the scene changed. The rooms were expansive and the ceilings at a lonely height, but there was bright furniture and two or three people were milling about, including the perhaps Australian girl who greeted me. The interview began, funnily enough, with the question which career direction I was trying to work toward. Altogether the focus was rather on what I would like to do and could do well, on what it would be like to work in the company, and (implicitly) on which work within the company might suit me, rather than on determining whether I fit a predetermined slot. This was a great relief, and I no longer felt so humiliated and intimidated by the job-seeking process; besides, it was refreshing to be told that I would surely do the work competently and that speaking French is useful, since the tendency of the job-search is to firmly convince its victim that he (or she) is of no use at all. So though I was still nervous the interview was much more relaxed and enjoyable than expected.
The advertisement already mentioned that the remuneration for an internship would be 400 Euros per month (this is fine by me, since it would neatly cover my monthly expenditures and even, I think, provide me with an employment health insurance plan). What I learned today is that the working hours would be from 10-5, the overall length of the internship anything from a month onwards, and the tasks diverse and a mixture of dropping off mail at the post, answering phones, and more challenging things.
In a day or two I should find out if the interview was successful. At least it already means that I will no longer automatically associate the word "interview" with the fiasco of April. (Deo volens.)
Originally I had intended to arrive at the nearest S-Bahnhof by 1:30 (half an hour early), but the weather was rainy though in a half-hearted manner and it didn't turn out that way in any case, so it was around 1:30 when I stepped into the U-Bahn. It was the A***straße 5a where the interview would take place; I found the A***straße 5 soon enough, but realized that it wasn't the right place and (after asking a lady who was sitting on a bench eating her lunch and who could only inform me that she wasn't from the area either and that she would advise me to look further along the street) continued on down the street.
With dismay I found that the 5a referred to a vast and near-abandoned courtyard, ringed in garages and workshops and former factory offices, shuttered in by a metal gate with a door suspended in its centre, and adorned in graffiti. The scene was peculiarly anachronistic and looked as if no one had been there since before the fall of the Berlin Wall, though the glossy handful of cars assuaged the sense of temporal misplacement. I walked warily through the middle of the scene and headed toward the building at the back, where an old and stately red-and-yellow brick cupola rises at the corner, and a young man in a (?) purple and pink sweatsuit was idling and gazing at the ground underneath a porch, perhaps on a cigarette break. Fervently hoping that I would not end up walking into a bizarre underground club, I entered the building and climbed the stairs until a sign pointed me in to the company office.
Once I entered the office, at pretty much exactly 2 p.m., the scene changed. The rooms were expansive and the ceilings at a lonely height, but there was bright furniture and two or three people were milling about, including the perhaps Australian girl who greeted me. The interview began, funnily enough, with the question which career direction I was trying to work toward. Altogether the focus was rather on what I would like to do and could do well, on what it would be like to work in the company, and (implicitly) on which work within the company might suit me, rather than on determining whether I fit a predetermined slot. This was a great relief, and I no longer felt so humiliated and intimidated by the job-seeking process; besides, it was refreshing to be told that I would surely do the work competently and that speaking French is useful, since the tendency of the job-search is to firmly convince its victim that he (or she) is of no use at all. So though I was still nervous the interview was much more relaxed and enjoyable than expected.
The advertisement already mentioned that the remuneration for an internship would be 400 Euros per month (this is fine by me, since it would neatly cover my monthly expenditures and even, I think, provide me with an employment health insurance plan). What I learned today is that the working hours would be from 10-5, the overall length of the internship anything from a month onwards, and the tasks diverse and a mixture of dropping off mail at the post, answering phones, and more challenging things.
In a day or two I should find out if the interview was successful. At least it already means that I will no longer automatically associate the word "interview" with the fiasco of April. (Deo volens.)
Sunday, October 04, 2009
Contented Mortals and Carnac
For the "Lion and the Mouse" research I'm reading the first part of Hester Lynch Piozzi's Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey Through France, Italy, and Germany, published in 1789 and describing a journey that began in autumn 1784. That her sagacity (not to mention capacity for prediction) is at times at fault is evident in the following passage:
Another book which I am consulting (also at gutenberg.org) is Brittany & Its Byways by Fanny Bury Palliser, and that was published in 1869. It begins in Cherbourg, and for a while I wanted to skip ahead, but the book crossed the Couësnon and entered Brittany soon enough. I like the little anecdotes in it, even the horrifying one about the watchdogs who used to run the streets of Saint-Malo after 10 p.m. every night, until 1770 when they brutally killed a navy officer. I also like the insights into daily life, like how the washerwomen bleach linens in a barrel using ashes and boiling water. Every time an interesting village or castle or church is mentioned I look it up in a certain online encyclopaedia to read about it in depth from a different angle.
What I hadn't realized before was how much of Arthurian legend and Druidic culture was alive across the Channel, and how much Brittany teems with relicts of the Stone Age. (Astérix and Obélix should have informed me on that point long ago, but when I read comic books they tend to be Tintin or Lucky Luke.) Looking at photos of the Forest of Brocéliande, which was once haunted (according to legend) by Merlin and Morgan le Fay, and then of the vast field of worn and lichen-covered stones at Carnac, was very impressive. The photo above is from Carnac.
***
As for the Day of Reunification, I stayed in the apartment all day and only ran across photos of the gigantic marionettes in my newspaper- and blog-browsing, and therefore have nothing intelligent to report on the matter. The election outcome was a pity (and pitifully stupid), but I don't feel as worried about solipsist decision-making, misguided and often decidedly outré ideologies, and gross incompetence as I would if a neoliberally-influenced conservative party in the North American pattern had won the election. Now the SPD has the time to rediscover an independent platform that is based not on taking the left-leaning side of every centrist position in the determination to at once thumb its nose at, and distinguish itself in the voters' eyes from, the CDU, but on (more) genuine ideological or pragmatic conviction. Perhaps, however, my diagnosis of the underlying problem is wrong. Either way, if the CDU-FDP coalition is too awful, there is still the slight possibility of a vote of no confidence.
The French are really a contented race of mortals;—precluded almost from possibility of adventure, the low Parisian leads a gentle humble life, nor envies that greatness he never can obtain; but either wonders delightedly, or diverts himself philosophically with the sight of splendours which seldom fail to excite serious envy in an Englishman, and sometimes occasion even suicide, from disappointed hopes, which never could take root in the heart of these unaspiring people.It's another lesson not to generalize about national character.
Another book which I am consulting (also at gutenberg.org) is Brittany & Its Byways by Fanny Bury Palliser, and that was published in 1869. It begins in Cherbourg, and for a while I wanted to skip ahead, but the book crossed the Couësnon and entered Brittany soon enough. I like the little anecdotes in it, even the horrifying one about the watchdogs who used to run the streets of Saint-Malo after 10 p.m. every night, until 1770 when they brutally killed a navy officer. I also like the insights into daily life, like how the washerwomen bleach linens in a barrel using ashes and boiling water. Every time an interesting village or castle or church is mentioned I look it up in a certain online encyclopaedia to read about it in depth from a different angle.
What I hadn't realized before was how much of Arthurian legend and Druidic culture was alive across the Channel, and how much Brittany teems with relicts of the Stone Age. (Astérix and Obélix should have informed me on that point long ago, but when I read comic books they tend to be Tintin or Lucky Luke.) Looking at photos of the Forest of Brocéliande, which was once haunted (according to legend) by Merlin and Morgan le Fay, and then of the vast field of worn and lichen-covered stones at Carnac, was very impressive. The photo above is from Carnac.
***
As for the Day of Reunification, I stayed in the apartment all day and only ran across photos of the gigantic marionettes in my newspaper- and blog-browsing, and therefore have nothing intelligent to report on the matter. The election outcome was a pity (and pitifully stupid), but I don't feel as worried about solipsist decision-making, misguided and often decidedly outré ideologies, and gross incompetence as I would if a neoliberally-influenced conservative party in the North American pattern had won the election. Now the SPD has the time to rediscover an independent platform that is based not on taking the left-leaning side of every centrist position in the determination to at once thumb its nose at, and distinguish itself in the voters' eyes from, the CDU, but on (more) genuine ideological or pragmatic conviction. Perhaps, however, my diagnosis of the underlying problem is wrong. Either way, if the CDU-FDP coalition is too awful, there is still the slight possibility of a vote of no confidence.
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