Week 9

This week’s good news is that the teenager has finally been offered a part time job. She has been applying for jobs for ever since we got back from the US.  No longer mixing with the rich and spoilt of Beverly Hills, I felt the amount of pocket money handed over every month could now be decreased. What better incentive could she have?

To give credit where it’s due she has been an avid  job hunter – but the frustration of on-line applications, and a standard procedure designed to cover everything from prospective store managers to a Saturday girl - has had her thwart. My teenager does not fit the norm; she hasn’t had a standard UK education, nor has she any work experience.

Apart from the major stumbling block of no GCSE’s and very often no room on an on-line form to explain their absence – ie three years in the US education system – I imagine most of these applications are assessed  by a rigid tick-box short-list criteria at company headquarters, and quite naturally on paper she doesn’t look like the ideal candidate.

Back in the old days when I was a girl Saturday jobs could normally be procured simply by going into a shop and asking, or at the very most handing in a CV.  Today’s job market is very different.

She has no work experience – she is a student.  One on-line application absolutely refused to let her move onto the next page without putting in a date she left her ‘previous employment’.

My teenager is intelligent and articulate – I knew if she could just secure an interview she could probably secure a job, and thankfully, eventually it has happened. It’s only temporary but it’s a start, and at least it will be something to put on the next application form even if this one doesn’t work out.

 I recently met up  with an old college friend also the mum of two daughters, for a chick flick and a long walk in the countryside.  We reminisced about the good old days - how different our teenage years were. Life really was so much simpler then.  I'm pretty sure it was also a lot quieter. 

I want my teenager to bring her friends home  – I’d much they were where I could see them than wandering around the streets at night. What I don’t want to do, however, is hear them.  The teenager is pretty good at turning up with waifs and strays, and to be honest, I don't mind. We've a big house - we need to fill it. However, last weekend I was sorely tempted to send a text upstairs at 2.00 am in the morning asking when chatty man was finally going to quieten down.

‘You should be glad we were only talking,’ was the teenager’s cheeky retort when I complained about the noise the following morning.

Yes I know I should be thankful for small mercies –  as my health visitor once told me when I complained a certain baby only slept for twenty minutes at a time.  Be grateful for those twenty minutes she said.  However I never  anticipated that seventeen years later I'd still be struggling to get a  decent night’s sleep.....

Fifty Shades of LA

Naturally it was assumed that on my return to the UK I would start job hunting, after all did I not continually moan about being a lady of leisure? Well yes I did, but mostly because having been raised from birth with a serious sense of work ethic I felt guilty about having the time to go for a pedicure and long lazy lunches. Three years of not working and keeping myself amused and I’ve gone from thinking what would I do all day if I didn’t work to how could I possibly find the time to hold down a Job?

The UK is in recession and jobs are now in short supply. Realising that even if I did wish to find employment, it wasn’t going to be easy, when I saw a local company advertising for a part-time administrator I hurriedly completed my on-line CV.  Absolute panic set in when I received a request to attend an interview the very next day.  I managed to put it off – I was due to paint my nails or something (actually the shipping container was being delivered) but then I made some further enquiries to find out exactly how many “part-time” hours a week were required and  ended up withdrawing my application altogether. What an earth had I been thinking of? 24 hours a week in an office after the freedom of California? It was just too much!

So I have negotiated a year’s reprieve from job seeking – after all with my husband working away what fun could we have on his R&R  if I was stuck  in an office all day?

And talking of fun, this does now mean that I can dedicate my time to writing my book - a genuine guide to ex-pat living based on my blog,  Life in the LA Bubble, although judging by  current trends I am seriously going to have to spice it up a bit to stand any chance of commercial success. My Sex Life in the LA Bubble is probably how it's going to have to end up.
 

I have every admiration for any author who can get work published and if that means lowering my standards, trust me I’ll do it. I can use my imagination....on the beach at Santa Monica, suspended from a coat hanger in my huge Hollywood style walk-in-closet, half way round the Buzz Lightyear laser ride at Disney - you name it, that’s where we did it - a torrid tale of sex-pats on tour or something similar.

I’m not quite sure how Fifty Shades hero Christian Grey as a CEO of major international corporation has the energy to return home after a hectic day making millions at the office to ravish his wife six times a night. My other half, a hard working employee of a similar major international corporation, could barely stay awake long enough to eat his dinner, let alone have the energy to get up to any tricks on the billiard table. That, I suppose is the difference between fact and fiction, and what makes a bestseller.

Unlock the handcuffs darling, I need to write another chapter.....