June 25, 2004
The Acid Queen
Ken Russell's
Tommy is on TV in the background as I type this. God, I'd forgotten what a mind-bogglingly terrible film it is. It puts the likes of, say,
Troy into an interesting perspective. On the one hand, it is
much worse than the very worst piece of mainstream Hollywood shite you will ever see; on the other hand, you could never accuse it of being formulaic, or safe, or ordinary. You can be 100% certain that not a single aspect was dictated by a preview audience in Boise, Idaho.
No, no point. Why do you ask?
There has been a certain amount of movement on the job front this week, but it remains to be seen whether any of it will go anywhere.
The most appealing of the possibilities -- also, I fear, the least likely -- is, somewhat to my surprise, in the financial sector. Admittedly, one of its attractions is proximity -- 3 minutes leisurely walk from my front door -- but it's also, as best I can make out, fresh and educational and intellectually challenging. Abstruse, even.
It's also being recruited direct, without the deadening grit of recruitment agents in the middle. I know I've said this before, but what a bunch of useless fuckwits those people are. As I mentioned a few entries ago, not a single one of them seems capable of comprehending my desire to get out of the dismal and egregious interactive TV field. They're looking for people with OpenTV experience, I have it, QED. Never mind that I would sooner cut out my own liver with a rusty cake fork than program that crap again.
One of them complained to me the other day that it was incredibly difficult to find senior OpenTV coders. I tried to explain why this was, but politeness got in the way -- what can I say, I was having an unusually diplomatic day.
Anyway, I think -- although the obfuscating power of agency makes it difficult to be sure -- that my CV is now under consideration by a number of the companies behind this whole interactive TV business. The hardware and middleware providers, that is, as opposed to front end application developers; I did at least have the self-respect to say a straight out "No" to the agents who wanted to send me for jobs in the Evil Empire itself.
It will be ironic if I wind up working for one of the companies whose software I have spent so much time cursing to the heavens. Still, I suppose someone has to try to make that shit better.
One or two of these jobs might even be pretty interesting. It's a bit of annoying that every last one of them is based out in the middle of fucking nowhere: Stevenage, Maidenhead, Woking, Staines... I can't help feeling that after a few months of commuting to those places I'll be a candidate for a Ken Russell film of my very own.
Posted by matt at June 25, 2004 01:15 AM
Well, on the upside, Stevenage is good for Cambridge, Maidenhead is good for Henley, Woking is good for the gardens of Wisley, and Staines is good for Ali G.
Boise isn't a bad place, you know - the town hall is beautiful, and the countryside is great for hiking and fishing. The locals are... friendly until challenged by the non-Christian.
Look who's Mr Silver Linings this morning.
Thanks for the spelling correction, btw. Oops.
My optimism is famously tiresome. What did you mis-spell?
And does it matter if I turn up in the park dressed like a P.S. twat? I might not have time to change before leaving and I had to be pretty for minor ceremonies this morning... :)
I haven't been to Boise myself, although I know people who have and most of them are sane. Er...
Having commuted from the outer reaches of Surrey (Frimley) into London (London Bridge) for three months I can testify how utterly soul destroying that is. At least all of your potential locations have a direct line from some station in London.
Glad to hear that things are picking up, though.
Seeing Ken Russell's 'Tommy' on the big screen in 1975 with a group of fellow 12-year-olds was, for better or worse, one of the more hugely formative and resonant experiences of my hapless existence. (If only I could cap it off by saying I'm from Boise... alas.)
Of course, at that point, I was a few years away from seeing KR's film of 'The Devils'... yikes...
Recruiters, "what a bunch of useless fuckwits those people are." Oh my dear God but that's so correct. Thank you for voicing my ongoing hatred of all of these people. One more thing, why the hell are all of the jobs posted to them. Have companies all decided to simply bend over to the recruiters? Have all in-house recruiters simply vanished off the face of the earth or have they all gone out and started fuck-useless recruiting businesses of their own? Ugh!
Ahem...thank you. I feel better.
Oh and one last thing...I saw Tommy on the big screen with my father in 1975. I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen. I dare say my tastes have improved...somewhat...since then. I can only imagine what my poor father must have thought. Thanks for reminding me of that.
Doesn't everyone realise that it's far more efficient to outsource stuff like recruitment to some third party who doesn't know what you want and whose main aim is to make a load of money?
Tommy did nothing for me in 1975 and I suspect would do little for me now. But then again, I'm just a heathen anyway :-)
Belated footnote for the benefit of myself and any stragglers who wander by in the randomness of posterity: that "most appealing"/"least likely" possibility turned out, after a painfully long interval, to be my next (and, at the time of this comment,
current) employment, and did so without the "benefit" of any recruitment agency.
So, uh, there.
