Friday

Here we are - another Friday! What a week it's been. On Tuesday my father-in-law took ill (went out like a light and then was quite sick), so we had to call the ambulance. A paramedic arrived with all the hi-tech diagnostics equipment; an ambulance crew soon arrived on the scene. He was rushed into the Royal Infirmary, where he was kept until yesterday. He's now out of hospital and back home; it appears that he has a slow heartbeat, and this may be the cause of the problem. He's fine again, but in the new year he'll have to go in as an outpatient and be rigged up with a 24-hour ECG monitor. It may be that he'll need a pacemaker.

With my son-in-law's ongoing heart issues, this, my other son-in-law's job situation (glad to say, safe) and my unemployment, it's been (in the sense of that well-known Chinese curse) an interesting time.

Yesterday I had a phone call from a job agency in London. Would I like a contract postion in systems security in Cheltenham? I asked if this was for GCHQ, but the gentleman at the other end wasn't going to be drawn. He did however ask me if I had security clearance, thus answering the question for me. I really don't want to have to board in Cheltenham during the week and come home for weekends. Nothing personal against this branch of the Civil Service - I'd happily apply for a job there if it were nearer home.

This afternoon I have another appointment with the Job MAETS centre; I hope it'll be constructive. I have one or two ideas of what I would like to do for the rest of my working life, and they don't involve supporting crappy systems and raking through other people's codal abominations. The other thing I've come to realise is that competency-based questioning is de rigeur in all sections of IT. So if I'm to be asked at every interview "Can you give us a specific example  of a scenario where you found a solution for a system error?" - I'm going to be flummoxed every time, as I've solved hundreds of calls like that, but I don't have the type of memory to store such rubbish. My brain finds room for more interesting things. I don't believe in making up stories at interviews; if I did, I'd already be a novelist or journalist!