Jan 24 2009
Playing Ketchup
Excellent. The open connection is still working, so I can continue catching up with things online. I was up til about 1:30 last night messing around with various websites and so on, for fear of losing any access today (or maybe just because I was enjoying myself!).
My partner’s having a good day today: she hasn’t had a drop since Thursday night and she’s working on preparing her interview.
It occurred to me that this might seem strange to many people: so much work just for an interview? This is where one of the big differences in people becomes apparent and my personal situation of carer is so very dissimilar to hers as the cared-for.
Me, I’m a “wing it” person. I do the minimum research before an interview and go in with the idea that if they like me, they’ll hire me. I have good experience, a solid grounding in my subject (I’m an IT geek) and years of working on a whole spectrum of different projects and in different roles. I know I’m a good deal for the money because I’ve already done the whole “work your butt off for stupidly large amounts of cash” thing and am now looking to chill out and do something I enjoy, even if I’m underpaid. That is, if I could actually work.
My lady, on the other hand, is anxious. That anxiety combined with the social phobia from which she suffers add up to a situation where she needs to be prepared as if she were going into an examination. She needs to have her responses to common questions prepared almost by rote, on the tip of her tongue. This helps her feel more secure.
From the practical point of view, she has les trous (literally ‘holes’) - sheets of paper with the questions and her answers, but with words or phrases missing. She works though these each day to reassure herself that she’s ready with her answers. It means a lot of writing on her behalf and a lot of photocopying on mine, but it’s worth it in the long run - we end up with some excellent phrases she can use in interview!
Two more days and we’ll see how it goes.
