Yep I am ‘Living in London’ officially now.
I am heading into my third night in my new flat. It is just around the corner from Parliament Square, a skip-and-jump from the Thames, not far from St James Park. Excellent position!
It is so exciting to have slept for 3 nights in a row in a big, comfy double bed. Which is right next door to my little bathroom. A little tiled space which is ALL mine also. I feel a million miles from my room plus sink in Queens.
Yippee!
I was offered one job which made me pleased and another that has made me happy. Very fortunate to be in such a position in the current market – all those banks crashing about, thousands losing jobs and possibly much more. Strangely many of my classmates seem to be having similar good luck at the moment, which has got to be good news for the new MBA’s starting in a matter of days.
The happy factor has everything to do with where I will get to live and the people who I will get to work with, opportunity that they then present. I will be working with the Strategy Director on the revamping of a hospital in London. Who knows what that will be like but I am ready to give it a read hot go! So fingers crossed they will hurry up and get that form to me soon – as that I am sign, sealed and delivered.
Really it is all excellent news..there is an end in sight to the terminal job search anxiety and a date when the cash flow will start to trickle back in.
There is a new thorn in my side. Who would have thought that there was something on par with the horror of job hunting. And who would have thought it would find me so quickly!
I am on the share flat circuit and despite the number of helpful websites out there like moveflat and gumtree it is such a nightmare. Trawling through the long lists, learning to guess from the picture how much space there actually is between the wall and the bed, precisely how many people live in the flat and making decisions on whether that person is a well controled sociopath or just delightfully eccentric.
Grim Grim Grim.
One of the things that I have loved over the past year is hearing everyone’s home grown cliches. Over a cup of tea on Sunday morning I heard one of the best yet. Essentially, it is that you must eat one cookie at a time. I have decided that it is in fact very wise advice. I feel like I have been running around, most of the time just in my head, trying to solve problems and answer questions.
Where to live? Where to work? Where are my clean clothes? When will this be over? Where is my mobile?
You get the idea.
Busy getting no where!
However, if I stop and try and eat only one cookie at a time – life becomes more manageable. Or at least that is the plan….. and we all no what happens to the best laid plans.
I have been talking to loads of people at the moment. Some chats have been serious about jobs and what to do next, some have been cheerful banter in coffee shops. All of these have been lovely, interesting, sometimes challenging but never frustrating to the point that makes me want to wring the individuals neck…… well with a few exceptions….
Occasionally you bump into someone who takes great pleasure in being the ‘devils advocate‘. Now, I am not adverse to a challenging conversation, nor am I worried if someone is clearly decided in their views. But what drives me bonkers is someone who will not let it go. They poke and poke and poke. Offering nothing to the conversation or the dialogue of their own. I had one such conversation the other day. It was horrible, unpleasant and actually really boring. I learn’t nothing about another’s view on a topic familiar to me. I left the conversation annoyed and in need of a big drink!
It would seem to me that it is important to be challenged on your views. However, I think that there is a warning for those that constantly take the position of devil’s advocate, that they themselves will never actually contribute their opinion or view to another.
Well last night it was off to the first alumni-grown-up MBA event. A
lthough very clearly, we were the newbies as we descended on the free food and drink the minute we arrived, and on the whole were the last people standing. There were also some new MBA’s from this year’s class.
Part of me is very jealous of what is to come for them and the other part of me is so clearly ready to get going with the next big adventure. And really the thought of having to do another exam or get my head back around accounting would not be very exciting. The tendency to romanticise the experience is probably not unique to me nor I think limited to those recently leaving the MBA.
The drinks were held in the Butcher’s Hook & Cleaver in Smithfield. So plenty of suits getting around as it is just on the edge of the city. Seemed like a fitting place for MBA’s to go!
It was, on the whole, so lovely to hang out with people who had had the same experience regardless of the year of graduation. Proof also that we will all survive and have fun over the next few years! So bring it on!
Funny hand shake clubs are what I like to call them. They are strewn about London. 
Discret doors in heavy set buildings, a porter just inside, then a grand sweeping staircase. All very formal and austere.
This week I had the chance to swan about in my favourite dress in the Brooks’s club. It is 300 odd years old and is described as a gentleman’s club. Which I suppose today has two meanings! You will be pleased to hear that there were no women in anything that went above the knee and there was certainly a lack of bling with the exception of the rather amazing chandelier.
It was an amazing group of people – although not so much in what they had to say more just in the ooze of power. Lots of people from hedge funds and Venture capitalists… as an aside the beauty of the MBA is that now I can actually nod meaningfully and have some concept of what these people do. Rather than my previous state of confusion.
However, the most amazing moment was meeting not only a former Secretary of Health but also a Kennedy. Yep American Royalty.
All very cool.
I was there essentially as the part of an interview process for a job that is unlikely to come to fruition before the end of the year but it was ‘jolly’ good fun to be in such an environment for an evening.
To all those who are smokers in the UK life is probably pretty tough at the moment. You can’t smoke in office buildings, planes, trains, bus stops, pubs and restaurants. Complete bliss for non-smokers who can go home after a night out with friends without having to wash their hair, plus you can get more than one wear out of your jeans. Yippee!
However, there remains one space where you can still happily puff. And boy are they puffing away and then using the footpath as a giant ash tray. Butts everywhere. This is not the only unpleasant footpath habit in London though. There are major stains on the footpath from chewing gum, scrapped off by a bunch of council workers everyday. And just yesterday I narrowly missed someone spitting over their right shoulder as I tried to nip by to get to the tube a tad faster. It was a super close call….not nice!
The hazards of big city living!
It does feel like I have lots of pots on the boil. Well some simmering, some have been on the stove top way to long and others have just hit the heat. Sadly all of them are currently refusing to boil – no matter how often I check my email, or stare at my mobile phone they are all stubbonly rufusing to do what I want!
Best go as it has been at least 5 minutes since I have checked my email…….
WANTED: Full time, excitment! Stimulating conversation sought with promise of challenge and variety. A desire to be kind to others and to work toward virtuous goals.
As I sat in a cafe whiling away a few moments, well more than a few, with a fellow MBA job searcher. We hit open the best analogy for the horror of the job search. The whole process… looking for fit, panicing about long term prospects, a need for synergy and that abject feeling of being stuck forever in the current status quo… such feelings are similar to the dating game I find myself in occassionally. Just about every cliche fits for both the job and love search……
‘you’re wonderful, it will happen’
‘Don’t worry they will come along in a rush, just like buses’
‘it’s a numbers game’
‘its not you it’s me’ … this one might be a stretch!
There are 100′s and 1000′s of websites telling you what to do, helping you search for that perfect partner or job, bringing you together with other people of similar interests and desires. You can and do, spend hours looking. I am starting to suspect that the real stuff happens on both counts when you start doing, move toward taking risks and move away from your habits, well beaten paths.
So the plan for next week is to take a few risks on the job front…. to do something different. And who knows I may find that allusive romantic entanglement as well!
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