Google is no different

... from the other big companies that treat people like shit. When it comes to recruitment anyway. So here's the end game.

First things first, the rejection letter:


Fair enough. I can handle rejection. What I can't handle is being made to wait close to 4 weeks, and me having to chase them up for an answer. I had initially been told that it would take 2 weeks max after the interview for someone to get back to me. Next thing you know, Jimbo from Google HR is on holidays to Thailand, and nobody else can tell me what's going on. Company policy.

My interview was on the 31st August, I didn't get a response till the 26th September. I would expect this kind of behaviour from a cruddy blood sucking recruitment agent, but not from Google HR. I don't know about anyone else, but before I go on holidays, I always do a handover of all my outstanding tasks. That way, people aren't depending on me when I leave the country.

Secondly, I got a verbal offer to contract with Google for 3 months in a different role, but within the same team. The idea was to "grow" me into the role I had initially applied for. Of course I agreed, working for Google's an opportunity too good to pass up. So I asked, "How long will this take to turn around?" The answer I was given, "Really fast, I can get this happening by the end of the week." In the meantime, my task was to find out market rates and get back to Google. Which I did.

Did I hear back? No.

Any response to my email enquiries? No.

So I call back. Numerous times during the next few weeks. I get the following excuses from Google HR:
- Really busy, couldn't get to it. Budget meeting arranged for next week.
- Budget meeting fell through, the Budget-Guy is sick.
- Budget-Guy is online, but can't manage to talk to him. Will keep trying.
- Budget-Guy was sent to Mountain View, he just returned and has locked himself up in his office.

I understand that things get in the way of the best of intentions. However, what *absolutely* shits me, is that at no time did Google HR _bother_ to keep me up to date with whatever's been happening. No calls, no emails, no updates. Radio silence. The verbal offer was made on the 26th September, my final talk to Google HR was today, the 31st October. That's another 4 weeks that this has dragged on for. From start to finish, the total time has been about 8 weeks of fucking around on their side, and still no answer! In the meantime, I've signed on with a different company because I need the squiddies.

Pretty shit treatment from a company renown for treating its employees really well.

Personally, I don't think it's the company that gets things wrong, I think it's the attitude of Brits towards work. I get the feeling that people don't try to get things done here. Or there's no logic in the way they approach doing things. I was honestly tempted to screenshot and blog about my current project's ridiculous directory structure on the network drive. It's the most inefficient way of organising documents I've ever seen. But, that's another rant for another day :P

Happy Halloweenie!

Bad taste?

Usually, I don't watch South Park unless I've read about the latest scandal in the episode via news or blogs. So when I read various news articles about last week's ep being in bad taste for portraying Steve Irwin with a stingray in his chest, it was definitely one I wanted to watch.

You know what? South Park could've done a LOT worse to Steve Irwin's memory. Steve Irwin was in the cartoon only long enough to get kicked out of Satan's halloween party. About a minute. Even Satan thought it was too soon to dress up like Steve Irwin! So here's my question to you, of the images below, which do you find more offensive in context?

Steve Irwin with a stingray in his chest

or
Dahmer having sex with intestines from a murder victim?

Btw, for _the_best_ episode of South Park ever (IMHO), check out Season 10 Episode 8, "Make Love not Warcraft".

Karma

Yup, it had to happen eventually. I was pickpocketed whilst shopping :( It's a heartbreaking moment when you realise your handbag is mysteriously open and your wallet suddenly void of the fifty quiddies you were planning to spend on shoes. Someone stole my shoe money :( It could've been worse, a lot more stuff could've been taken - mobile, passport, credit cards, etc. But all I lost was the money. I'm normally pretty careful with my bag, and I can't remember a moment when this could've happened. Someone actually had the time to open my bag, dig through it, go to the side pocket, take out my wallet, remove cash, and put it back in.

Karma schmarma. I'd been good to people that day. Lugging prams up and down stairs at the tube station for mothers. I guess bad things don't need a reason to happen.

The worse part of the day? There was no size in any of the shoes I liked :(

Time flies

Yup, it's six months already.

I remember feeling so lost in the crowd when I first arrived. I had no idea where tube stops were, or which direction I should walk to get home. The other day, I realised I was walking around Rondon without pulling out my A-Z every five mins :)

Six months since I left home. It feels longer, but at least it's getting easier.

5am for fish

I had to wake up at 530am this morning. The fish market starts packing up at 730am, can you believe? Was it worth it? Hell yeah :) We came back with:
- 4kgs mussels
- 2 kgs prawns
- 3 bewdiful sea basses
- a bunch of razor clams!!

Our dinner and a comparison of B's finger to prawn

I spent the majority of today scrubbing mussels (hard work!) and eating fresh seafood *yumm* The only problem with Billingsgate Market is that most stalls only sell BOXES of produce. Whilst a 2kg box of prawns will feed us for a few days (we've already got plans for Viet summer rolls), a box of 13 fishies is going to make us sick of fish for the rest of the year! The huge tub of fresh scallops were also a tempting buy, but meant we would have to throw some sort of scallop party to use it up.

Rondoners - Billingsgate is definitely worth a visit. Especially when you get that fresh seafood hankering. This weekend is going to be seafood paella weekend at our house :)

Google Analytics

D introduced me to Google Analytics, and I'm trying not to become an obsessive compulsive who checks it all the time. It basically gives the stats on what attracts traffic to my blog. What I found hilarious though is this:

There's obviously a demand for butt plugs in this world *grin*

Another weekend, another timezone

A 4 hour flight from Sydney will land you in Darwin. A 4 hour flight from Rondon, landed me in Istanbul :) City of men that look like Borat, and kebabs. Even though it's Ramadan atm, there were kebabs everywhere. For someone that doesn't like lamb much, I ate a lot of it over the weekend!

Istanbul has to be the most disorganised city I've visited so far. Catching public transport isn't the easiest thing to do here. Buses don't really stop at bus stops, and bus stops don't really tell you what buses stop there. When we finally did get on the bus, the driver didn't want to accept our pre-paid bus tickets, and the bus was going in the wrong direction. How were we to know there were two places called Tokapi? Which led us to catch two trams back to where we wanted to go. It's a good thing we woke up early that morning :)

Culturally, I'm not quite sure if the Turkish are out to rip me off, or are genuinely being nice. Prices were sometimees exorbitant. 8 lira (equivalent to AUD$8) for a turkish coffee and apple tea? Something smells fishy, and it's not B's lunch breath *grin* The odd thing is, if you act like you don't have enough money, the waiter will say, "It's okay, don't worry". They're ready to give it to you for free or for less than they originally charged you. We even managed to get breakfast for free one morning. So it's a little odd. I think they're nice enough people, but they're also opportunists. As a foreigner who doesn't understand the language or culture, it's hard to argue over prices. If I was in Asia I'd at least try and bargain, but in Turkey, I didn't really want to end up in jail for offending a male.

Which brings me to the next point - LOTS of males. Where on earth are the females? Having grown up in a Muslim country, I didn't expect to be surprised by anything I saw in Istanbul. However, there is a distinct lack of women on the streets. Men are everywhere. Everyone who approached me at the Grand Bazaar was a man. I barely saw any women. The only place I saw women, was at a mosque. Even then, the women were at the back and behind a screen, only men were allowed to pray at the front.

Regarding safety, travelling in Istanbul seemed perfectly fine. No scary militia standing around unless you're at the Dolmabahçe Palace. In a way it's like Rondon. Danger's always lurking beneath the surface, and you're never going to know when or where the next catastrophe will happen.

Favourite memory? Learning how to smoke the hookah (as in a water pipe, not a dead prostitute) with B :)

Breaking barriers

T: "C'mon! It'll be fun!"
Me: "No it wouldn't, it'll be laaaame!"
But I'm glad T made me do it :)

Something suspicious was happening at Liverpool St tube station. People were flocking to the center of the station. Cops were milling around. Cameras and mp3 players were everywhere. Everyone had their eyes on the giant clock on top of the announcement board... 19:23:57, 19:23:58, 19:23:59, 19:24:00 - "WOOOOOHOOOO!" The crowd raises a massive cheer and start to dance to their own music! Flashmob! The email was right:

"DO NOT WORRY YOU WILL NOT BE ALONE"

Six minutes later, we got off the dance floor and went to get a better view of what was happening. We left, went for a drink, had KFC for dinner and came back an hour and a half later just in time to catch the end of the flashmob. Thanks T and B for helping me break my "too cool for school" barrier :)

Land of Chocolate (and Beer)

I was living Homer's dream on the weekend :)

I have no idea why chocolate's soo good in Belgium, but I was on a constant sugar high for three days. It's impossible to escape. I ingested so much sugar, I had trouble sleeping at night.

If I wasn't chocolate munching, I was beer chugging!

And yes, I did manage to stop eating long enough to see the sights of Brussels.

Teaser

Guess where I've been this weekend? :)

Late night cinema (Part II)

I've become a really big fan of Kubrick's artistic direction. My mostest favouritest movie of all time is The Shining. It's beautiful to watch. Scary too. Kubrick took a very typical Stephen King novel and turned it into a brilliant screenplay. It's number one on my list. If you don't have time to watch it though, here's a re-enactment by bunnies in 30 seconds. And you can read some fascinating stuff about the Overlook Hotel and how the movie was filmed here.

Scene from The Shining

Other worthy Kubrick mentions are A Clockwork Orange, Dr Strangelove and Full Metal Jacket. Although I found A Clockwork Orange's themes of violence and rape a bit passe (it's not my fault I'm desensitized, it's our generation's attitude to anything taboo these days), the movie is soo confrontational about it and way ahead of its time. I can see how scandalous A Clockwork Orange would've been back in the 70's, I almost wish I was old enough to have watched it back then. Dr Strangelove was an unexpected discovery. I never knew of Peter Sellers' talent as an actor until I saw this movie.

FORGET Spartacus and 2001. *UGH* I made myself sit through Spartacus. I couldn't handle 2001 though. The screeching monkeys-that-looked-like-humans-dressed-as-monkeys was more than I could handle.

Last note on Kubrick, what I love most about watching his films, was discovering where all the cult references we see in movies and TV today come from.

Butt plugs & Gimp gear (NSFW)

Note: The links aren't safe for work either.

At the risk of sounding depraved, curiousity got the better of me and I visited three sex-shops-for-people-like-you-and-me today. The ones that go out of their way to be customer friendly and inviting to girls as well as guys. They were all on the way home :P

It's funny, the only other time I've ever been to a sex shop (I swearz!) was when I went shopping for a friend's 21st birthday present. We ended up in Newtown, in a dimly lit seedy sex shop, giggling over dildos. The shop guy (who had butt pr0n going on behind the counter), even pulled out the latest product (made out of flesh coloured silicon, very realistic for those days) and let me prod it *jiggle* *jiggle* We left the shop with a raunchy pair of... furry handcuffs for our friend's birthday gift. Lame, I know :) Incidentally, butt-pr0n-guy told us that video booths are all furnished with vinyl for ease of cleaning. Everything gets hosed down...

Anyways, first up was Coco de Mer. It was two doors down from my coffee shop and I was quite surprised at how classy the shopfront looked. It took me awhile to realise it was an adult shop. Looking at lingerie prices, this is probably where celebs shop when they feel kinky. This place had an abundance of feathered ticklers, and things that looked more appropriate for elegantly whipping a horse.

Secondly, I went into Ann Summers. I think Ann Summers is actually the first shop to crack the niche for women-friendly adult shops. Lingerie here is affordable, but, has that "made in China" feel to it. From the outside, it just looks like a normal lingerie shop. Compared to Coco de Mer, it's not very exciting *yawn*

Lastly, I went into Harmony. This shop looked the most intimidating. From the front, you see nothing but heavy curtains pulled across the shop windows. No peeking in to see what's inside. When you go in, everything's pink and brightly lit! I was a bit surprised by the rows and rows of vibes out on display for the customer to play with. Not that anyone was brave enough to turn one on :) All I can say is, rabbits are _the_ animal of choice at the moment. I was about to leave the shop when it started pouring, so back in I went and thought I'd go downstairs to check out the fetish zone. I hit PAYDIRT! It made me realise a lot of effort was going into making sex toys more visually appealing these days. Does a butt plug really need a gem at the end of it?

"You want to put what, where??"

Racks and racks of gimp gear!
To tell the truth, I've only ever seen the ball-gag thingy in movies.

I was going to try on a pink rubber dress for fun. But the thought of sweat in the dress from other people who have tried it on before me, put me off the whole idea. Wonder what people would say if I turned up at a wedding in a rubber dress (it was quite pretty) :) Ula, I have an idea for the bridesmaid dress *big grin*

Late night cinema (Part I)

Playing most nights on my lovely widescreen 15" MBP display. I've watched a lot of movies lately...

From the Kubrick collection:
- The Shining
- A Clockwork Orange
- Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
- Full Metal Jacket
- Spartacus
- 2001: A Space Odyssey

Always listed somewhere in some top 100 films of all time list:
- Citizen Kane
- Cidade de Deus (City of God)
- Brazil

Recommended to me:
- Silent Hill
- The Party
- Sexy Beast

Misc:
- Fight Club
- Huo Yuan Jia (Fearless)
- Le Diner de Cons (The Dinner Game)
- Angel-A
- Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit