Thursday 17 July 2008

Too much experience...

Oh dear. So I have temporarily given up on concentrating on getting a job in journalism, because I'm now so broke I have to get something, ANYTHING, that will enable me to buy a little bread.

So it was with great sorrow that I had to forcibly remove myself from bed and attend a two hour interview for a job as a 'kids club ranger'. What a joke.

The "interview" was held in a large gym hall that stank of sweat and cheesy feet. There were 30 of us getting interviewed at the same time. "How is this even possible ?" I hear you cry. Quite. We had to stand up and say a bit about ourselves. This 'bit' was not defined. I heard the following:

"um... hi... my name's Kirsty... I'm sixteen years old... I'm sitting my GCSE's... I used to come to this kids club a few years ago so I know it really well."

"Yeah, so, I worked for BMW for the last few years, and thats pretty much it."

"I love kids, I have one, so you know, I'd love this job"

Then there was me:

"I'm Jenny, Im 23, I have six years experience working with children, I taught English and worked in an orphanage in India for six months, I worked at a Kids club in Perth, I cared for an autistic child in Aberdeen and I now work at a school in Sheffield, where I help run the media club."

After this episode, they put us in groups of five. My group were five hapless sixteen year olds who were in the last throngs of childhood themselves. We had to come up with a game suitable for children, then the rest of the group pretended to be children and ran round our fun activities like overgrown idiots. It was unbelievable.

Our group managed to tick all the boxes: fun, safe, competitive, child friendly. One group's game actually required you to jump on a gym mat and slide it into some metal posts. Unsurprisingly, this was deemed unsafe for children. Idiots.

So, did I get the job? Did I hell. Not young enough? Not sporty enough? Ideas not good enough? I suspect I have too much experience, and am too over qualified for this one.

3 comments:

RB said...

poor jenny!

sorry you didn't get the job. was it because they found your criminal record? you REALLY shouldn't have whipped all those children in your other jobs. word gets out.....

RB said...

and why do you want to work in 'journalim'? what is 'journalim'?

Helz said...

You fool! You shouldn't have boasted about your amazing childcare repertoire. All it needed was for you to stand up and sing;

sauce cheese ham butter mashed potato chip chip chip.

or whatever it was haha!