I had the interview

OK, so I took all your advice, left Hector at home, and went to the interview. It wasn't in a disused quarry - that would have been spooky. No, it was a fully functional working quarry. All very fascinating. Not only were they blasting rocks - and apparently some of my job would be to deal with importing the explosives - but also, there's this bit of the quarry which they have to keep quiet about, because there might be some very valuable artefacts waiting to be dug up there. They hinted that it might even be the bones of Richard VI, who died in battle on that very site. So they couldn't show me into that bit of the quarry, but there was plenty else of interest.

But back to the beginning. I arrived, and was the focus of rather too much attention from a couple of enthusiastic Dobermanns. Not my favourite breed, and I'm a bit of a newcomer to the world of dog ownership, so I don't want to be judgmental, but I'd say that dogs that size need to be more firmly handled. They really weren't very well controlled at all. Luckily, my coat pockets these days are full of poo bags and treats, so I was able to stop them jumping up and slobbering over my nice interview clothes with a little morsel of kibble. Kibble might be a girl's best friend, in fact.

After I got past the dogs, a couple of nice men came and said they'd show me round. The first asked if he could look after my phone while I was there, which was terribly kind of him. It would be embarrassing to be interrupted in an interview, if you forgot to switch the phone off. He didn't seem very forthcoming, but the other man, the one with the metal teeth, was very friendly, and kept smiling at me, to put me at my ease.

They showed me the stagnant lake at the bottom of the quarry, and then the areas where the blasting takes place, and also this really fun bit where there's a huge crusher, and lots of old cars. It's a scrap metal business, but they called it "destroying the evidence" every time one of the cars was hoisted up by that huge magnet and dropped into the crusher. A good sign, definitely. I like working with people with a good sense of humour.

Then they took me in to see the boss, and he was also very kind. Asked all about my husband and family, and whether they'd miss me if I disappeared. Seemed a slightly odd way of assessing a candidate's self-esteem, but I'm wise to these psychological tests that they slip into interviews these days. No flies on me. Oh yes, interviews are quite the challenge these days. It used to be all verbal question and answer stuff, but not any more. Now it's all problem-solving exercises. So when they got the handcuffs out and snapped them round one of my wrists, attaching it to the chair, I just smiled and said "I suppose you're going to leave me here now, aren't you?" Spot on, of course. They walked off, but as they left, one of them sketched out the team-building exercise. "Someone'll be in to help you soon. Enjoy yourself, ha ha ha..." - as I say, I do like a sense of humour in a colleague, and so I joined in the laughter, to show that I, too, can have a laugh in the workplace.

The two other interviewees arrived, to help with the team challenge. I don't want to be smug here, but honestly, I did wonder if they were quite in the same league as me. Firstly, they weren't at all suitably dressed. I know I'm a little old-fashioned, but I do believe in covering up for an interview. If you have to wear a lace-up corset under your clothes to hold in those little flabby bits, fair enough. But for heaven's sake, don't forget to put your blouse on top before you leave the house! And perhaps black leather shorts and thigh boots are fashionable in Eastern Europe, but here in Britain, in February, I did think they weren't very suitable interview wear. They could have popped into John Lewis on the way, surely.

The team challenge was tricky, as the two other girls only spoke broken English, and at first I had no idea why they wanted to know where the nearest chemist was. I tried to explain that English words can have different meanings in Britain and America (and I mentioned my blog at this point - thought it was good to get that one in). When they kept on and on, asking about drugstores and drugs, I explained that in British English, we call them chemists, or pharmacies, and that I didn't know where the nearest one was, though I remembered driving past a Boots not far back. Then I finally worked it out. One of them must have had a bad headache, because she was very persistent in her questioning, and got so heated that she started slapping my face, and at that point, I can tell you, I was seriously worried about the outcome of the team challenge. Luckily, I had a packet of ibuprofen in my bag, which I offered her for the headache, though she didn't express much gratitude. Huh. So much for being good in a group situation.

Anyway, it was soon time to go home (the "handcuffed to the chair" thing - not as hard as it seems, at least not for someone who's operated a blog on Blogger for the past 5 years). I couldn't find anyone to show me out, which I thought was a bit odd, and it would be quite nice to get my phone back. I'm guessing that how I deal with that all feeds into the psychometric profiling. All in all, I came away with a positive impression of the organisation. I'll let you know when I hear from them.

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