These days I’m retired but back in my working days I sometimes dreamt about having a really interesting job. You know, something special, something really interesting, something out of the ordinary, something like a Hurricane Namer. Let’s face it, someone out there has to do it; someone has to name those pesky hurricanes. Whenever I was having a bad day at work I used to think that one day I’d search just that little bit harder, go that extra mile and maybe, just maybe I’d land a job like that.
Today in the 21st century, searching for a job is a completely different thing to what it used to be. No more searching through the situations vacant columns in a newspaper. Job hunting nowadays is pretty much internet browsing. OK, you’ll still see jobs advertised in newspapers but the internet is where the job action is. Technology has even reached a point where you can have an online interview. Once I had a video interview with the BBC. I’m glad to say I passed the interview but as so many people applied there wasn’t a job available for me. Pity as I really did fancy working for the BBC!
I had another interview not long ago which was for a weekend job manning the helpline for a bank. I started off by entering a lot of information about myself and answering some questions and then I came to a section about selling. Selling? I wasn’t going for a sales job so when the question came up asking if I was confident about selling financial products I answered ‘no’. Big mistake because the interview terminated there and then. I later learned that part of the helpline job including trying to interest the customer in the bank’s financial services.
I remember once back in the 90s when I was unemployed for a short while I was sent to join the ‘job club’. There was one compelling reason to go, attend or we’ll stop your unemployment benefit! OK, fair enough I said, I’m on my way. The very first day at the job club in Levenshulme, Manchester, the club was that packed we couldn’t all get in. It was just a case of give your name, register and get going.
The next week there were slightly fewer people and by week four our numbers had reduced to just a small group. We checked the job cards in the unemployment office, checked the newspaper job advertisements and worked on our CV’s. The staff gave advice on interviews, letter writing and so on, and in between we supped plenty of tea, ate a considerable amount of biscuits and generally had quite a friendly, sociable morning. Why people didn’t want to attend I really didn’t know. I kind of liked it. When I actually got a job, I used to find myself thinking, ‘wonder what the guys are doing down at the job club?’
Many years before that I embarked on a career with GM Buses, the main bus operator in Manchester. It was always intended to be something to pay the rent while I found a proper job but somehow, I never found that proper job I was always looking for. After a few years I started to realise that, so I started trying for promotion. One day I put in for an inspector’s job. It was more money, it was a supervisory role and best of all it was based in the depot so I didn’t have to deal with the great unwashed public. There were two vacancies, one in the Ardwick depot, about ten minutes from the city centre and another in Rochdale which was on the other side of Manchester. I wasn’t interested in the Rochdale one as it was much too far away and I didn’t have any transport at the time. Ardwick though was pretty easy to get to, a quick bus into Manchester from Didsbury where I lived and then there were lots of buses heading south from the city centre through Ardwick.
The interview seemed to be going pretty well. There were three interviewers all coming at me with various questions and, because I had just read a book about how to have a great job interview, I had a shed load of answers as well as a host of questions to throw back at them. Anyway, after a while they asked me to step out of the room. When I was called back they asked me what would I do if they offered me the Rochdale job. Rochdale? That’s miles away I thought, so I said no thanks. No thanks? It felt like a good decision at the time, well, for about five minutes anyway.
These days I’m retired but even so, I haven’t cancelled my job alerts and the crazy thing is I’ve actually had quite a few job offers lately. I get a lot of messages from the sites where I have uploaded my CV and two lately were from companies who liked my CV and asked if I wanted to be interviewed for two managerial jobs. Thanks but they were a few years too late. One job I did apply for was to be the Belfast correspondent for ITV news. I sent off my CV and linked in some of my ‘talking to camera’ videos. I didn’t for a minute expect to get the job but I did get quite a nice email back thanking me for my application and interest in ITV News.
Anyway, back to the Hurricane Naming job. I suppose it was a bit of a silly dream really, not unlike the accountant on Monty Python who wanted to be a lion tamer . . .
Hurricane naming must be one of those home working jobs I imagine, perhaps one where you have to be on call, after all a hurricane could erupt out of the weather front at any time, night or day. Maybe there’s a control room or central office where you are based but I’d guess that every few weeks or so you’d have to work from home and perhaps be on call at the weekend.
I can just imagine the scene, it’s the middle of the night, I’m tucked up in bed at home and my work’s ‘Hurricane Naming’ mobile rings . .
STEVE: Hello, Hurricane Naming Officer.
CALLER: (AMERICAN ACCENT.) Hey, this is the Pacific weather station and we’ve spotted a new hurricane forming over the south west. We need a name straight away.
STEVE: OK, give me a minute here, bear with me.
CALLER: OK but look, we need that name.
STEVE: OK I’m on it. (If my work’s ‘hurricane’ laptop is anything like my own laptop it does take a heck of a long time to boot up!) Let me see, which letter are we up to? Oh yes, J. So it’s going to be . . Joan. Yes, Hurricane Joan.
CALLER: Joan? Hurricane Joan? Look, this hurricane looks like be a real ‘kick ass’ hurricane and I’m not sure Joan is up to it as regards a name.
STEVE: Well sorry you don’t care for it but as of 02:35 hours I’m officially naming this hurricane; Hurricane Joan.
CALLER. Holy smoke. Joan? You gotta be kidding?
STEVE: No. Joan it is.
CALLER: The thing is, my old Mom was kinda looking forward to having a hurricane named after her. She’s 86 this year and not in the best of health. In fact, (fights back the tears) I wonder if she’s going to make 87.
STEVE. Well, what’s her name?
CALLER: Betsy. Hurricane Betsy would be just great, a real gutsy hurricane name!
STEVE. Yes but we’re up to the J’s. We did the B’s a while back, last year actually.
CALLER. Well what about Juliet, my wife’s name is Juliet.
STEVE: Juliet? But what about your old Mum?
CALLER Well, this way we kind of keep it in the family and well, when it comes down to it, that’s my frikkin’ hurricane. I found it and I can’t believe some goddamn limey is going to choose a name like Joan!
STEVE: Well what sort of a name is Juliet? Joan has got an old world feeling about it and here in Hurricane Naming we like to keep old traditions going.
CALLER: Juliet is the name of the woman married to the guy who found the hurricane!
STEVE: Well it just so happens that I am the duty Hurricane Namer and as I said earlier, I’m naming that hurricane Joan!
CALLER: You Limey b-
LINE GOES DEAD. STEVE SIGHS AND MUMBLES TO HIMSELF: It’s all in a day’s work for a hurricane namer!
Letters from an Unknown Author! 