Dan! Dan! Dan!

A few posts back I mentioned I was going to a gig featuring Fife's second favourite noise pop band, DanDanDan. Given they haven't gigged in over a year it went pretty well, even though frontman Richard 'Dick' Gilbert cut his finger and broke his G-String in quick succession. They'll do anything in the name of entertainment, those guys.

The lighting wasn't amazing for photos, so here is a grainy video recording of the crowd pleasing Carefree Youth, Whither Art Thou Gone? Let it penetrate.

Review

Watched The Shawshank Redemption last night.

It's still good.

Useful Feedback

You know how people tell you to get feedback from failed interviews and applications wherever possible? But you never actually do it cuz it will just add insult to the injury of your rejection? Yeah. I did that for a recent application.

The post was part time Communications Assistant for PYT Scotland.

I have been applying for Communications Assistant jobs since I graduated in June 2008, because the bulk of what you do is “ensure that our website, newsletter and social networking sites are regularly updated,” as well as helping out with the creative side of marketing the company (as opposed to the soulless sales side). Essentially it’s a way of writing for a living, which is what I’ve wanted to do since I was about 8.

There haven’t been too many vacancies of this type in Edinburgh over the last year and a half, but I’ve gone for the ones that come up, and been interviewed for a couple. But at this stage I’m starting to wonder whether I need to do another qualification, move cities, or just give up entirely. So when PYT told me ‘we don’t want you, but in line with best practice we can tell you why you suck so bad ...’ Well, it seemed silly to waste such an opportunity.

The panel scored me out of six for each of the essential and desirable criteria. This was already potentially problematic, as I spent most of my time linking these criteria to the job description. No competency based bullet pointing for me, oh no. I went with overarching themes of interest in and ability to do the job. What a faux pas.

In confirmation of these suspicions, the email went on to say, “if you believe you have been scored unfairly on a skill that you perhaps do possess then we would recommend that you make this clearer in your covering letter and CV for future applications for a post with similar requirements.” Hm.

So anyway, the scores. For ‘working knowledge of content management programmes for websites’, the panel declared I had no evidence and gave me a 0. In terms of my letter and CV that was probably fair, although the 8 years of blogging means I have actually encountered a reasonable amount of coding, and I did point out my quickness and willingness to learn new stuff. It’s not like I wouldn’t have 4 spare days a week to do it in, as this is a part time position that would see me living on even less money than I do now.

‘Good understanding of / experience in marketing for the arts sector’, was one of the bits I was genuinely concerned about. I don’t have professional experience of marketing for the arts sector, I said to myself. Sure, I have a crapload of understanding, but I can’t very well say ‘my sister works for the Byre so I actually have heard a lot about marketing shows from behind the scenes’ or ‘my flatmate is in an up and coming indie band and talks a lot about the logistics of getting people through the door for gigs’. That won’t look professional, even though my knowledge is disparate and my understanding wide. Then I talked to some folk, and ended up putting:

“As well as writing and editing for the student press during my time in St Andrews, I created a number paper and electronic publicity materials for the student theatre community, averaging one play or musical per semester. I was also publicity officer for a society I co-founded to raise money for the Harbour Trust and the RNLI, which involved creating and distributing publicity materials for events, maintaining a database of membership information and writing an e-newsletter. I have built on these skills and interests in my current job by contributing copy to the libraries newsletter and blog, and by creating posters and leaflets for events being run in our library and other branches.”

So, did they concede even a small amount of knowledge/understanding? No they did not. I got 0.

Other zeroes were for:

- ‘relevant education qualifications’ (they never at any point specified what these might be but clearly not a 2:1 from St Andrews, which leaves you with no transferable skills after all)

- ‘working knowledge of the youth theatre sector in Scotland’ (“I have knowledge of the youth theatre sector in Scotland from the viewpoint of a participant and that of a reviewer. Growing up in Perthshire I was a member of the Scraphappy and Blairgowrie Players amateur dramatics groups, and contributed to local papers, reviewing several youth theatre productions. I continued to review gigs and plays for the student press at university, developing my journalistic skills as well as my knowledge of the arts sector in Scotland.”)

- ‘experience of event delivery’ (“as a proactive member of several university societies I assisted with the organization and delivery of a range of events, including gigs, film screenings and quizzes. Meanwhile in my current job I plan and run a lot of events for young people including craft activities, ‘Rhymetime’ sessions for mums and babies, and themed reading sessions with my primary aged reading group. I also support visitors to the library in running events including graffiti and art workshops, as well as information visits from youth workers.”)

I mean OK, reading over all this again I would change parts, but 0 seems excessively harsh, particularly re event delivery.

There were no 1s (minimal evidence) but many 2s (reasonable evidence) in:

- The ability to be creative within your work (I didn’t tell them about my book recycling activity, I suppose)

- Ability to work on your own as well as collaboratively with the core team (just… whatever. I am a good team worker and I’m fine on my own, I just am, it was in the cover and the CV and would be evident from references too.)

- Ability to multi-task (“I am also used to balancing competing priorities. As a student I learned to balance coursework with part time jobs and extra curricular activities and now, working in a busy community library, I manage daily administrative duties alongside planning and running events for young people, addressing challenging behaviour, dealing with enquiries and assisting customer use of technology.” – which translates to I still manage to do my job even when there are 30 kids running around shouting, jumping on couches, and asking me for different things. If they find a candidate who can multi-task better than I have to in that kind of environment, then hats off to them.)

- Understanding, enthusiasm and interest in theatre with and for young people (“Having worked a lot with bored young people in both a care and youth work capacity, I am hugely enthusiastic about the opportunities that Scottish youth theatre can offer them”...)

- And CRUSHINGLY, a 2 for my journalistic flair.

‘IT skills and self-sufficiency in using a range of software packages’ was better, gaining me 3 out of 6, which translates as ‘good evidence’. To gain this I proclaimed in my cover, “I have experience using Macintosh and Windows operating systems and am comfortable using Microsoft Office, Outlook, Photoshop, and Macromedia Freehand. I am also taking an evening class at ECA called ‘Introduction to Creative Digital Drawing’ to expand my knowledge and have recently started learning how to use Dreamweaver’." In my CV I also point out that I use TALIS, the database used in the libraries, and support customer use of stuff like Netloan (the crappiest piece of software known to man) and Comic Life. Any thoughts on extra stuff I need to be saying to get a 4, let me know…

Then there were 3s for my effective oral, written and on-line communication skills, and my GSOH. Yes, they graded me on my sense of humour, and I got 3 out of 6. Burn. This brought my overall score up to 19, which is nowhere near 30, as some of you may already know. And “anything scoring 30 or below indicates that the evidence of your skill base was perhaps just not relevant or diverse enough to be considered.”

So, there we have it. Competency based job application judges = stern. Stern but fair, like the Russian police.

A Letter To The Inland Revenue (first draft)

Dear Inland Revenue,

I am writing to complain about your monumental incompetence, the like of which is generally reserved for agencies such as the Home Office.

In April of last year, I wrote to inquire whether it would be possible to send my £650 tax rebate care of a different address than the one on your files, as by the time it was issued I would temporarily be staying with family and friends in between leaving my old flat and moving into the new one. You responded by ignoring this query, and trying to blind me with the shiny point that you just noticed you owe me £100 more than I thought, due to mistakenly taking pennies from me in previous jobs.

There came a period of several months where I wrote and telephoned a number of times to ask when I was getting the £750 which you had after all confirmed I was owed. Each time I was asked to send you a different piece of documentation (P60s from three years ago that had no relation to the sum I was trying to claim, that sort of thing).

Eventually in October (six months after my first letter) I obtained a different telephone number to contact you on. It transpired at that point that a cheque had been issued, in May, to my previous address. Did I not receive this? Well, no, I moved. Hence my letters and phone calls. It appears that the people who were receiving my communications thought I was trying to claim for a totally separate £750, and they couldn’t for the life of them work out why I thought I was due it, hence constant requests for further documentation.

Having established that there was only one amount of money, which you definitely owe me, that I have never received, the man on the end of the phone said it should be simple enough to cancel and reissue the cheque. After all you would easily be able to determine whether it had been cashed. Which it hasn’t.

So anyway, that call filled me with optimism for a while, but of course nothing happened. So I called the magic number of apparently competent people again in November and they said oh, it can take quite a long time, sorry about that, will ttly contact the progress team for you.

And then nothing happened some more, which I excused over Christmas/Hogmanay even though it would have been mega useful about that time. And then I called again about two weeks ago and they said oh, there’s a note of your November call on your record, but nothing since then. And our department aren’t actually allowed to contact the progress team directly anymore. ‘What should I do then,’ says I, very patiently after having been on hold for 45 minutes, ‘just keep phoning till someone does something?’ And the girl said, very sheepishly, well probably yes.

SO, in a nutshell, we are in agreement that you owe me £750. We are both aware that I have not received it. Discussion about the matter has now been going on for 9 months. Everyone I have spoken to has been very polite, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that none of them seem to be able to do their jobs.

GIVE ME MY FUCKING MONEY, YOU SLAGS.

Yours Sincerely,

Alison George

Tonight

A Gig!

Featuring the return of these chaps. (The picture is the link.)

They haven't played live together for over a year, a sad state of affairs indeed. But tonight they rise like a phoenix from the ashes to conquer The Ark.

That's the Edinburgh venue, not the big wooden boat.

Other acts on the bill are Black Avenue (who are Scottish grungers, not to be confused with the Portuguese or Hip Hop bands of the same name), Simon Patchett (a chap from Inverness), Autonomous (who like brackets and come fae Kirkcaldy) and No Love Lost (again, a Scottish post punk act not the American hair rockers who were the initial google result). The £4 entry thusly averages out at 80p a band! BARGAIN.

Nonsense

This is a lazy piece of spam if ever I saw one.

Your Email id have been choosen by the BAT Company to receive a grant prizeof 1,000,000 GBP. Please fill the contact form given below.. FILL NAME:,ADDRESS:, PHONE NO.:, COUNTRY:

No exposition a la "I am a Nigerian prince" or "I have a terminal illness but many savings" or "there's been a screw up at the bank I work for and together we may reap the rewards"... Just 'send your personal details to a complete stranger now, kthxbye!’

The BAT Company (that’s British American Tobacco, acronym haters) have been careful to stipulate on their website that such emails really aren’t actually from them (for those people who thought tobacco 2009 at hawamail dot com was a legit company email address and that spelling and grammar are the sort of thing an enormous corporation ignores in official correspondence about giving away large sums of money to randoms who have probably never even heard of them).

Apparently “The emails are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their appearance, sometimes using our company trademarks and names of senior executives.” That being the case, I’m guessing mine was an early one…

Activities

Couple of free things to do in Edinburgh, courtesy of the libraries blog (for which I occasionally write things).

If you like graphic novels, or Burke and Hare, or both, then you might want to go to the launch of a new graphic novel about Burke and Hare. The writer and the artist will be there and everything. This is occurring at Central Library next Thursday (28th January) and although it is free you do need to book a place. Full details here.

Then almost a month on from that, one of the events for Carry a Poem month (which is February, by the way) includes a thing at Central Library with some songs being sung by Aidan Moffat of Arab Strap, poetry being read by Jackie Kay of being a poet, and general chat from author/musician Doug Johnstone of Fence band Northern Alliance. Again you need to email to book, but it sounds like that might be worth doing. It's happening on Thursday 25th February, and further details can be found here.