Arty Bunny

"They forget that Jesus was politically incorrect from beginning to end"

I hope that you will find my unique Easter cards interesting... even if they are not politically correct...

Perfectly perfect

A friend of mine has posted today on his blog: “No more hiding from the truth: externally, I am repulsive, sickening, and that's a shame because really, I am quite a nice bloke.” His sentence has helped me to turn my anger and frustration into words rather than tears… So please find my story.

Externally I am shy, insecure and wordless, and that’s a shame because really I am quite an experienced, confident and smart person. I had an interview today. This meeting was divided into 3 parts. The first was a group task with other candidates. We were invited to a board room. This scene recalled me “The Apprentice” but rather than Lord Sugar we met there four quite nice interviewers. The task was a very basic and standard group exercise. Anyone who took part in a couple of serious interviews or was a student of any psychology related faculty knows this kind of exercise when a group of people has to imagine that they survive after the plane/ship/bus/whatever accident on the planet/moon/land/forest/whenever. They can take from the board only 5/10/15/however many items and then they need to prioritize the usability of these items individually then with the rest of the group. In the interviewers’ opinion I had good ideas but I was too shy to force them. Probably they were right. I was surrounded by 9 other desperate candidates who were ready to fight for the position. And they fought in English (btw, all of them were White British). I had to struggle not only with them but also with my language skills. Of course, it is not any excuse, but on the other hand I was brave enough to say loudly my point of view and I was smart enough to find another person who thought the same in order to have an ally. Does it really mean that I am too shy? Looking back, two of the items were finally chosen by the rest of the group in the order that I had suggested to them which was not bad, I believe. I wasn’t a fighter, it’s true. But in my opinion, communication is not a fight but it is a skill of listening to each other and understanding. Never mind, in the interviewers’ opinion I was too shy. Fair enough.

The next task was an individual exercise in Word and Excel. My Excel skills were rated quite high which was nice, especially because it was a very thorough task. What made me terribly frustrated was the interviewers’ opinion that an email written by me in Word wasn’t perfect. Obviously it wasn’t! FFS! They had invited for the interview a person who has been for 3 years in the UK, and so what had they expected?! But the most ridiculous thing was that they asked us to write an email to a person who didn’t reply to the previous messages. Neither this person responded to the emails from another member of staff. Of course I wrote the email as requested but I also emphasized that if this kind of situation happened I would rather call the person to check what’s going on. The interviewers said that it was the most appropriate answer for this task, and that I had been the only one person who had thought out of the box… but my email wasn’t perfect enough. My question now is: what’s the point of sending another bloody email, even perfectly perfect written and pray for an answer rather than simply call the person and ask to sort the problem out?

Externally I am shy, insecure and wordless, and that’s a shame because really I am quite an experienced, confident and smart person. Even if the third task remains mystery for me as they thanked me already at this stage, I need to remember that the word FEAR this time, as a thousand of times before, means to me Face Everything And Rise rather than Fuck Everything And Run… even if I really was close to run away…

Try to be a White Other… what is more, try to be an ambitious White Other… be so determined to use a foreign language even at home where is no need to do so... be so strong to cross your own limits a thousand of times destroying completely your comfort zone…  then send me your perfectly perfect email…