Django and the knights who say ni...

I continue to take an interest in what jobcentres across the country call my JobSearch.

“How is the JobSearch going?” They would ask with a ‘Yes, we know’ look in their eyes, already shaking their heads with well-trained empathy. They asked me so often and I got so tired of being asked that one day I simply went in and said that I wouldn’t be back.

They were very good about it. After the thank-you speeches, the presentation, and a few bottles of bubbly they let me go wishing me well in my JobSearch with three cheers and a resounding chorus of for he’s a jolly good JobSeeker. Of course any allowance I was entitled to had been handed over long ago, but they said that they would miss my fortnightly visits just the same. It was people like me, they said, who made them feel so special and important.

I still seek that elusive job, the quest of quests, a brave knight alone on his JobSearch - battling dragons, slaying giants, searching the e-world and filling in on-line applications. It’s become my very own Holy Grail.

Each day I check my e-mail for the automated response that the job boards send me. What a wonderful and baffling way to start the day… so many jobs, so little detail of what they expect, or alternatively too much detail right down to the type of shoes that they would prefer you to wear. Whatever happened to the idea that bringing somebody in from another industry can be of benefit to a business?

Ah yes, must have fifteen years experience in the electroplating of apostle teaspoons, a degree in electroplatometry, and whilst being a real apostle is a distinct advantage, not a necessity.

And then today I thought I’d found it, the Job of Jobs, something I knew about… Job Title: Django/Python Developer.

At last a job I could do as I’m both a big fan of both Django Rheinhart and Monty Python. No matter what they wanted developing in these two fields I was sure that I could deliver it.

Of course as ever it wasn’t quite what it seemed. Rather than referring to the gypsy jazz guitarist with the withered fingers as I’d assumed, or the anarchic group of comedians I first discovered in my early-mid teens (finding them completely different until they became completely the same) the ad referred to a Django/Python Developer with in-depth development experience in a corporate environment, excellent working knowledge of HTML/CSS, JQuery/JavaScript, and relevant experience working NIX and XServe/OS X Server… and I wasn’t even sure if I had a NIX worth NIXing.

How disappointing, or as I put it at the time ‘Bummer’. I felt like cage full of unwell parrots – probably Norwegian blues. Just for once it seemed that my love of café society and the comedy of the ridiculous was about to pay off… but no, my hopes lay dashed once again.

Django and Python… Jazz swing with the knights who say ni… Oh well, I can dream.