A Very, Very Expensive Cinema Trip...
May. 25th, 2010 07:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magicaddict...so a while ago, I got up close and personal with a concrete pillar while parking in a multi-storey car park outside a cinema. Dent in the passenger door, but everything worked. Yesterday evening, while dropping the window, there was a loud bang, the window stopped moving and there were lots of nasty noises from inside the body of the door.
Today, we went to bodyshop and got told it would cost over £1200 to fix, and involve an entirely new door. Even in the event that we find a quote for half that involving a new window motor and some panel beating, it's still going to cost more to pay out-of-pocket than it would be to lose the no claims discount.
Well, fucking hell. Lucky that all happened after the interview.
_________
For the first time in about five attempts, I arrived early for today's interview at Nationwide House.
Just over an hour early.
I suppose this was a good thing, considering how many barrels it beats out of still looking for a parking space five minutes after your interview should have started, which is how things went last time, but I was almost falling asleep by the time I was called.
This being about my tenth interview for Nationwide's head office, I should have been better at the questions by now. I tried to make sure I explained my reasoning behind my responses, rather than just giving the responses, as I've been told that's been a point of failure in the past. I tried to be brief but thorough and not waffle, but still on more than one occasion they had to ask me to rephrase my answer as it wasn't answering the question they were asking.
I still wouldn't hire me, but, while it would be light years better than what I'm doing right now, this job sounded like the hardest one I've gone for so far. Resource Scheduling involves giving angry project managers as few staff as possible, telling angry project managers they can't have any more, and handling the angry project manager's concerns in the direction of the dispute resolution service. It does play to the only strengths I have within the business sphere, however (data analysis and interpretation and building working relationships), and would involve just over a ten thousand pound pay rise.
Curiously, they asked me about my notice period, any holiday I had already booked, and how much I currently earned. I'm well aware that any holiday I have booked right now would need to be honoured, but I've never been asked those questions at an NH interview before. The tiny part of my soul that is optimistic (I beat it regularly with sticks to stop it getting any ideas) wants to view it as a good sign, as it implies such concerns became relevant during the course of the interview, but the far more rational side suggests that it's probably just HR getting it right for the first time.
_________
I refuse to accept that my current characters provide the best answers to the recent LARP meme, so this is the ex-naughty boys take on it.
Vaexarius (TL)
1) A proper character flaw: He's a genuine psychotic. Kills, destroys and hurts for the pure pleasure of it.
2) An example of behaving badly in background/with NPCs: Incinerating two entire druid groves because it looked like fun at the time. The druids were away, after all.
3) An example of behaving badly with PCs: Consistently offering the barbarians the magical protection that would allow them to survive encounters better, knowing full well that they didn't want it and the prospect terrified them.
4) A true, but uncharitable description: A mage well over the edge, kept under lock and key where he should be.
5) And a redeeming feature: Ironclad, ramrod-straight moral code. Anyone that earned his respect would have found a very strong personality in there.
Mindstalker (LT)
1) A proper character flaw: An all-consuming need to kill, and a pathetically weak streak driving him to do his master's bidding, whatever it is.
2) An example of behaving badly in background/with NPCs: Finding a rabbitkin with 32 children, and playing make a choice with her until there was just one left.
3) An example of behaving badly with PCs: Stoking someone's hatred of him hot enough that she agreed to a rigged "fair fight", killing her, skinning her, wearing her then going back to taunt her countrymen.
4) A true, but uncharitable description: The most universally evil character I have ever met.
5) And a redeeming feature: He took death into the realms of artistry.
TJ (Shadowrun)
1) A proper character flaw: A complete lack of care for the life or death of any other living being.
2) An example of behaving badly in background/with NPCs: Bursting out of a dumpster, blowing two Lonestars away with no-look slivergun shots and making the third crap himself so hard he dropped his gun. Bang.
3) An example of behaving badly with PCs: Getting into a gunfight with another member of his party while on a mission inside a corporate compound.
4) A true, but uncharitable description: Professional arsehole who cares for no-one but himself.
5) And a redeeming feature: He was really, really good inside the matrix.
Sorin (Exalted)
1) A proper character flaw: A thirst for power to the utter prejudice of everything else.
2) An example of behaving badly in background/with NPCs: Waiting patiently while his partner in crime mistakenly told him he had exalted and tried to kill him, before flaring his anima, scaring the bejesus out of the poor guy and ventilating him with a rapier.
3) An example of behaving badly with PCs: Asking the former forced bondage slave how much she charges for a session.
4) A true, but uncharitable description: A bully boy who's just been given an awfully big stick.
5) And a redeeming feature: He was an excellent charmer. Pity what he used it for.
Alantha (CP)
1) A proper character flaw: Two equally and oppositely extreme regimes had shattered his mind beyond complete repair.
2) An example of behaving badly in background/with NPCs: Spotting someone checking the party out from outside, sneaking out the back and shivving him up before anyone got to talk to him. Unfortunately, it didn't work and the target didn't die.
3) An example of behaving badly with PCs: Telling someone that if she and he were the last two humanoids left on the planet, he could quite happily let the race die.
4) A true, but uncharitable description: A joke of a drow that got broken and badly reforged on two separate occasions.
5) And a redeeming feature: There was a moderate, a pacifist, a poet and a romantic in there, trying desperately to find a way out.
Today, we went to bodyshop and got told it would cost over £1200 to fix, and involve an entirely new door. Even in the event that we find a quote for half that involving a new window motor and some panel beating, it's still going to cost more to pay out-of-pocket than it would be to lose the no claims discount.
Well, fucking hell. Lucky that all happened after the interview.
_________
For the first time in about five attempts, I arrived early for today's interview at Nationwide House.
Just over an hour early.
I suppose this was a good thing, considering how many barrels it beats out of still looking for a parking space five minutes after your interview should have started, which is how things went last time, but I was almost falling asleep by the time I was called.
This being about my tenth interview for Nationwide's head office, I should have been better at the questions by now. I tried to make sure I explained my reasoning behind my responses, rather than just giving the responses, as I've been told that's been a point of failure in the past. I tried to be brief but thorough and not waffle, but still on more than one occasion they had to ask me to rephrase my answer as it wasn't answering the question they were asking.
I still wouldn't hire me, but, while it would be light years better than what I'm doing right now, this job sounded like the hardest one I've gone for so far. Resource Scheduling involves giving angry project managers as few staff as possible, telling angry project managers they can't have any more, and handling the angry project manager's concerns in the direction of the dispute resolution service. It does play to the only strengths I have within the business sphere, however (data analysis and interpretation and building working relationships), and would involve just over a ten thousand pound pay rise.
Curiously, they asked me about my notice period, any holiday I had already booked, and how much I currently earned. I'm well aware that any holiday I have booked right now would need to be honoured, but I've never been asked those questions at an NH interview before. The tiny part of my soul that is optimistic (I beat it regularly with sticks to stop it getting any ideas) wants to view it as a good sign, as it implies such concerns became relevant during the course of the interview, but the far more rational side suggests that it's probably just HR getting it right for the first time.
_________
I refuse to accept that my current characters provide the best answers to the recent LARP meme, so this is the ex-naughty boys take on it.
Vaexarius (TL)
1) A proper character flaw: He's a genuine psychotic. Kills, destroys and hurts for the pure pleasure of it.
2) An example of behaving badly in background/with NPCs: Incinerating two entire druid groves because it looked like fun at the time. The druids were away, after all.
3) An example of behaving badly with PCs: Consistently offering the barbarians the magical protection that would allow them to survive encounters better, knowing full well that they didn't want it and the prospect terrified them.
4) A true, but uncharitable description: A mage well over the edge, kept under lock and key where he should be.
5) And a redeeming feature: Ironclad, ramrod-straight moral code. Anyone that earned his respect would have found a very strong personality in there.
Mindstalker (LT)
1) A proper character flaw: An all-consuming need to kill, and a pathetically weak streak driving him to do his master's bidding, whatever it is.
2) An example of behaving badly in background/with NPCs: Finding a rabbitkin with 32 children, and playing make a choice with her until there was just one left.
3) An example of behaving badly with PCs: Stoking someone's hatred of him hot enough that she agreed to a rigged "fair fight", killing her, skinning her, wearing her then going back to taunt her countrymen.
4) A true, but uncharitable description: The most universally evil character I have ever met.
5) And a redeeming feature: He took death into the realms of artistry.
TJ (Shadowrun)
1) A proper character flaw: A complete lack of care for the life or death of any other living being.
2) An example of behaving badly in background/with NPCs: Bursting out of a dumpster, blowing two Lonestars away with no-look slivergun shots and making the third crap himself so hard he dropped his gun. Bang.
3) An example of behaving badly with PCs: Getting into a gunfight with another member of his party while on a mission inside a corporate compound.
4) A true, but uncharitable description: Professional arsehole who cares for no-one but himself.
5) And a redeeming feature: He was really, really good inside the matrix.
Sorin (Exalted)
1) A proper character flaw: A thirst for power to the utter prejudice of everything else.
2) An example of behaving badly in background/with NPCs: Waiting patiently while his partner in crime mistakenly told him he had exalted and tried to kill him, before flaring his anima, scaring the bejesus out of the poor guy and ventilating him with a rapier.
3) An example of behaving badly with PCs: Asking the former forced bondage slave how much she charges for a session.
4) A true, but uncharitable description: A bully boy who's just been given an awfully big stick.
5) And a redeeming feature: He was an excellent charmer. Pity what he used it for.
Alantha (CP)
1) A proper character flaw: Two equally and oppositely extreme regimes had shattered his mind beyond complete repair.
2) An example of behaving badly in background/with NPCs: Spotting someone checking the party out from outside, sneaking out the back and shivving him up before anyone got to talk to him. Unfortunately, it didn't work and the target didn't die.
3) An example of behaving badly with PCs: Telling someone that if she and he were the last two humanoids left on the planet, he could quite happily let the race die.
4) A true, but uncharitable description: A joke of a drow that got broken and badly reforged on two separate occasions.
5) And a redeeming feature: There was a moderate, a pacifist, a poet and a romantic in there, trying desperately to find a way out.
