Shop your way through employment limbo

So the pub lunch meet-up with my potential employers went ahead today (instead of Friday).

I was lead to believe that this discussion would not be a formal interview, but instead would be a discussion of the upcoming projects within the company—so that I could comment on them, or so that we could work out the best place to put me. I also figured that we'd talk salary and maybe get a contract signed.

I bet none of you would be too suprised if I told you that I was completely wrong.

The meeting was a long lunch at the pub, downing a couple of pints and shooting the breeze. True, it was a more technical breeze than the average work 'do, but the three of us were programmers after all. The only talk of money was around the comparative banking habits of the British, Europeans and Australasians. Upcoming projects were only mentioned if they were an example of whatever technology we were discussing at the time. As for contracts, well. the best I got was a bit of a wink and a nod at the end, with the senior manager smiling as he mentioned having a couple of other candidates to see and that they'd be in touch.

The recruitment agent I'm working through for this job said he'd call me after the interview for any updates, so I thought I'd hang around town and do a spot of shopping while I waited for him to call; I was kind of holding out for him to call and tell me to go back to the office for the contract. Instead, I bought about £60 of useless junk from the Virgin Megastore.

• Sandman comics (Volume 5: A Game of You and Volume 1: Preludes and Nocturnes) by Neil Gaiman.
• The Cowboy Bebop manga (Volume 1) by Yukataka Nanten
• The Nirvana album I used to listen to as if I owned it, Unplugged in New York on CD.
• Poison the Well's most recent album, You Come Before You

I've already finished A Game Of You (it's only six chapters) and I think I'm going to give Preludes and Nocturnes to Bob for his birthday tomorrow. I met the drummer from Poison the Well the other night and I promised him that I'd check them out—I'm sure I'd come across the name somewhere before, but couldn't remember where. Apparently they've sold a few hundred records in New Zealand, so maybe Channel Z (may it be at peace) or The Rock were playlisting them at some stage. Sounds good so far, anyway—which is more than I can say for Cowboy Bebop. I can't get bad anime voice-overs out of my head as I read it; I have a suspicion this may not be a translation issue but more a stylistic one. I think I just don't like the sort of happy co-incidence let's-take-turns-speaking pulp that seems to dominate these Japanese stories.

You know, I should do like Jon and use my blog to post reviews of albums, books and video games. Nobody would agree with what I say, and I hate pretty much everything. That's enough to be a critic, right? Hmm. Maybe I need to learn to express my experiences with art in a rich velvety cocoon of analogy and witty puns.

Update 2 Nov 2005: Updated links to the Bedlam Image Gallery. Tidied puntuation and HTML.