Dear John

Ah!! Now I remember. That's when I was just right for promotion!


I was reminded yesterday of a great line from that blackly-funny but seemingly forgotten sit-com "Dear John".
When asked for his thoughts on promotion, the late Ralph Bates - who played the hang-
dog hero - said: "I remember the days when I was told I was too young for promotion. I also seem to recall the days when I was told I was too old for promotion. I'm not sure when I was just right for promotion.........I think I must have been on holiday."
I have always empathised with that experience and something akin to it reared its head again yesterday.
Among the myriad jobs I have applied for was one as a Grand Wizard in the press office at a county council. I was asked along for an interview there on Monday and they all seemed a jolly decent bunch of coves, I have to say.
I had, it turned out, made it onto a shortlist of three and when I saw the other two candidates I thought I was probably in with a good chance. One was a spotty Herbert in his 30s who, when I asked him if he had come far, said: "No, not really. I live just down the road with my mum." Hardly the fiercesome sort to strike terror into the press and rule a communications empire with a rod of iron, I reasoned.
The other was one of those sorts of women - well, I think she had negotiated puberty, albeit not too successfully - who seem to be all the rage in journalistic circles these days. Clutching a bottle of mineral water, she had a Henry V haircut and a face like a camel sucking a biscuit. To enhance the look she wore Harry Potteresque bins, a woolly, polo-neck sweater-affair, flame-retardant, black, four-million-denier tights, a plaid ra-ra skirt and Doc Martin boots. She was, in truth, a walking contraceptive. The only words she spoke came when I asked if there were any good pubs in the vicinity. "I don't drink!" she said curtly. Good God, I thought! A completely dessicated person!! "Try Our New Instant Journo - Just Add Water and Serve!"

Anyway, to cut an already tedious story a tad shorter, I did my "thang" in the interview with three council bods - I was, naturally, brilliant - and then, despite producing a portfolio of press clippings, sample releases, project reports and testimonials, I was asked to write a press release from some notes they shoved in front of me. Now that may seem a logical thing to ask, from an outsider's point of view, but I have been a hack for close on 25 years. I find the request not only somewhat redundant but also insulting. I mean, do you think that if Dr Christian Barnard had turned up for an interview at Deathtown Health Trust he would have been asked to perform open-heart surgery on Wilkinson from accounts who just happened to be standing in the corner? Would Karl Marx have been asked to go and form a Communist state? How about Oppenheimer? Do you think he was asked to knock up an atom bomb while a bunch of "suits" at the interview checked over his O-Level certificates? You get my drift, I think.

Well, yesterday I rang up to see how I had fared and I received the kind of news life has taught me to expect - bad news. The council supremo was a lovely lass and she was genuinely embarrassed and clearly felt awkward at having to "Dear John" me and say that I had not been successful. C'est la vie. No worries. Every penny don't fit the slot, I thought. No doubt the closet paedophile/serial killer and Anhydrous Annie had hidden depths and talents which put me in the shade.
Before wishing the lovely supremo a fond farewell and asking her to bear me in mind for any future jobs, I asked, as is my custom after failed interviews, for some pointers on where I had fallen down and in which areas I was deemed to have been weak.
"None," she replied.
"None! There must have been some, surely, otherwise I would have got the job?"
"No," she stuttered, "We just felt....we felt....well..... that perhaps you were too experienced."
"Sorry?"
"I mean, you have such a wide ranging background we thought the job would have bored you. We wanted someone who would be with us for the long-term."

Now maybe I am being naiive. Maybe that was a euphemism for "old". Ageism is supposedly against the law these days but how do you prove it? The job spec did not mention anything about having to have hair and all your own teeth. There didn't appear to have been a bar on anyone who could remember Pickety Witch, "Make Your Mind Up Time" or Atom Ant. I didn't see anything about "physically repulsive individuals will not be considered" - if there had been something to that effect then the Christie look-alike and Little Miss Drypants would also have been barred.

So, in a non-cynical spirit I will accept the words at face value - I am, apparently, "too experienced". I remember when I used to be told that I hadn't got enough experience. I wonder where I was on holiday when I had just the right amount?

Nothing for Grantham today apart, I suppose, from job-hunting and interviews.