J. Arthur Rant

Last week it was pedestrians, but for months it's really been other drivers, the kind we in Chez Hall have Christened "Go On, Hit Me" drivers. The people behind the steering wheel of the car that just treat other road users like unwilling participants in games of chicken. If you drive, you know the sort, the drivers who just pull out, because they know you'll stop, because the alternative is you crash into them and these arseholes know that you're going to stop. Probably the main reason why this happens is because most sensible drivers look at the no good pieces of shite driving the 'Go On, Hit Me' car and see NO INSURANCE writ large in invisible letters above their grinning (often Eastern European or black) heads.

Now, I know that last statement is tantamount to being incredibly racist, but it's a fact for me, because the majority of these fucktards are. I don't know if its the culture of whatever country they hail from or if they just have the common decency of a porn actress, but twice today on my way home from work I fell victim to this kind of devil-may-care driving; but fortunately for me, the second one didn't go the way he planned it.

Now, people not from my town will not understand the geography of this, but I pulled out of the T junction at St Edmunds Road lights and turned right into the main road; about 50 yards further on from this turn is a little cul-de-sac which houses a car park, next to the spread Eagle pub. This ethnic gentleman saw me driving towards him and just pulled out to turn right, or into the oncoming traffic to me. There was no gap for him, there wasn't a willing driver to let him in and I was just about on his Fiesta's arse, but he went anyhow; blocking my road to the point where I had to stop very sharpish and then forcing his way into the traffic flow in the direction he wanted, prompting a few horns and disgruntled looking drivers. By this time I had my window down and was calling him a 'wanker' and he just looked at me and stuck his tongue out. Now, to be fair, it was an amusing reaction; far better than swearing or giving me the finger, but the point is he was rude, dangerous and obviously a massive cunt.

45 minutes later, taking the dogs out, I took a right hand turn by a black of flat with a junior school situated behind it. The road is pretty much clear, and the road to the school has almost perfect vision from it to the road I'm on. You literally need to be blind to not see a mouse scuttling up the main road. I'm driving up and suddenly there's this Ford Galaxy pulling out in front of me. Now, I had to hit the brakes so hard it activated the ABS, which only really comes on in icy conditions, but if I hadn't, I would have ploughed into the front of the people carrier doing about 30mph. The driver looks at me like I'm in the wrong and reverses back into the feeder road he was attempting to come off. I had my window rolled down again and I stopped directly in front of him, so he wasn't going anywhere. He had, it should be noted, four kids in the car.

"What the fuck do you think you were doing?" I shout at him.

"Don't swear, I've got kids in the car." He says indignantly.

"I don't fucking care; you almost drove straight into me!"

"I didn't see you."

"You didn't see this!!!" I said, waving my arms in a general fashion at my own people carrier called a Vauxhall Zafira. "You weren't watching where you were going, were you?" No answer, just a sour expression on his face. "Just watch where you're going mate if you don't want your kids to be orphans," I bellowed at him as I drove off.

In my rear view window I saw him giving me the wanker sign - some fucking good impression he's giving the kids in his car. He also is a massive cunt.

***

That's not it though... Yesterday, I heard about a job I could do and then found out that I needed to get my application in by midday today. I went to the website, downloaded the application form and the relevant documents. It was a job I could do with my eyes closed. Tried to open the application form and found that it was in Microsoft Excel - an application I don't have on my machine. The file did open in Works but the 7 pages were all broken into separate pages and the formatting was completely buggered. I couldn't read the thing, let alone fill it in. I spent nearly an hour trying to essentially rebuild the document, but gave up when I'd not even managed to get the first page to work.

I agonised for a while and then decided to update my CV and send them that with a covering letter, explaining that I don't have Excel on my computer and that the only way I could apply for the position was by sending them my CV. I pointed out that I would happily fill in an application form, but had no way of doing that and getting it to them by the close, so as long as they were aware of my interest, could I fill one in at a later date and they use my CV as a reference point. It was very nice, clearly worded plea for help and I was hoping that the organisation would be understanding.

I received a reply at 9.58am this morning; 2 hours and 2 minutes before deadline. The email essentially said they do not accept CVs, which I expected; I even mentioned this in my covering letter and would I read the attached Guideline for Applications and fill in the attached application if I was still interested... The Guideline for Applications had nothing in it at all about being unable to read or format the application, just stated that I couldn't apply with a CV and the application that was attached was the same one as I downloaded. I was in work and we have Excel, so I thought I'd fill it in there. I opened it up and the first thing that greeted me was that the file was generated on a later edition of Excel so there would be a loss of formatting. Oh fucking marvellous. I then discovered that the application was created using Microsoft Office 2010, while the version we use at work is 2003. I emailed the woman who had proved to be no fucking good at all and explained this to her. her response was that if I was unable to complete the application, I would not be able to apply for the job...

My reply asked her if she had any suggestions as to how I could solve the problem, or if she could save the application as an older version and send it to me. She suggested I print it out! I replied and said a printed version looked like a dog's dinner and had no formatting and that as it was now close to 11am, I would never fill it out in time and get it to Kettering before the deadline. Her reply was that she had no alternatives and was sorry but I probably wouldn't be able to apply. I got a wee bit annoyed. I replied stating that if I'd known about the job earlier than yesterday I would have attempted to do something about it and that I found her very unhelpful and disinterested and I asked her for a contact number of her boss.

She replied at 11.18, with the details I asked for and informed me that her boss was on annual leave. I figured I'd fill the application form in as best I could, but at 11.45, I discovered that the section for previous employment would not allow me to add more than one job. I emailed useless woman again and received no response, so at 11.56am, I cut and pasted my employment history from my CV into the document. it filled 7 pages of a column less than 9 characters wide; but it was there. I whizzed through the rest of the application, noticed that all manner of spurious information from other pages had appeared in all manner of places, but there was nothing I could do about it.

I attached the document to an email, wrote a quick note explaining what I'd done and that I was by no means happy with my application and would this unhelpful woman see to it that whoever processes my application is made aware that I could not fill it in properly because of all the reasons I'd stated earlier. I have received no reply, not have I received the confirmation I asked for. I said to the wife when I was recounting this story that I was going to ring the head of HR when she is back from her holiday and explain everything that has happened and how utterly unhelpful the process was; how ridiculous using an Microsoft package that most other people do not possess or an alternative way of applying if people could not fill this one in appropriately. I also intend to point out just how unhelpful her assistant was.

I figure that the position is probably already filled and the job is only open for equal ops purposes; mainly because its not been advertised anywhere that I look. But that isn't the point; this is a well known organisation with a very regal figurehead and the unprofessional and unhelpful manner in which my application was dealt with was abysmal.

***

Is it me or has this business in Egypt become a tad boring? Jesus Reginald Christ, how much of 24 hour rolling news can be dominated by it? Has nothing happened here? Have the BBC been promised something if they just blanket cover this thing to take peoples minds off of the fact that our own country is fucked? Or are they doing it to put the idea in the heads of British people and one day soon we'll have an uprising in major cities demanding the end of this Mickey Mouse coalition? Or is this time of the year just dull and boring?