Diving in.

So, I'm just going to dive right in. I hate starting new blogs; I'm so bad at it. I figure that I'm not going to bother "starting," I'm just going to begin the waffling without pretence or introduction. Besides, if you found your way here, I know you, wanted you to find your way here, and you don't need to be told how old I am, what colour my eyes are and where I live. You lucky sods. To begin with, I expect this'll just be my new way to commune with Nahbois; beats the hell out of Amazon, at the moment.

In case you didn't know: twenty-two, blue, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England.

I feel like I have loads of news to update with, but I can't be bothered to write it out. The most important, then? I guess that would be my interview with Arbeia, on Tuesday. I don't really know what I was expecting, but it certainly isn't what I got. Perhaps I imagined a small-ish meeting room with two or three Tyne&WearMuseum Staff, six to eight candidates? Afterall, the job on offer was only a twenty-five hour part-time gig, one week on and one week off. Right?

Wrong. They received one hundred and forty applications. One hundred and forty. I couldn't bloody believe it. They cut that list down to forty, and decided from that twenty to interview. So at least I was in the top lot, right? Sounds like a good thing, and I think that I presented myself well throughout the afternoon except for one minor (I hope) boob. But, half of the people in that twenty were already volunteering for the museums: they do that job already, and are just looking to get paid for it. There was one absolutely lovely gentleman in his early forties who had been a nurse in the army until the year before last when he started a degree in Tourism. He volunteered at Arbeia itself (most of the others were volunteers at other museums/galleries under the same directorate), and gave tours on campus to potential mature students. He was so pleasant and happy to chat with me, I talked to him most of the afternoon and took the metro home with him. If I don't get the job, I hope it's him that does. On top of the volunteers, though, there were people that were reading/had finished degrees in museum curation and such.

Blah, it makes my Masters and complete lack of experience look paltry. I can't believe I went into it slightly on the smug "I'm bound to get it" side. For shame, 'Ren.


We had four tasks to do within the three hours. The first was to partner up with someone else in the room and tell them about our keys. lol. It was really quite weird. We had fifteen minutes to just keep talking, and I suppose the point was to make sure that we could natter on when we needed to. I imagine that a tour guide needs that ability. I did it, and so did my partner, but invariably we ended up in "and then I realised I'd lost my keys" or "I was so drunk I couldn't get it in the lock" stories.

Amusing, but perhaps not what the museum Staff were after.

After that, the eighteen of us (two of the invited twenty didn't turn up; can you imagine that?!) were split into three groups of six, and we played a game which was about team-work. It involved wrapping up an "artefact" for transport, with silly rules. We all had to wear a glove, and only use that hand to do anything that was involved in the task. If the item was to be moved, two people had to be touching it with one hand each, and could only move one step in any direction before another pair took over. It had to be wrapped in tissue paper and then two different layers of bubble-wrap. It had to be secure enough to actually transport somewhere. I tell you, trying to find the end on a roll of sellotape with someone else holding it and your usually invaluable thumb-nail encased in a rubber glove is awful! Our team finished first, but then we for sure had the easiest item. We had a telescope, which meant we basically just rolled it up in each layer and were done, where the other groups had a wooden box and a carpet-beater.

The third task was to imagine that we had been trapped in a museum after closing for the holidays. You weren't alone, but couldn't get out and had to assume that you were there for the duration; no food left in the café and no electricity or phone or anything. Which out of a list of fifteen items that you and the people locked in with were the most useful? There was water, six bags of sweets, six dust covers, whisky, two torches, a mirror, a heater, a knife, a tin of red paint, ladders, a first aid box, a pile of fire wood, matches, and three other things I can't remember. Everyone put the whisky last but me. I put it towards the top. My argument was that if you were trapped in there over the Christmas holidays, you might as well enjoy it. The two Staff sitting with us that were scribbling on notepads now and again grinned at me, but didn't write down that I'm a drunk. lol. At the bottom of my list was the heater. Everyone else had but it third or fourth, after the water, dust covers (blankets) and sweets. One of the other candidates said to me "don't you think it would be better to use the heater before starting a fire for warmth?" My response was a blank look accompanied by "there's no electricity; it's useless." The two Staff scribbled at this point, so I assume that noticing that was a good thing.

The fourth was a plain interview, and this is where I think I made my minor (I still hope) boob. We were taken out of the room individually whilst the mass-group were completing a "Would you (A), (B), (C), or (D)?" questionnaire, and asked what our availability for work was, that there was the possibility of casual work at any of the sites if we weren't picked for the main roles, was there anywhere we would rather not work? I looked at the list and said that Sunderland would be hard for me to get to (which is completely true) and that would be at the bottom of my preferences, but that it was still fine. The look on his face told me that I was supposed to have said that they were all fine and that I would be happy to work anywhere. I mean... they are, and I would. I just thought I was being asked for preferences. That's what he said, that's what the sheet in front of him said, that's what previous interview experience said. That's not what his face said. D'oh.

Still, I don't think that that in itself is enough to let me down. It was a tiny thing, and the rest of the interview went well. They said that they would pick and let us know by the end of the week, and today is half way through Thursday. I guess I'll hear tomorrow. I don't expect to do well frankly because there were better candidates there. I'm not without hope, though. Some of those that appeared to be the perfect candidates were really quite arrogant and bossy and outspoken during the group work, and I hope that this works against them. Equally, some that had perfect qualifications but no experience were a bit on the field-mouse side. I was somewhere in the middle. Where I expect they wanted us to be.

Oh, I don't know. I'm trying not to think on the results too much. If nothing else, I now know what to expect, right? And if I don't get one of the two posts or some of the casual roles, perhaps I'll be just after those people that do and the Staff will remember me if something else comes up. Perhaps not, but I can hope...right?