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Geek Culture / Problems getting jobs and the reasons

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SpyDaniel
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2007 22:09
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I've began a course on PC maintenance and ICT system support. Basically, its a big joke. I seem to have more knowledge than the tutors that are teaching us.

The reason why I joined the course, was to get a certificate to prove that I can fix and maintain computers, otherwise I wouldn't be able to get a job. No experience, no job, which sucks, because even if you do have the experience, but no proof, they wont hire you.

So I have to sit through 2 weeks of being spoon fed the knowledge I already have, so I can prove to employers, I can do the job.

--

So basically, has any one else had the same problem as me. Not been able to get a job, because you don't have the work experience and proof?

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Fallout
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2007 22:31
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That's the way of the world mate. Most industries require you to have experience to get the job, and normally you need the job to get the experience. Catch 22 is the way the professional world works.


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SpyDaniel
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2007 23:32
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I found that out when I first started to look for work. When I did get a reply back, it was to tell me I did not have the experience. I'm twenty this week and I still haven't had my first job :\

The way employment works, sucks.

I'm sure once I have my certificate from this course, ill get some work, somewhere

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Surreal Killa
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2007 23:35
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I'm currently in the same situation.
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Virtual X
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Posted: 3rd Jul 2007 23:53 Edited at: 3rd Jul 2007 23:54
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Higgins,

why can't you get yourself a job in a shop part-time for now? so you can earn some money!

I know shop work is crap, I know, been there, done that, worn the T-shirt etc...

also, don't be so convinced that a simple qualification will give you a job, if you really want to SHOW potential employers that you can do the job then prove it, do some PC repairs, upgrades etc.. for free to obtain references, maybe ask at a local school to run an after school computer club, that way you are actually PROVING that you can do the job!



btw - your pixel art looks sweet
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SpyDaniel
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Posted: 4th Jul 2007 00:20 Edited at: 4th Jul 2007 00:47
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I have tried to get work in a shop, but I've been knocked back there too. Its kind of like its impossible right now, to get a job anywhere. I don't mean I've tried to get a job at one shop or company, I mean each time I have tried at a different place, they don't accept me :

I like helping people with computer problems, but I don't like little kids that cling to you. I need my personal space, or I get tense in some situations, exspeacily with having diabetes : (low sugar = tense muscles and I can't function as I would like to, kind of like a PC with damaged ram )

Hey, but Ill give my local schools a call and see if they will let me run a club. I just hope I don't seem too insane when I ask them

--

Quote: "btw - your pixel art looks sweet"


That was done with my wacom tablet, I'm using another picture I drew as my msn image. (some think it looks like duke nukem )

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Code Dragon
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Posted: 4th Jul 2007 01:26
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I don't like jobs at all, in fact I found anarticle on why you shouldn't ever get a job, it's well worth the time to read.

There's much better ways to make money, I find starting a games business best for me, but I guess most people here at TGC do game dev only as a hobby.

You never really know a person until you look at their google autocomplete entries.
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Xsnip3rX
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Posted: 4th Jul 2007 03:40 Edited at: 4th Jul 2007 07:15
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i was jobless too (i was looking for 6 months for a job) until i applied at Goodwill, i went in, turned in my application directly to the manager, knocked on her door, preseneted myself well, shook her hand, greeted her, pretty much kissed butt, so im getting my drug test done on thursday and if it's clean (which i know it will be since i don't do drugs/drink/smoke) i get the job.

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Benjamin
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Posted: 4th Jul 2007 03:50
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Quote: "knocked on her,"



Tempest (DBP/DBCe)
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GatorHex
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Posted: 4th Jul 2007 03:54 Edited at: 4th Jul 2007 07:34
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I'm jobless too and i been programming over 20 years. I went on a Masters recently to get another qualification, but mostly coz i was bored. I've got a 1st BSc Hons in computing and MCSE but its not been much help

Like they say it's not what you know it's who you know!

There aren't many computing jobs in my town, and those that are they give to people they know. It's worst in schools and local goverment it all seems to be nepatism.

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BiggAdd
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Posted: 4th Jul 2007 04:31
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You've Pretty much picked the worst time to apply for a job, considering all students are back home looking for employment. Come Sept There will be plenty of part time jobs to pick. Try applying for waiting on jobs, you can pretty much double your wages in tips if your good enough.

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indi
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Posted: 4th Jul 2007 05:01
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its a little of both, however your green hair and bunny suit does not work for interviews

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Jeku
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Posted: 4th Jul 2007 07:13 Edited at: 4th Jul 2007 07:14
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Quote: "Like they say it's not what you know it's who you know!"


Well judging by my own experiences (had two salary jobs at fairly large companies), I didn't know anyone who worked there before I applied. The only time I got a job by knowing someone was at a theatre when I was 16

In this area, those who say they can't find a job aren't looking hard enough.

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Xsnip3rX
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Posted: 4th Jul 2007 07:22
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@Jeku
i was looking for jobs every day of my life(ok maybe not every day but most days) for 3 years, the main problem is when you look for a job you have to bug the hell out of them, check back every day or two.

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Fallout
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Posted: 4th Jul 2007 10:40
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I find normally when people say "I can't get a job" what they actually mean is "I can't get a job that I want to do". It's true, not all of us can be international playboys like me. Some of you will have to do the crap jobs. So everyone can get a job, it's just a matter of lowing your standards. That's why we have thousands of immigrants every year who easily find employment ... because they're willing to do the crap jobs we aren't. Same applies for the US, I believe.


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Dazzag
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Posted: 4th Jul 2007 10:59
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At the end of the day the vast majority of companies do not have the money or time to find out if someone with no experience and/or qualifications (ie. someone who falls below their lowest criteria for the job) is telling the truth when they say they are really good. And you can get some pretty convincing liars. Mix this up with the fact that the IT industry is now *massive* with thousands of people who could do the job in your area *and* have the minimum criteria for what the company wants. This basically leaves a bleak outlook for people without qualifications or experience. Not impossible, just very hard. And considering people with qualification and experience are finding it hard now too then it's not so good for people straight out of high school.

To make you feel better though, I read a report a while back that reckons ageism means that no matter how qualified or experienced you are, in IT once you hit 40 then it is *really* hard to get another IT job. Apparently in some sectors it's more like 35. I remember when our department averaged about 22 years old. Now maybe think of working for myself if I lose my job...

On the other hand I have waster mates from school who got nowhere in education, and were told by the career advisor to do something manual like plumbing and painting, now have extremely good businesses in plumbing and painting (a few don't work now, but get other people to do it for them). Because I and some of my other mates were better in education we were told computers was the way (I wasn't going to do anything else anyway apart from perhaps novelist or journalist) and were given no other advice. Ho hum... (although I'm not doing too bad, but I know friends who are stuffed now in IT)

Cheers

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GatorHex
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Posted: 4th Jul 2007 11:11 Edited at: 4th Jul 2007 11:53
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I think the problem is too many people make up their qualifications in this industry, and no-one does any checks. You used to be able to pick up fake degees of eBay, but just having a quick scan they seem to have stopped it but Google still finds them. Don't they know it's illegal

What do the goverment expect when they let people jump immigaration queues if they have so called "needed skills", people will be honest?

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Van B
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Posted: 4th Jul 2007 11:36
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Perhaps you guys should consider a less direct route. I mean say you took a job as a technical clerk, entering and analyzing data for instance, because this is an area where companies looking to expand often start with, especially when incorporating or expanding their systems. It's fairly easy to get a clerk job with even basic IT skills.

Thing is, when you find decent company to work for you end up doing the job your best at anyway - you might start as a technical clerk or office junior even, but there's every chance that opportunities will arise. One really handy skill is MS Access, being able to very quickly engineer a system that saves time and/or money is a great way to clamber up the IT ladder in smaller companies.

It's not just a case of having the skills, it's a case of having the skills and the right attitude to want to improve things all the time is what companies are looking for - miserable and lazy IT support staff are a dime a dozen and about as disposable as a broken Bic razor - you might not be miserable or lazy, but you can guarantee that'll be the assumption.


Good guy, Good guy, Wan...
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Dazzag
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Posted: 4th Jul 2007 11:52
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Quote: "I think the problem is too many people make up their qualifications in this industry, and no-one does any checks"
Not really. The problem is there are too many people with real qualifications in this industry. Most people come through agencies these days so their name would be blacklisted if they tried anything like that. It's also easy enough to check with the places they listed. And at the end of the day they only screw themselves up.

I've known a couple of people who lied about degrees and were good enough to stay; one moved on before being found out, and another did great for years (didn't say no qualifications or experience means you are rubbish, just easier and better for companies to get *loads* of people with the required qualification and experience) until by chance someone found about the deception. Company rules meant they had to kick him out of the door.

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
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Fallout
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Posted: 4th Jul 2007 12:22
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Yeah, degrees in the UK at least are a dime a dozen. Everyone has a degree. Even my dog has a degree. Unfortunately experience really is the bad boy, so you need to start low and get some industry experience. You really can't jump in at the top.

The only way to get your foot in the door in key roles in big companies with no experience is the graduate schemes. That's about the only way a degree will be the key player in getting you a job, otherwise the experience will usually come first. If you can get on a grad scheme with a good company though, you will be laughing, because then you have the experience on your CV with a top company (even if you did bugger all).


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GatorHex
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Posted: 4th Jul 2007 12:25 Edited at: 4th Jul 2007 13:00
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I think you proved my point

But realy if you lie about your degree you are supposed to go to jail not just get fired from your job.

This bloke got 5 years, but he was telling porkies in court cases for 26 years so i guess the crown wanted to make an example of him. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/6386069.stm

Some other famous CV liers are Jeffrey Archer(Lord!), Nick Leeson (brought down Barings bank)

They recon 70% of CV's have lies and exagerations on them

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Dazzag
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Posted: 4th Jul 2007 14:03
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Quote: "hey recon 70% of CV's have lies and exagerations on them"
Oh course. For example pretty much everybody on a list of programming languages they know or have used over the years, will include everything from their best language to one they loaded up once and fiddled about for 5 minutes.

A friend of mine left our company and on my reference got a job using MIS products (Cognos, Crystal, Oracle, that sort of thing). As it happens he changed my MIS data extract ghost (overnight and/or background task) program on several mods, and I let him witness me using the MIS tools (Cognos I believe at the time) when any changes were required. Good enough though, and to a programmer these tools are seriously easy anyhow, and now he is doing really well.

Cheers

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Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
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Jeff Miller
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Posted: 4th Jul 2007 14:09
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One way people on this side of the Atlantic are doing it is to find a low-paying purely boring data-entry job. Once they have their foot in the door, they keep their eyes peeled for some sort of niche skill opportunity. My daughter, for example, did minimum-wage data entry part time while in college, but in a year or so during this time she found an opportunity to suggest that she be cross-trained to to back up the person who did the company's EDI work. Sure enough, she now does EDI full time, and although that is a technology twice as old as you are (started with the Berlin Airlift I believe), for some reason EDI skills are in very high demand in my area.
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Dazzag
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Posted: 4th Jul 2007 15:51
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Quote: "One way people on this side of the Atlantic are doing it is to find a low-paying purely boring data-entry job"
Yeah, same thing happens in the UK. Just a bit of a slog and a lot of people don't want to do stuff that they feel is beneath them for years before getting an opportunity (and you have to be lucky to be in a company that does that). I've known a few people who have gone that way, including our 16 year old receptionist who worked her way up to management of the training team because she showed she could pick things up well, and my old development boss (one of the best programmers I've ever met) who got a job after high school as a punch card operator (ie. the programmers made the programs and created the punch cards and he and others spent all night loading them all into the machine) and then showed he had what it took to be better than the current programmers (he also used to punch new holes in their programs if they were tossers who looked down on him )

Cheers

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Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
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tha_rami
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Posted: 4th Jul 2007 15:57
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I got into the business through a friend of mine who has a mum who works at an IT company. I worked for my school with the computer networking and systems, and I've run a freelance repairing effort. Got references all over, so I hope that that's enough for a kick in.


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Fallout
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Posted: 4th Jul 2007 16:15
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Quote: "including our 16 year old receptionist who worked her way up to management of the training team because she showed she could pick things up well"


I think you mean slept her way up to management!


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Dazzag
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Posted: 4th Jul 2007 16:47
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Nah, she didn't (she is really clever), but our other receptionist did and became an accountant. A PA also became manager of the internet development division. And we all knew who she was sleeping with (technology director)...

Ah, those were the days. Our directors actually had a rule in place at the time where women were not allowed to wear trousers (honest to God!). Ok, so we didn't complain , but serious old fashion perv stuff right there. Plus one of the directors directly employed the receptionists and PAs, so for a while there we had stewardess level totty. One PA was bloody useless, but was an ex-model. I remember trying to tell off someone for useless code I had to QA. Realised he wasn't listening and found out later it was because behind me the PA had come in then gone up a ladder to the roof to check on some building work that was being done. Remember the no trouser rule? Apparently for her it was the no knickers rule. I was wondering why the whole of the department (30 blokes and a bird) completely went quiet as I was laying into this bloke. Stupid wrong way round chair...

Cheers

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Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
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Fallout
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Posted: 4th Jul 2007 16:49
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It sucks when your chair faces the wrong way in the office. I've had my share of good views and bad views. You certainly miss the good views when you're staring at a concrete wall and the guy next to you is looking down the corridor at the marketing department.


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GatorHex
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Posted: 4th Jul 2007 17:00 Edited at: 4th Jul 2007 17:01
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health and safty facing a wall all day makes you short sighted

well that's always been my excuse for getting the desk with a window.

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Dazzag
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Posted: 4th Jul 2007 17:18
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Quote: "health and safty facing a wall all day makes you short sighted"
Yep, is in the ergonomics handbook. You should focus on a far away object every now and again. And try to get an LCD screen.

Personally used to work in this massive room with about 200 programmers. Was basically Dilbert cubeville, but the partitions were a bit lowerer so not quite. The ones next to the windows were the lucky ones (we were quite a bit away). Although they only had a view of a car park and the Mars factory... We were still better than our helpdesk who only had the toilets to look at. Now I have a few windows, plus a view of the sea. Aaaahhh...

Cheers

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Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
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Manic
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Posted: 4th Jul 2007 20:00
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sorry... i can't help it, I'm gonna say it anyway...


An unemployed scouser?! Surely not??


only kidding... good luck with the job hunting. Have you tried a recruitment agency like Kelly's services? they're who I've had a job through for the past year, I had a sweet job doing not a lot at BT in leeds.

I don't have a sig, live with it.
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SpyDaniel
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Posted: 4th Jul 2007 20:57
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I think I would do a better job than the IT support in my college. I basically had to teach the class, help people out, today.

After this, I'm doing the higher level course in September. I'll probably teach that too :\

After that, I'm hoping to do some thing in IT. I cant be bothered doing shop work, I don't like snobby people and you get plenty of them going to shops treating the staff like poo.

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Virtual X
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Posted: 5th Jul 2007 01:19
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Quote: "On the other hand I have waster mates from school who got nowhere in education, and were told by the career advisor to do something manual like plumbing and painting"


LOL, thanks Dazzag!

you made me feel really good about myself and plumbing, BTW - you need to be fairly academic to be a 'good' plumber, most get away with doing 'bodge' jobs but the 'good' ones KNOW a thing or two lol

*walks away with his head down*
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Dazzag
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Posted: 5th Jul 2007 09:54
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Quote: "you made me feel really good about myself and plumbing"
Good. I actually wish the career advisor had been a bit more open about what people can do. At the end of the day where I come from the ratio of friends who did what was considered low end manual work such as plumbers to friends who did something in IT was about the same. But now those manual worker friends are on average doing a lot better than my IT mates (at least half of which are out of work or have to settle for data entry or helpline jobs when they originally were full on programmers and designers).

Plus I actually know a few IT people, seeing the writing on the wall (multiple rounds of redundancies every year since 911), are starting to take courses in other things. One got qualified as a nanny, just in time for redundancy, another set up her own clock business, and another couple are doing courses in DIY and are doing up their own houses in the hope of being electricians, plumbers, plasterers etc. Mainly because they want to get out of IT. Or will be forced out soon.

Basically IT is not the golden opportunity it once was. And long careers and loyalty (from the company as well as the employee) is turning into an amusing notion your grandad used to talk about.

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
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Van B
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Posted: 5th Jul 2007 10:58
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In the UK IT is looking to become a less popular career path, mainly because the money is dwindling slowly away from it. I mean the average pay rise in the IT sector is 3%, which is about as low as you can get - resignations are up because of this too.

I'm fairly lucky, being a sole developer means that I have a thumb in a pie in every department (that sounds terrible!), but at the end of the day it would take a long time and a lot of money to replace them, so I have good job security - rare these days, and as rare as chicken-teeth in the IT sector.

Thing is I can see exactly why most IT people are disposable, they are too professional, if your too professional, then you can easily be replaced by another professional. Me, well I just kicked Visual Basic into touch as the main language and switched to PureBasic and am currently replacing the minor systems with PB fueled ones. It's not strictly a defensive maneuver as I actually hate VB these days, and I do like PB - but being awkward and secretive is often the best way to stay in a job. If I was to leave, then finding a replacement who knows PB, round these parts, well even I wouldn't know where to look for one!. There's a lot to be said for confusing, non-standard and un-commented code.


Good guy, Good guy, Wan...
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Dazzag
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Posted: 5th Jul 2007 11:09 Edited at: 5th Jul 2007 11:11
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Quote: "being awkward and secretive is often the best way to stay in a job. If I was to leave, then finding a replacement who knows PB, round these parts, well even I wouldn't know where to look for one!. There's a lot to be said for confusing, non-standard and un-commented code"
Absolutely. Only reason why I've stayed as a programmer doing the same job for so long (12 years now) is because of the sheer rareness of programmers who know the language. Or even heard of it. Mix that up with a system that has 6000+ programs, and we have about 60 pretty decent sized clients, and thats kept me in it. Same goes for the First Choice team (used to sit next to them - and yeah, thats the big travel company) back in the UK who have a similar system in Fortran. Who the hell does that anymore? But some of them have been in the same job for decades. The travel business does not move fast in software...

Oh yeah, 3% (or lower) seems more like it since 911. Before then we were easily seeing at least 10% every year (plus decent bonuses). Think in my best year I got about a 60% increase. And a company car a bit later. Those were the days

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I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
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Kentaree
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Posted: 5th Jul 2007 12:20
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The IT industry is booming over here at the moment, I get on average an email a day advertising new jobs (through one of those job websites which I haven't bothered to unsubscribe from yet). Also the amount of people doing IT at the moment has fallen stronly, so there's gonna be a deficit in good IT staff soon, which will work to my advantage ^_^

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Dazzag
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Posted: 5th Jul 2007 12:29
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Quote: "Also the amount of people doing IT at the moment has fallen"
Could be due to a load of work going overseas or the act of paying for education in Uni is kicking in a bit. I always thought that paying for education bit might be a help in the future to those of us already working in IT. ie. hopefully less IT people coming out of college.

Also I still see loads of jobs available, it's just that the amount of people with the required skills, experience, and qualifications seems to increase massively year on year. Where once you were a bit of a rarity and considered a high level skill set, now it seems you are one of very many (maybe too many), and are considered one above the 16 year old YTS work experience guy who types in the errorlogs (in stupid text messenging language without any research) from customers (using his thumbs).

Cheers

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indi
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Joined: 26th Aug 2002
Location: Earth, Brisbane, Australia
Posted: 5th Jul 2007 12:45 Edited at: 5th Jul 2007 12:45
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If you want a job anywhere you will strategically get one in the place you want, provided you practice and apply yourself and give it your best shot. there is more then one way to skin a cat.

If you rock up half cast and probably not focused, don't expect anyone to notice the twinkle in your eye thats missing.

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Kentaree
22
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Joined: 5th Oct 2002
Location: Clonmel, Ireland
Posted: 5th Jul 2007 12:57
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Quote: "I find starting a games business best for me"


I suggest you do a bit more research into that, it's a really nasty industry to get started in. You need a good capital to get started, for instance, buying commercial middleware, or spending a few years writing a good game engine. Then, you need to develop the games themselves, and sell enough copies to actually make money out of it. When you consider programmer hours spent on each game, it's really quite hard to just break even unless you're developing AAA titles for a well established publisher

Nephin Games
Devhat Developer Network and IRC Channel
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Aralox
17
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Joined: 16th Jan 2007
Location: Melbourne
Posted: 5th Jul 2007 13:30
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Im going to CERN when im old enough.
still cant work yet =(


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Code Dragon
18
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Joined: 21st Aug 2006
Location: Everywhere
Posted: 5th Jul 2007 19:10 Edited at: 5th Jul 2007 19:14
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Quote: "it's a really nasty industry to get started in. You need a good capital to get started, for instance, buying commercial middleware, or spending a few years writing a good game engine."


I think I'll do pretty good if I innovate enough. I was going to go down the FPS path due to it's popularity, but I decided to write a 3D platformer engine instead because I see virtually no competition at the moment and there's enough people who prefer 3D platformers.

It's probably an 80-20 industry anyway. Just figure out what the top 20% has that the 80% doesn't, and you'll be getting 80% of the money.

You never really know a person until you look at their google autocomplete entries.
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MikeB
17
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Joined: 5th Apr 2007
Location: My Computer, Shropshire, England
Posted: 5th Jul 2007 20:26
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I love being young enough to not have to care about this...Not for long though


Mike

Call me Mike please
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SpyDaniel
18
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Joined: 4th Feb 2006
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 6th Jul 2007 16:44
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ICT is what I'm great at. I will either get a job in the IT industry or try and get a job at a games company. I don't really care how much I get paid, as long as I get work and enough money to pay my parents back for things and to rent out a flat later on, like 2-4 years.

I'm not moving out for a while and I don't care about the stereotype 'living in your parents basement' (though we don't have a basement, its the same thing).

I did my first exam for my ICT course today and it was really easy, though the course is level 1, I had to take it to do a higher level, as I don't have many GCSE's. School sucked when I was younger, but I wish I had revised better back then so I could have passed more GCSE'S, but it doesn't matter

Join my army!

Click here to visit my homepage.
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Cherd
17
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Joined: 30th Dec 2006
Location: Where I can see you.
Posted: 8th Jul 2007 13:31
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I was put on some advanced course at school, where i could skip gcse ict and move straight on to a level, only the entire class was lied to, in the fact that the first year was an AS course, only over the 2 years, the full course was not worth a full A level and that if we did complete it, we were basically screwed because it was useless. In the end i just did the first year, got my AS and didnt bother with the second year, only now i find unless i wana do my AS year all over again, i cant finish the second year as an A level, and im basically screwed with that lol. Just thought i'd add to the misery, i ended up doing history geography and english lit at AS level lol =| what the hell im gonna do with them i dont know

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Dazzag
22
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Joined: 26th Aug 2002
Location: Cyprus
Posted: 8th Jul 2007 13:35 Edited at: 8th Jul 2007 13:35
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Quote: "like 2-4 years"
After getting a job you can't see yourself renting your own place for upto almost half a decade later? Seriously?

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
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SpyDaniel
18
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Joined: 4th Feb 2006
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 10th Jul 2007 19:08
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I just don't want to

Mr. PC Maintenance
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Dazzag
22
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Joined: 26th Aug 2002
Location: Cyprus
Posted: 10th Jul 2007 19:23
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Fair enough. I must admit there is something about my Mum's roast potatoes that keep drawing me back...

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
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Fallout
22
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Joined: 1st Sep 2002
Location: Basingstoke, England
Posted: 10th Jul 2007 20:47 Edited at: 10th Jul 2007 20:48
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My mums roast potatoes suck. We have aunt bessies. In fact, the roast dinners are rapidly going down hill as she gets older. Pretty soon I'll have nothing to keep me here except my inability to afford my own place due to my ludicrously expensive car.

I miss yorkshire puddings that would rise to be as big as a house. Edit: Actually, the yorkies are still good! I can't fault them ... yet!


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Dazzag
22
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Joined: 26th Aug 2002
Location: Cyprus
Posted: 10th Jul 2007 23:15
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My mum fluked the roasties. Everything else sucked. And we only ever had chicken roast dinners because she was scared of beef and she saw cute lambs in the fields when she walked the dog...

My old landlady (when I first got a job) on the other hand made a cracking Sunday beef roast that was honestly better even than a carvery place. Best ever. Brilliant. Thought I was in roasty heaven. Unfortunately after 4 years of having it *every* single Sunday made me hate beef roast dinners.... doh... Now I have my taste for beef roast dinners back it doesn't matter as she is dead. Plus my other great roast link is my great aunt who does amazing things. Unfortunately she is 92 now and would probably cook a book or something instead... Damn it. Only hope is my Mum... Oh God, I just remembered her weak gravy.... no!!!....

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Current fave quote : "She was like a candle in the wind.... unreliable...."
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