Interview for a cold day in ... London

You might know him as the co-owner of a trendy London bowling alley chain, or the man behind a popular Notting Hill club, but he’s more than that to me – he’s the guy who wants a naked personal assistant. And he's hiring.

"First, I want you to understand; it's nothing sexual," he said ten minutes into the interview.

Keeping his eyes fixed on mine, he lowered his head and cocked a brow. I braced for the 'but'.

He was handsome enough to expect to get away with it, dishevelled enough to be non-threatening, and posh enough to reveal his unconventional lifestyle as little more than an egoistic echo of boarding school rebellion. But really, why shouldn't we all get everything we want?

The justification he made easily. Since I'd work primarily from his home office, and since he occasionally prefers to be nude in the privacy of his own home, he'd appreciate an assistant who would be comfortable with that.

Fair enough – I'd found the ad on Gumtree (the UK's answer to Craigslist), and the internet is bound to live up to its reputation now and again.

“Very interesting,” I said, and promptly lost my battle for composure to a smirk that carved clear across my face. While I wasn't quite right for the job, what with my preference for clothing while ironing shirts and drafting letters, I couldn’t wait to retell the story.

But I had this sneaking feeling he’d only just scratched the surface with his peculiarities, so I resisted the urge to run off and regurgitate the story, straightened my face and did what I had to do – waited for the juicy bits.

“Again,” he reiterated, “I want you to understand it’s nothing sexual.” There was another ‘but’ in the air. I could feel it. And I wanted to hear it. And I egged him on because I knew the story would be better for it.

When it came, I began looking for hidden cameras.

The scene was too contrived, too scripted – something was fishy. I’d inadvertently stumbled into a gag for a British reality TV show – something akin to Candid Camera, but with a desperate job-seekers theme – I was sure of it. Timely, I thought, for the credit crunch, if not a bit cruel. The air vents, I suspected, was where they’d most likely be, and I gave them all an I’m-onto-you squint, just in case.

I thought back to the ad. He described himself as the owner of clubs and entertainment venues across London, looking to expand his business to the realms of adult dating, and required a personal assistant to help him stay on top of it all, someone open-minded and willing to dig right in and take care of whatever needed doing.

Spotting three red flags in the text – club owner, adult dating and the much-abused term ‘open-minded’ – my initial questions to him during my phone interview were direct. “What exactly do you expect from a personal assistant?” I asked, drawing ‘exactly’ out as long as I could without suggesting I had a speech impediment. Anything as menial as ironing a shirt before a meeting and helping him bounce ideas around for his business, was his tempered, professional answer.

“So there are no specific skills you’d expect that I might not have?” I asked, satisfied with his response and now wanting to clarify, thinking HTML or catering. He barely stuttered and went on about how the one-on-one nature of the job requires above all that we get along. Agreeing to meet, we scheduled a face-to-face interview in Notting Hill the next day. In hindsight, the stutter was either a blazing scarlet-red flag or a guardian angel intervening on my behalf to choke him.

“And because it’s really, really important to me that you are absolutely comfortable with me being naked,” he went on, “and that you know it’s nothing sexual…”

Brow cocked, dramatic pause engaged, he was about to deliver the payload. This, I knew, would be the biggest ‘but’ yet.

“I need you to demonstrate your comfort by occasionally being naked, as well.” And then he let out a little burp. Seems my guardian angel went deep.

As far as collecting stories goes, I couldn't believe my luck. But I had to think of something to say, settling on, “I get where you’re coming from,” as the groundwork for my own enormous ‘but’.

In a small way, I felt sympathetic to him. He’d been pleasant, up-front and maintained appropriate physical distance throughout the interview. He told me what he wanted, and asked me how I felt about it. It was an extension of the classic secretary fantasy cum affair. The difference being that he incorporates it into the interview process.

I’ve always questioned social norms – which might have something to do with my degree in Cultural Anthropology, or just having lived in liberal Montreal for a decade – and I do consider myself to be open-minded and non-judgemental. Lifestyles that buck convention have never personally offended me, so long as they’re consensual and respect basic human rights. The lines I draw for myself are, however, very clear.

“But, that’s just not something I can do,” I concluded for him, in case he couldn’t already tell from the look on my face. Had he stopped talking then, my opinion of him would have cemented at the extreme end of ‘quirky’. But making the same mistake as billions of his forefathers, he went on to justify his desires.

While he appreciates her naked body, and is very certain she appreciates his, he’s never “f*cked” his current assistant – despite being in an open relationship – because that would ruin the professional dynamic. I think he’s right about that.

And it went downhill from there.

A telecom blessing, his mobile rang and it was time for me to go. Leaving the club, I still expected a production assistant might jump at me with a disclaimer to sign, so I could make my first appearance on low-budget British reality TV. But that didn’t happen.

The only person outside the club on the posh Notting Hill street, was a high-heeled, bleach blonde in her early twenties, wearing a little too much eye make-up – the next interviewee.

Looking her over I thought, "She's about to make herself a lot of money."

All Star bowling alley, originally uploaded by Will Cheyney.

(Note: I got this photo from Flickr, and for the record, the photographer has nothing to do with my story, nor does use of his photo here express any opinion he may hold, whatsoever, about the story or people involved. He's a talented photographer, but is in no way related to the aforementioned events.)

One sad way to lose a job

If you know London, you know The City refers to the financial district – the new-money hub, the once sparkling centre rife with slick suits, the testosterone traders, the bankers – City Boys. Or so I hear.

By the time I came to England, the credit crunch was in full bloom. My boyfriend took a redundancy package not long after my arrival, and my dreams of jump-starting my international PR career began to wane.

Still, in the face of back-to-back refusals from recruitment agencies – the only real way to get a job in London – on the basis of being a foreigner without at least 6 months experience on the island, I managed to land a PR job through an independent ad. And after about 5 weeks, I quit. Not because I'm a quitter, but because the man I was working for was one of the most difficult personalities I've ever encountered. Even worse than that. And he'd just had an unplanned baby, so even worse than that.

Since then, I've held a total of eight different jobs – each with distinct advantages and horrors, an I've written about most of them in my blog. And it is the eighth job I'd like to introduce now.

You may wonder what happened to my recent 'chugging' job – face-to-face fund-raising for UNICEF – which I spoke about not long ago. Or you may just assume I've grown tired of strangers telling me to 'F*ck off' for the criminal act of saying 'good morning' while wearing a charity t-shirt. That's how I'd assumed it would end, but alas, that's not the case. It ended because I cried. I cried my face off. I sobbed like a 10-year-old, hyperventilated even. And not because someone was mean to me, but rather because I was surrounded by people who were so nice.

Breakthrough Breast Cancer was to be our next campaign. Everyone in the company was gathered in a conference room for a detailed briefing before heading to the streets to pass the word on. Looking around at my colleagues, I felt privileged to belong to a group so good-looking, bright and young. It's the level of overall group beauty to which I imagine cult leaders aspire.

I made it through the munch and mingle breakfast portion, and even a few minutes of the video presentation. But when pre-recorded personal accounts began, I choked up. My face burning hot, I looked to the floor instead of the screen, and began singing an entirely unrelated song in my head. My body needed to be there, sure, but my head requires no warming up to the idea of finding a cure for breast cancer.

When the video was finally over, I took a deep breath and passed a tissue to my tearful neighbour. For a moment, I was quite sure I'd recover. I was, however, very, very wrong. Next up was the mother of a breast cancer victim. Her personal story broke me into crumbly, gooey little bits – and I cried for everyone I've known, and for everyone I'd never had the chance to meet, who've battled this horrible disease, and for everyone who's lost someone they dearly love. And ultimately, I cried myself out of a job.

My manager comforted me in the reception room, the Breakthrough Breast Cancer employees brought me water and tissues, there were hugs all around, and I said good-bye to my other tearful colleagues. They were all incredibly sweet, which exacerbated the profound and overwhelming sadness I felt. There was no question about it, my manager suggested I not work on this campaign, but that I would be welcome to join them for Save the Children in a few weeks' time. Apparently, the global suffering of children I can handle.

After sleeping off an intense crying-related headache, I began worrying about where my next pay-cheque would come from. But I struck it lucky, and landed something within three short days. And get this: I work in The City.

The one profession left untouched by recession hysteria, in the heart of the financial district, is mine. I'm a full-time barmaid in a gritty old English pub. Sure, instead of helping people, I'm getting them drunk and sending them home to the wrath of their wives – who've apparently dubbed the spot, The Flying Toilet – but it's fun.

And so far, it hasn't made me cry.

Chugging in Chelmsford

Note: Even if you don't make it all the way through this post, it's worth scrolling down to see the picture.

There's a lot ironic about being run out of town by police from a place like Chelmsford.

Partially because it’s apparently being done to protect townspeople from charities; in a big way because I had a legal right to be there for my job; and, even more so because people in Chelmsford didn’t seem bothered by face-to-face fundraisers.

They certainly liked me more than shoppers near Oxford Street liked me. People with bag loads of sweatshop-produced high street fashion never quite seem ready to indulge in hypocrisy that soon after swiping their card. And they liked me way more than the wealthy population of the aptly named London borough, Richmond, did. The only donor in a seven-hour shift there was the guy who makes their coffee at the local M&S department store, and he lives in Brixton.

Sure three of my new Chelmsford acquaintances were despondent, drunk and homeless, two were evangelistic racists, one declared George W. Bush to be the ‘great leader of our times’, another asked for my phone number for a business proposition requiring a ‘pretty face’, and yet another claimed to have done 8 years in prison for robbing banks, shooting people and working for Montreal's notorious Italian mafia, but maybe that's precisely why the police might want to run United Nations-endorsed charity fundraisers out of town. Our kind, we just don't fit in.

Our first post was on a small footbridge over a canal – the idyllic sort of bridge you might imagine belongs in an old English town with its resident troll waiting to eat, or at the very least, maim wayward offspring. My fundraising partner and I were the slightly less hideous, though no less terrifying trolls on top of the bridge, with intentions to do exactly the opposite for the world’s children. The other half of our team wasn't so lucky.

The story goes that one particular community officer has developed a nearly clinical, Seinfeld-esque obsession with street fundraisers. He's studied the rules and regulations in the hopes of catching us on a technicality, and having us purged from his town. He doesn’t see us as face-to-face fundraisers – our official title – but rather as ‘charity muggers’ or the pejorative, ‘chuggers’. And just as much as we’re tasked with raising funds to eradicate preventable diseases that kill five children every few minutes around the world, he is tasked with eradicating us.

While I missed the opportunity to meet the stocky, cocky antagonist myself, I certainly felt, smelled and trod in his effects.

The psychological warfare was multi-faceted, and according to my team leader, has been fine-tuned over the course of several years. Just keep smiling, she advised, and never let him know he’s getting to you.

I’ve encountered plenty of schizophrenic members of the British public on this job, and I’m loath to develop any comparable paranoia. I’d rather not think the police and town council of Chelmsford are actually out to get me, but indeed that seems to be the case.

Their first strategy is to cause physical discomfort. Usually we stash our purses, lunches and civilian clothing in a large waterproof bag and chain it to a post like most would lock a bicycle, so we’re more comfortable and agile while attempting to charm people in the street – but not in Chelmsford. In Chelmsford, that’s now illegal.

Until recently, as I'm told, kind shop workers took pity on our small groups, and offered to hold our things until the day’s end. But they’ve been ‘spoken to’, and it seems that’s no longer an option. So now we carry everything, all day long, and nurse our sore backs at the end. This tactic is subtle, but effective.

Seemingly convinced we’re criminals cleverly cloaked under the guise of charity branding, Chelmsford police are also rumoured to subject fundraisers to spontaneous criminal checks and enlist ‘mystery donors’ who are tasked with making us slip up to a reportable and ideally banish-able degree. Unfortunately for them, the company I work for drills fundraising ethics into the heads of new recruits from day one, we’re always very careful to let donors know exactly what they’re getting into, and none of us are convicts.

Still, it’s unsettling to do my spiel with a British officer circling me like a Great White, lunging in for nibbles of my shtick – his teeth almost visibly gnashing beneath his stiff upper lip.

There was nowhere to escape – the council has restricted fundraisers to working inside very specific areas of the high street, clearly marked by circular patterns in the bricks of the pedestrian lane. Not one foot was allowed to stray over the border of our small posts, but that was fine. We could do our jobs just as well with or without the freedom of mobility, I thought. But that was before they brought in the cavalry.

Naïve perhaps, it being my first day in Chelmsford, it surprised me that the police would not only force us to remain inside a very small space, but that they would also fill it with horses for our entire first shift of the day. When asked, the equestrian officers’ response was, “We’re on a job.”

So are we, I thought – and one of the horses made a large steaming deposit on the tiny bit of workspace which remained beside my co-workers – but yours is way shittier.

I took this on my lunch break, which, by coincidence or not, also happened to be when these officers and their horses moved on to greener pastures.

Say it to my face, but make it quick

There are two kinds of clipboards. The kind my boyfriend likes using to interview celebrities and festival goers, which attract 5-minute fame-seekers like free money, and the kind I've been issued for my new temporary job, which makes even grown men jump into traffic-heavy streets to avoid me.

That's the power I wield.

Since I have to work a student job for modest pay to stay afloat, despite having first graduated in the not-so-auspicious year 2000, until I find something better (wish me luck with my phone interview tomorrow), I suppose it's fortunate to have found one that comes with a superpower.

Given the choice, I'd have gone for the ability to fly, or to speak and understand every language of the world, but the power of repulsion is fascinating all the same.

Each morning in the blustery streets of London, I don a bright blue T-shirt emblazoned with UNICEF across my chest, hang the laurel of my ID badge around my neck, and tuck my clipboard as discreetly as possible under my arm, and become my alter-ego: The Bane of Your Existence.

I am a charity fundraiser for United Nations Children's Fund. And I am loathed.

Here, street fundraisers are also known as 'chuggers', short for 'charity muggers', and to be sure, some have earned the slander. I've been backed up against a post box, desperate for escape from an aggressive, toothy street fundraiser, and that's never made me sign up for anything. But my company has a strict no guilt, no pressure, no cornering and absolutely no flirting policy, so I have to use charm and logic to counter my unfortunate superpower, and that's really hard work in a city known for little eye contact or warmth of any kind.

So like a monkey, I dance. My sister calls it 'the dork dance', and it's the only thing I've come up with that makes even busy Londoners smile, even those who just really want to rant about charities overdoing their fundraising, the Credit Crunch, inept children who refuse to move out, student loans, medical bills, wives and husbands, having been declared legally insane, Gordon Brown, immigration, unwanted pregnancy and conspiracy theories. I haven't heard it all, but I expect I will by the end of today when I finish another shift at Brighton Pier.

Sure I look like an idiot, but amid the flow of thousands of people, I can easily slip into the shell of merciful anonymity - anonymity being London's only guarantee.

Thinking back to my early years studying Cultural Anthropology, as far as observation goes, I'm in a really good position. With license to speak to anyone, any trace of a stereotype I'd brought along was blown to bits in the first hour, though I'll admit seedlings of new ones are taking their place. Women, for example, can be very scary people. Old people aren't necessarily nice people. Saying 'good morning' is just as likely to receive a Big F as a 'good morning' in return. And the average Londoner is a terrible actor.

Just as I spot prospective donors 5 metres away, they spot me. Commonly, they'll pull a mobile phone out and fake a conversation, without bothering to turn it on. I'm both flattered that they'll go to so much effort to avoid having me say 'hello', and offended they think my powers of observation are so weak. In quieter areas, my presence parts the sea of pedestrians. They'll climb over bicycles, squeeze around lamp posts and dodge traffic to avoid me.

And then there are the runners.

While there are fewer, they're the best. These maintain composure until the very last moment, and then sprint just a little way. Just enough to get past me. Sometimes I feel like the oracle from that children's movie The Neverending Story, wondering, maybe even hoping I really might be able to zap those not true of heart with my laser eyes.

Some choose partial blindness and simply close their eyes while they walk past me. "I can still see you," I say with the same lilt I use when I play hide-and-seek with children who haven't quite figured out that you need to hide your whole body, and not just your head.

Others simply unload. They see my smile and 'hello' as an invitation to vent all their frustrations and disturbingly common racist views, and while I understand how this might happen when dealing with the general public, "F*ck you!' never really feels like an acceptable response to 'good morning', no matter what I might be wearing.

So, thankfully it's Friday, and I can come home and relax with all the reasons I have for enduring this sort of treatment: Friends, love and a new, albeit challenging, life in London.

That, and the fact that UNICEF really does do good work for children.

London calling

I went for an interview at a call-centre.

I know. I know.

But when the going gets tough, the tough'll do anything to stay afloat. That's what I tell myself. And being a foreigner and a job-seeker in the midst of credit crunch hysteria – melancholy so severe and so adored by Londoners that advertisers city-wide use it for rhymes and puns – I can't even splurge for the discounted 'Credit Crunch Lunch'. It's a blessing really, that food in England has the reputation it does.

Basically, if I can trade my time for money, I'll do just about anything until I can find a real job – one that's somehow, even mildly related to anything I learned during 8 years of university.

Getting hired by an inbound call-centre is harder than I'd anticipated. From a customer's perspective, it seemed anyone could get a job at one of these places. Anyone with the aptitude to speak a language and don a headset. Anyone with the ability to read a sales script like a robot and put me on hold. But it's just not that easy.

I found the ad on Gumtree – England's answer to Craigslist – and sent in my CV, claiming front-line customer service experience would fortify my PR skills, for my real profession. This became my mantra. I'd never pull it off if I didn't believe it.

Within a few days, I was called in for the first of two gruelling group interviews. Seated at a table with two nervous and sweaty men in cheap suits, I filled out the first of many forms. The Kiwi recruiter's bulging eyes – presumably a side-effect of years of forced enthusiasm – drilled through to my tarnished soul. She could see I have experience in PR but what, she wanted to know, have I done to qualify me for customer service. Could it be possible I'm not skilled enough for even this?

What came out of me next, I really don't remember. I'm pretty certain they were words, strung together, and I qualified for the big-time group interview. The one involving 35 other applicants vying for 12 open positions that would pay £6.50/hour. For those of you who need a conversion, that's just about not enough to actually live on. Or from my perspective, better than nothing.

After signing a contract surrendering my basic employment rights, I shook the recruiter's hand and headed home reciting my mantra to prepare for the next interview.

Business attire is mandatory, which is the company's first mistake.

On the wage the call-centre offers, such business attire will either have to be found, stolen or borrowed. Only the lucky few who've recently lost well-paying jobs might manage looking sharp at their stations. The working poor aren't generally noted for the contents of their wardrobes.

There were roughly 100 contestants waiting at the entrance of the brown brick building, which we were blocked from entering by two angry security guards, even when it began to rain.

I was the only woman not wearing spike heels, most of which were black patent leather, some of which were platform. I was also the only woman able to keep up with the dowdy interviewer when he led the herd of soggy ill-fitting suits and toddling prom queens to the board room.

The atmosphere was highly competitive, and we were warned to make ourselves stand apart from the crowd, to be a real 'shining star'. Scanning the room, I knew I'd already done it by virtue of being a sore thumb. This was a perfect hybrid of The Office and The X Factor, and I stand no chance in either.

First up was a written test for spelling, basic maths and common sense. Disturbingly, because numbers are generally gibberish to me, I was the first to finish. I asked to be excused to go to the toilet to call attention to my minuscule little victory. All those years of elementary school finally paid off, and someone was going to notice.

The final task, three hours later, after various painful group exercises designed to piss you off and see if you can handle it, was a 2-minute personal presentation about why you rock for the job and to share a favourite customer service anecdote. While I fear public speaking more than I fear traffic in London, thanks to Laurette and Yvette, this segment was my favourite of the day.

"I like talking," was the most popular opener, and I was pretty sure I could beat that. I formed words, strung them together and projected them to my catatonic audience, and I didn't even die of agoraphobia. Without knowing whether I'd bombed or aced, I was glad to have survived.

Next up was Laurette, a pretty girl whose hair was visibly glued on in the front, wearing her interpretation of business attire, an extremely mini skirt, in black. When the interviewer called for her to speak, she nervously adjusted her name card to face herself, again, and stood.

"You already know who you are! It's me, me who needs to find out!" yelled the interviewer – possibly the most disenchanted man in the world. She was chewing gum, and her skirt was caught on her thigh. Even I was trying to catch a glimpse of her underpants. When she sat down giggling, he called on Yvette.

Yvette was a robot. Everything she said came from a slow-motion teleprompter in her mind. She'd be perfect for this job, I thought, until she shared an anecdote of her experience in customer service involving drunks, police and possible law suits. And then suddenly her face lit up, showing evidence of life beneath her dense shell of beauty, and she finished with, "and then he vomited blood."

I was desperate to catch someone's eye, to make sure I'd not inadvertently fallen through a wormhole in the space-time continuum and landed myself in a dimension where a statement like this in a job interview had no comic value. But no one, not a soul would look at me, and I confirmed that I was indeed in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then I lowered my head and said a little prayer of thanks to my mother for not smoking crack while she was pregnant with me.

I left not knowing whether I was exactly wrong or exactly right for the job, but yesterday I got the call saying I could start next week. Politely, I declined.

And that's OK, because I start work on Tuesday for a different, unrelated job. One just as taxing, but which comes with a UNICEF t-shirt, twice as much pay and a little itty bitty more hope for future generations.

It's hard to know what to do when you're balancing good and evil.