Since April, I had been going round every shop I could find and giving out CVs and smiling as sweetly as possible in the hope that someone would take pity on me and give me a job to start around May when I would have finished working in the schools.
The first thing I realised was that finding casual work/summer work in France is much more difficult than in England. A lot of places either had no vacancies, don't take summer workers or had already recruited. The problem when you want to find a summer job in a shop or café is timing it right: hand in your CV early and it will soon be buried under a load of other CVs and never be looked at; hand it in too late, and well, the job is probably already gone. I encountered the second problem more, it would appear. I thought applying a month in advance of wanting a job would be fine, but many places already seemed to be sorted.
However, I was fortunate enough to have a few interviews and, having talked to a few French people, I feel quite lucky because it really does seem that there is very little going at the moment, and even the natives are having a tough time!
My first interview was at a shop I have never actually shopped at. To be honest, I thought they'd laugh me out of the shop because I'd heard that their recruitment process is primarily looks-based, but I went in anyway. It was Hollister. To my surprise, I was immediately asked to an interview on the day of my choice... and that I was to come wearing no make up. Gulp. It doesn't help that the lighting in shops is unflattering even when you're wearing make up, so I could only imagine how awful I would look with none on. It was a group interview, and about 15 people were there-- even the manager was surprised. And... of all the girls there, I was the only one with no make up on. Fabulous. Just wonderful.
Nope, didn't get that one.
The irritating thing is that if they're not recruiting you, you just don't get called. The Hollister waiting period was two weeks. Two weeks! At least for my H&M interview I only had to wait til the evening to see if they were taking me on or not.
In the end I went to a few "Agences d'Intérim". I can't think of anything that resembles this in the UK and the concept is quite odd to be frank, but I at least got 15 hours' work out of it one week. "Agences d'Intérim" are a sort of job centre, but you don't send in an application for a specific job, you just hand in your CV and they assign you to jobs that you're suited to. However, we're talking "missions" that maybe only last a few days. What you're really doing is filling in for someone who is off for a few days, or-- sometimes-- a few months, but that's rare. My three days' work were at Grand Palais, which is the exhibition centre, where there was a medical conference going on and they needed us to welcome the people attending.
The work there wasn't hard, it was more... boring, but, naturally, where I'm concerned there is the odd bit of drama.
The first drama was more a trauma. The trauma of starting work at 7.30, but having to be there at 7 because they're picky about punctuality and to get changed into the uniform. The other issue was that we had to have our hair in a bun-- for 99.9% of girls, this poses no problem; for me, this is like climbing a mountain. It can take me about 15 minutes to get my hair into a bun. I'm just rubbish. Another part of the uniform was wearing make up to give you a 'healthy glow'. (Are we naturally unhealthy and dull looking? And, really, do healthy people glow? I don't think so. Silly concept, really.) Anyway, the trauma was really the fact that to get all this done and get there on time (40 minute commute) I had to get up at 5.30. The first day was surprisingly fine-- I was excited to finally have a job to do! Day two was a little harder. Day three was like rising from the dead.
Another trauma was aimed at my feet. The girls were required to wear black heels, of which I have one pair, which are usually quite comfortable. However, when you have to stand for five hours they are unbearable. I mean, really, if feet could talk, I think mine would have been shouting obscenities from the second hour of day one.
The drama was when on one of the days I was told by one of the girls in my team that I would stay outside the conference hall doors where we had been scanning people's passes before allowing them in, and that I was to tell anyone else who came up to me that we were no longer letting people into this particular conference, and that they would have to wait until the next one. It seemed an odd instruction actually, since we hadn't done that the day before, so I checked I'd understood and it was exactly what I'd been told to do, but I was feeling a little uneasy about it.
I stood for a few minutes hoping no one would come and that I could avoid any awkward confrontation (I hate confrontation-- especially with angry French people.) Of course, people came. The first few were a little surprised at being told they couldn't go in, but went away; a few others said that they had come for the following conference anyway and made no fuss; but another group seemed to have taken it quite personally. There were quite a few of them and they were all talking over each other, so I couldn't really understand what was going on, other than that they did not seem happy. I just explained even more apologetically than before that I had been told that I couldn't let them in and I didn't want to disrupt the conference, and they turned away.
There was a nice man that came up to me a few moments later and-- bless him-- he realised I was foreign and hadn't completely understood what had just happened, and he actually apoligised to me on behalf of the other people. He said they'd been quite rude and he hoped I was okay. Here's a lesson in life: there are possibly more unpleasant people in life than there are nice people, but the uplifting effect of one nice person far outweighs the damaging effects of many horrible ones.
I thought the matter was over and was silently musing over the good people there are out there when suddenly I noticed a large group marching quite speedily towards me. I thought I recognised the group and as they got closer, it dawned on me that they were the angry group from before. I'm not sure quite how to describe the feeling in words, so I'll let The Lion King do it:
Yeah, I'm Simba in case you were wondering...
They would not be stopped. I tried to reason, but they barged past, opened the doors (making a lot of noise I might add) and then a sort of official looking security guy came up to me asking why I'd not let them in. I just looked wide eyed at him, stammered out what I'd been told and hoped he wouldn't eat me.
In the end it was fine, but I was left wondering if actually I'd been set up to do that. Hmmm...
Anyway, eventually I found myself a job at my favourite café and have been working there for about a month. The irony is that now I've found a job, I feel more and more like it might be time for me to leave: my friends have gone home, my colleagues are on month long holidays and, whilst I have a few other friends, I feel that the time is coming and I'm planning on leaving at the beginning of August now. I can visit friends around the UK and prepare for my final year at uni at least.
In any case, I'll be sure to make another post when I leave about my thoughts on this year, looking back, and how it feels to be back permanently in the UK (which will feel strange). I can't believe I started this blog almost a year ago so excited about coming, and now I'm writing about it all coming to an end.
À bientôt!
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