Despite the jollity and light-heartedness of the French stuff below, Chig is not a happy bunny at the moment.
I didn't write on here about the job interview that I had last Wednesday, because I didn't want to jinx my chances. Turns out now I needn't have worried, as I didn't get it anyway. I found out yesterday, but the omens were bad already, because I thought I would have heard by Friday if I'd been successful.
The job interview came through an agency; the first interview they've arranged for me since I signed up with them in November. If I had written about it afterwards, I would have used phrases like 'quietly confident' as I thought I had done okay. Seems I was wrong. After being given a very easy writing and word-recognition test to start with, I was then grilled for two whole hours by two people, but it wasn't as bad as it sounds. I thought I was coming across as reasonably self-confident, experienced and capable. The only hurdle really was when they got to what the main interviewer called 'the behavioural questions'. Just the mention of that title made me feel a little like I was about to undergo psychotherapy, but, in for a penny.....The questions were those horribly vague questions that you may be able to answer if you were given some advance notice, but when thrown at you, can make you go blank: "Can you think of a time when you exceeded someone's expectations?", "What was the worst time in your life?" (A horribly personal question, to which I gave a horribly personal and upsetting answer, and then wished I hadn't, although it was certainly not the most correct answer I could have given.) This kind of thing, which, because I haven't worked in a 'proper job' for 19 months since leaving my office tedium, became a trawl through distant memories, rather than a series of real, useful answers to their questions. Nevertheless, I thought that, in the end, I had thought of valid, truthful answers from my experience, and explained them pretty well. Then yesterday, I found out from the agency that it was because of these 'behavioural questions' that I haven't got the job. I know this has come as a surprise to the agency as well, as they put me in first and told me I was one of the strongest candidates (but maybe they said that to everybody, I don't know).
I said to the guy from the agency that being told I failed on 'behavioural questions' makes me feel like a psychopath or a criminal. He laughed, but he knew what I meant. I'm even feeling a little reticent about putting it on here - it seems like something you shouldn't admit to. I guess in the past I've been very lucky as I've never failed to get a job before. I've only had a grand total of TWO interviews in my lifetime. So now, I feel like a failure. And as if low self-esteem wasn't enough of a problem to deal with, I have absolutely no money at all, there's a problem with my JSA which means I haven't had my £50 for the last four weeks anyway, and I have been refused an overdraft extension by the bank. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

The agency said not to worry, they'll get me sorted out with something soon, but I need something NOW, and this has really shattered my confidence. I should point out that the job was very poorly paid, but I was extremely well-qualified for it, and could have done it in my sleep. I would probably be prepared to lick the road clean at the moment, if someone was prepared to pay me for it.
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