Friday, February 15, 2008

Easily Pleased

Well, another Valentine’s Day over and a nice one at that. G and I went out for dinner at Giraffe, which was good and the staff were *very* enthusiastic and *very* friendly. If you went there for a quiet evening you might have ended up killing them, but as they gave G four small giraffes (that they normally give to children to go with their drinks), they were certainly in our good books. We’re easily pleased.

I phoned the company who are running the application process for the job I am interested in. There is something slightly wrong (or at least contradictory) in the way the job has been advertised and so I phoned to clarify. They seemed entirely non-plussed by this, although they were very nice and polite, and just said not to worry about it. Not that I was actually worried, I think there has just been a bit of a screw up in the way it’s been done. Nothing disastrous, it’s more that someone failed to check that they were being consistent etc and so they’ve missed something. Anyway, I shall mention it in the covering letter and leave it at that.

I do soooooooo need a new job though and today I have to meet with my head of unit to talk about my career plans for the future (the “where do you see yourself in ten years time” time conversation) and I’ll have to decide if I should just say “well, not working here”. When I was talking to my boss about it a couple of days ago, I was telling him that I have no interest in promotion and the more senior people become in the organisation the more insane and demanding they seem to be. But then I said to my boss “I realise I can’t actually put that down on the form though”. So what did I do? Well, lie, of course, and say that I might consider promotion “in due course” and maybe bigger and greater things in the “longer term”. Yea right... retirement at age 35 more like.

6 comments:

londongirl said...

Oh god I so relate to that - I'm supposed to be drawing up my 3 and 5 year goals with the company at the moment and the only one I can think of is "leaving" which I don't think would go down that well....

Random Reflections said...

londongirl - I hope you're well. I was just suitably vague but, to his credit, my head of unit did agree that the higher you get on the organisation the more it is about your ego and it does turn you slightly insane. Fair enough. Just so long as I know.

Anonymous said...

That Giraffe place looks quite cool. I'm going to down in London soon with my mum. Are there any restaurants you can recommend, any kind of food, that are reasonably priced and preferably central and not full of tourists ?

Random Reflections said...

LKSN - Yep Giraffe is nice. There is one on the South Bank, but it will be filled with tourists...

If you like oriental food then somewhere like Wagamamas is good. It's cheap and there are several in Central London.

http://www.wagamama.com/food.php

Or somewhere like Cafe in the Crypt (which is beneath St Martin's in the Field in Trafalgar Square). They cook nice food for a reasonable price or you can just sit there and have a coffee and it's open until about 10pm. It's really busy just before a concert in the church, as people have their pre-performance drinks there.

http://www2.stmartin-in-the-fields.org/page/cafe/crypt/crypt.html

I'll have a think and come up with some suggestions. It's a bit early for me to be thinking too much!

Anonymous said...

I love Wagamama's but we have that in Glasgow. Looking for something unique. I have been to Cafe in the Crypt, didn't know they were still open for dinner so I might go there. Thanks.

Random Reflections said...

LKSN- I'll continue to have a think. I'm going out for dinner with some people tonight. Maybe they'll have some suggestions.