Cardiff
In autumn 2004, I was invited for an interview for a job at Cardiff Law School (Hello, Søren! Hello, Nicky!). I didn't get it, but the person who did got a promotion somewhere else after a year, and so I was reinterviewed in August 2005.

The first time around, I had been accommodated in a lovely B&B. I couldn't remember what it was called, but asked the university to book m in somewhere on the assumption that they'd use the same place - a prospect that pleased me. They didn't.

I turned up to the place they chose this time. From the outside, it looked pretty tatty - and I had plenty of time to study the outside because the front door was locked and there were no lights on. I rang the place, explaining that I had a reservation and that I was stood outside. The manager told me to wait ten minutes.

Once inside, there seemed to be no record of my having booked in; I was invited to wait on the stupendously uncomfortable sofa. The manager reappeared after a while and asked me to follow him and led me to my room.

The place smelled of old fags and there were dog-ends on the landing carpet. In the next room, I could hear a TV (and would go on to hear it all night, too). There was neither a supply of teabags nor a kettle on the nasty G-Plan dresser.

Later, as I climbed into the tiny bed, I made a mental note to be sure to sleep in a sort of "C" shape, the better to avoid contact with the strange stain on the sheet. Plumping up the pillow a little, I caught sight of a bloodstain. I tried not to think about that as I turned it over.

The sound of the TV from the next room was consonant with the sound of the leaky showerhead in the bathroom, next to my room on the other side. (En suite? Pah! My room had only a small, dirty basin.) When I attempted a shower in the morning, more water came out of the leak than out of the showerhead proper - and it was cold water, anyway. When I tried to turn off the shower, the whole unit fell off the wall. I opted to wash from the basin instead. At least that had hot water.

I growled as I left - and I left as soon as reasonable - and arrived for my interview, unslept and feeling filthy, after having sat in the park talking to a tramp for a good while. He was a nice man who sympathised with my woes. Some hours later, after the interview, I realised that I'd left something at the B&B, and had to go back before getting my train. Unsurprisingly, my room had not been touched.

Did I get the job? No. But I didn't mind that. I was more worried about getting scabies.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 10:14, Reply)