I have recently been forced to seek work along with many other disabled folk here in the wonderful UK. Compared to the folk with advanced Parkinsons disease who are now forced into spending up to three hours a day seeking work I am very fortunate.
http://news.sky.com/...old-get-to-work
So as I always do as I am told I went looking for work. I sent the following e-mail to the six MP's in my local area.
Dear Name of MP,
I am currently seeking work and contacting you to enquire if you have any vacancies.
Although I have not been in paid employment for some time I have spent my time voluntary driving tens of thousands of miles over a fourteen year period for the North West Ambulance Service and Community Transport South Lakeland.
I have also done a great deal of research into Open Source computing and have been using a variety of Linux operating systems as my main operating system for ten years.As I know the government is committed to open source software I feel that this may be of use to you.
As I am not up to date with Health and Safety regulations or Employment Insurance constraints I feel obliged to inform you that I do have some long term health issues and have attached a letter from my doctor detailing some of them.
I have also attached my current CV.
Thank you for your time and I look forward to your reply.
All of them sent a reply. Five told me they had no vacancies and one told me they had vacancies and gave me the opportunity to apply for the post.
Four of the no vacancies were standard stock replies which I assume were dealt with by assistants this did not surprise me as MP's are busy folk with more important matters to deal with. Still it was nice to see that they had the decency to reply.
Here is the reply from the MP who actually read my plea.
Dear Mr Barbarian,
Many thanks for writing. I'm interested to read of your employment
history and imagine that your voluntary driving work must have been an
extraordinarily rewarding experience.
Your expertise is clearly in the field of IT and operating systems,
and thus I fear we would not have any work available that would suit
your needs, however we shall definitely keep your details on file and
will be in touch should things change. Meanwhile very best of luck
with your job search and, should I hear of anything suitable for you,
I shall be in touch.
With best wishes,
Rory
Rory Stewart MP
Penrith and The Border
www.rorystewart.co.uk
I thought that was a very decent reply. I will be contacting Rory again regarding open source as he seems to be a nice sensible chap.
An here ................. wait for it..................... is the reply detailing a possible opening. Funnily enough this is from my very own MP.
Dear Barbarian,
Thank you for your email. Tim has asked me to reply on his behalf. The local Liberal Democrats are currently recruiting for telelphone interviewers, working casual evening shifts of 2.5 hours, typically on a Monday evening. The pay is £7 per hour. I have attached a copy of the job description and person specification.
If you'd like to apply, please could you send me a brief covering letter explaining why you're interested in the role and how you feel your skills and experience meet the person specification?
With best wishes,
Andy
On 29 October 2014 16:54, Tim Farron MP <(e-mail address removed)> wrote:
So naturally I replied,
Dear Andy
Thank you for your reply and the chance to apply for the Telephone Interviewer vacancy.I think that I have all the skills needed for the position and have relevant experience in those areas.That is apart from " Prior experience of recording information on electronic databases. D" though I did maintain a database of clients on a WordStar 95 when running my own business.
I do have IT skills in Microsoft operating systems XP and 7.My main area of interest and experience lies in linux operating systems and have run Arch linux as my main workhorse for five years. I am self taught so I do have some gaps in my knowledge base.
My experience of telemarketing is limited, consisting of several months fund raising part time for Barnardos Homes.This was while I was setting up Dragon Defence Training and does not show on my CV.
Voluntary driving for Community Transport South Lakeland and the North West Ambulance Service involved regular lengthy trips of several hours with a wide cross section of society. So I have had to learn how to get along with all sorts of viewpoints in a polite and professional manner.
I do have a long standing interest with politics and have voted in every general election since I left school. Over the years I have voted for all the main parties. However since I moved to the lakes I have voted for the Liberal Party. Mainly for the sterling work done in trying to keep a decent NHS service in the local area.While I may not be a dyed in the wool party member I think my idea of what a decent country should be like is similar to the Liberal Democrats.
Thank you once again for giving me the opportunity to apply for the vacancy.I have attached a copy of my CV to this e-mail.
Mr A Barbarian.
I would have replied sooner but as the attached screenshot shows even though I am only three miles out of Kendal my broadband speed for the majority of the weekend was barely half that dial up speed. While this did allow me to be on the internet I could not open my Gmail account or almost any site at all due to requests timing out.
Here is the screenshot I sent with the application.
An twelve hours later
Hi Barbarian,
Thank you for your email and the enclosed application. Don't worry about the delay, these things happen!
Would you be free to come into the office for a chat sometime this week? We're open between 9 and 5 during the week. If not, we'll be here on Monday night till 8pm (as that's when we do the phoning).
I hope to hear from you soon.
Thanks, Andy
I may have shot myself in the foot here. I may have to take up employment.What a conundrum.
So will I have a job by tomorrow ??
Great stuff Abarbarian, good luck all of us will be thinking of you, well done
