Well, today was the big fate-deciding day.
It was the day when the Co-Operative Funeralcare weighed me in the balance and decided whether they wanted me or not.
It didn’t start particularly well, actually it started last night after I had finished writing this and decided that I would pre-empt the morning’s trauma and decide what I would wear.
By one o’clock in the morning I was standing miserably in the middle of a crumpled pile of discarded unsuitable things, none of which made me look tall, slim, elegant or ten years younger, unhappily aware that all I had managed to organise for the morning was some black bags to go underneath my eyes, and had to give up and go to bed.
Mark worked late, so I got up on my own to do the school run in the morning, and then had to get back in bed for a reassuring cuddle when I got home. We started the day again then, and he kindly made me some coffee and offered to take me into Kendal for the interview.
In the end I settled on my splendidly repaired boots, my new minty-coloured shirt with a black jacket and trousers, a brooch that matched the shirt and my dignified pearl necklace and earrings. I put a lot of concealer on the black bags. I loathe make up and am of the opinion that my own face is perfectly good enough without having to paint another one over the top of it: but sometimes you have to bite the bullet, so I smothered myself in Dior foundation and Bluebell perfume and painted my eyelids and made my eyelashes blacker, and in the end actually the effect wasn’t all that bad for a short round scruffy elderly person.
I will tell you now that Kendal’s Co-operative Funeral Home is a jolly splendid place. It is imposing and a bit gothic and has plenty of handy parking space and lots of mysterious sheds at the back of it, and I was intrigued and impressed, and would have very much liked to go and have a bit of a poke around although of course restrained myself. The front door was large and polished at the top of some stone steps, and looked as though it should creak when I opened it, which disappointingly it didn’t.
Inside was not at all gloomy or gothic, but rather bright and centrally heated, and I discovered my interviewers on huge, squashy sofas in a very pleasant sitting room which only needed the fire lit to be quite the sort of place where you might find a huge golden labrador and men in tweeds drinking brandy after a morning’s shooting.
However, despite the glorious magnificence of the place, I must tell you now that I think that it is probably Not To Be.
The two interviewers were both area managers: to my amusement he asked the questions whilst she sat obediently and took notes despite, as far as I could tell, being slightly senior. He was robust and cheerful and I liked him, although suspected that he might be the sort of man who preferred his women to be mild and agreeable which I regret to say may rule me out.
Of course you start off with all the put-you-at-your-ease-tell-me-about-yourself rhubarb, which I did, and added why I thought that I would be superlatively brilliant at running a funeral parlour – no, beg your pardon, being a lowly administrative assistant and funeral arranger of course was what I meant.
I may then have come a bit unstuck when he asked me what I had enjoyed about the recruitment process, and I told him, in some uninhibited detail, exactly what I thought about it, and added some suggestions about how they might improve, to which he looked a bit uncomfortable and said that it wan’t exactly his field.
It went all right for a bit then, and I told them that I was wonderful, and they listened patiently and disbelievingly: except I messed up the bit where he asked if I minded dealing with dead bodies and I said that no, we used to kill our own pigs, and I had done plenty of skinning and gutting things, which made him look a bit confused and upset. Then we got to the Skills Section of the interview.
One of the scenarios in this was about how I would deal with an irritated and impatient solicitor. I have actually got quite a bit of experience in this department, so I said that I would listen and gave lots of detail about things I might say, but clearly missed the point, because he eventually interrupted: “But what would you do if he was on a different intellectual level to you?” – and I said without thinking: “Well, that’s hardly his fault, he still deserves a good service, I would be patient and explain more carefully.”
I didn’t realise that I had misinterpreted what he was getting at until I met his eye: and then made it worse for myself by saying, “but most of the solicitors that I know are pretty much on my intellectual level, by and large.”
He asked me then why I thought it was really important to be smartly dressed at all times, which was a bit awkward, because I don’t, mostly because I am naturally scruffy, but also because we have found that if we do things like go shopping when we are smartly dressed we get pounced on by salesmen selling expensive oil paintings and sales ladies from exclusive boutiques who practically dive out of the door and leap on you at the merest whiff of a husband in a Gieves and Hawkes jacket, especially if you are towing along children who are wearing the uniform of an expensive school: and unless you are very good indeed at saying no it costs a fortune. I can promise you scruffy is ace. You will be completely ignored. Get your children to wear a football shirt and chew gum and you will be left in peace to shop at your leisure.
Of course I couldn’t say that, so I came up with some faltering and untruthful rubbish about first impressions and common courtesy and some other blather, but he gave me a bit of a Hard Stare and I think he was not convinced, which was very sensible of him.
After that we had a skills test where I had to add up a column of figures with a calculator, which was a doddle after yesterday’s misadventures with the Inland Revenue: and then I had to go through a letter with a red pen and correct the spelling and punctuation.
I got really very enthusiastic about that, and corrected everything and then was enjoying myself so much that I got a bit creative and drew a line through parts which were clumsily phrased and made suggestions about how they could be better expressed. I got so carried away that when we got to the third bit which was use of computers and I had to transfer information from a paper onto a spreadsheet, I helped them out by correcting a couple of accidental mistakes they had made in that as well and explained what they could have done differently, and I think that he had had enough of me by then.
They will let me know next week. I don’t think in a million years they will give me a job, which is a shame because I would dearly like to go and investigate all their sheds and find out what happens to dead people and offer tissues and kindly words to sad ones.
I dived into the car and tore the smart clothes off in a car park on the way home and breathed a huge, relieved sigh to be back in my leaky old trainers and size-too-big jeans and comfortable jersey, and Mark laughed and took me for a congratulatory glass of wine, and I got home and scrubbed the horrible glutinous goo off my face and felt lovely.
I am unemployable.
LATER NOTE: PS. The Inland Revenue phoned up later to say they were wrong about the tax. I was very pleased. I thought you would like to know.
