This week I travelled somewhere by car. This for most people would be a normal daily occurrence but a car journey for me is so rare I remember when they happen, the previous time was months ago and I haven’t been anywhere in a car since.
Now, this isn’t because I have some moral objection to cars but simply because I have no need to use them. I love busses, tolerate trains and am quite happy walking and this has always been the case. In fact, I am now officially middle aged and still have never had a driving lesson.
A lot of people find it unusual to find a person of my age who doesn’t drive and often assume it is because I have been banned following a terrible incident. Actually, it is because I find the idea of driving terrifying.
Firstly, there seems to be a lot of admin involved. Licences, registration details, tax, insurance. Plus, the commotion of actually buying the car in the first place. All this seems overwhelmingly complicated and I would rather not bother.
Secondly, the process of learning to drive is (I am led to understand) expensive, lengthy and difficult. Multiple lessons followed by exams. I haven’t taken an exam in twenty years and the idea of failing multiple times and retaking over and over again in a spiral of humiliation is horrible.
Then there is the actual driving bit. Being a pedestrian can be unpredictable. Other people, weather, birds and dogs all present hazards while walking around but it is unlikely any of these will result in hospitalisation.
That is not true in a car, so many drivers are crazy. Having vehicles flying around corners, from every direction, at any moment together with all the pedestrians, weather, birds and dogs make the idea of being in charge of a potentially deadly heavy object unbearable. Plus, if anything did happen there would be yet more admin.
I think I will stick to walking, it’s just easier.
Recruitment at the semi-finished hotel has been particularly thrilling. The sheer number of odd balls that have come out of the woodwork is something to behold. Highlights include…
A man who sent a picture of himself posing by a flowerbed outside a terraced house as an answer to the question ‘what makes you suitable for the role’.
A lady describing herself as an influencer who only wanted the job if she could ‘create content’ during work time.
The man who answered ‘what does customer service mean to you’ with ‘I spent the last sixteen years arguing with my ex-wife, so I am used to putting people in their place’
The woman who ‘doesn’t use computers’ so will work for a lower wage as she ‘won’t do the computer work’.
Someone who started their cover letter with the phrase ‘since my most recent conviction for attacking a police officer’.
While these were the highlights, a huge number of candidates presented CVs that were badly written, incomplete or contained spelling mistakes. There were also a couple that seemed like they were entirely created by AI, people who admitted not having the right to work in the UK and others who had been fired from the company on previous occasions (in one case for stealing money from the till). The bin became very full, very quickly.
Then I invited people to interview, easily half of them didn’t respond and a load more did book an interview but didn’t actually show up, wasting hours of my time. Actually, getting to interview anyone at all felt like a rare event. Sadly, many of the interviews that happened were not too inspirational either.
The candidate who opened with the line ‘I will need a lot of time off as the doctor won’t let me have my gastric band until my hernia has cleared’.
A man who when asked ‘can you tell me a time you have made a difference’ replied with ‘no, I don’t really ever make a difference’.
Someone who left their last job because they were not allowed to take the entire school summer holiday as annual leave.
A lady who spent the last eight years doing product campaigns for a supermarket, I asked her to tell me about one of them, she said she couldn’t remember any.
A man who arrived with a lot of make up and as he began to sweat, a huge tattoo across his entire face was revealed, including a revolver and skulls.
Our recruitment tactics evolved into going to other hotels and giving business cards to anyone who seemed able to carry a tray without dropping it or bursting into tears when a customer asks where the toilets are, so we gradually started to put a team together. Now we just need a functioning hotel for them to work in…
Along with salmon dinners and smart speakers one thing I have learned to love in 2023 is the umbrella. I am probably the last person in the country to discover the joys of the umbrella, but I finally gave in to its charms.
My anti-umbrella prejudice was based on many things. Wet brollies are a pain, what to do with them when it stops raining? Just carrying around wet canvas products never seemed appealing. Their careless owners always seemed to bash them into walls, tree branches and other pedestrians, I have been the victim of many hit and run attacks featuring other people’s umbrellas.
The major problem I had was the wind. I always felt like the wind was the enemy of the umbrella. There must be some statistic along the lines of ‘every 0.4 seconds an umbrella is flipped inside out on the streets of Great Britain’. Weirdly, brolly-based stats are rarely featured on the news. I felt like any gentle breeze greater than a desk fan would have broken it irreparably and then the wet canvass would not only need carrying but carrying to the bin. Then if the wind was stronger than a gentle breeze I would be fighting not to be carried away like Mary Poppins and deposited in a nearby tree.
It was a slow process. I got my first umbrella in a closing down sale due to its discounted price, I meant to find somebody who would enjoy it as a gift but instead I just put it in my bag. Although my bag is small, it holds a remarkable amount of stuff and the danger of putting things in the bag is that they never come out again. Not long ago I found a doughnut in there from Harrogate (a place I visited four months ago). I have no idea what is in the bottom of the bag and can’t rule out the possibility of having ironing boards and step ladders in there like an 80s sketch show.
One night I was on my way to the supermarket in my big coat when the equivalent of the entire Atlantic Ocean fell in about 30 seconds. My coat leaked, my shoes became waterlogged and my usual tactic of hiding under a tree was useless. I could have leapt in a lake and been drier. I was searching for in my bag for something and then I noticed that umbrella. Feeling reckless I took it out and undid the Velcro fastener. Challenge one was how to put it up. I was looking for some kind of button, why were there no instructions? Then when the runner slid up the shaft, I was convinced I had broken it. ‘Stupid umbrellas, I knew they just go straight in the bin’ I thought.
But no. The canopy rose and immediately fell again. I must have looked like an alien from another world baffled by brollies. After a few attempts I discovered the spring in the top and the umbrella stayed up. The feeling of pride I felt in myself was immeasurable but by then, it was much too late to have made any real difference and cars continued to splash me with nearby puddles.
This was no one off fluke, over the next few weeks I managed to successfully operate an umbrella on several more occasions. Then one day it blew inside out. Although I knew that day was coming, it didn’t make it easier, and I went disappointedly to find a bin on the high street. The next thing that happened blew my tiny mind. A passerby simply pushed their inside out brolly back into the correct position and carried on using it. I couldn’t believe it. So, I gave it a try and it worked! This might have been the most exciting thing to happen to me in decades.
Over the next couple of months, I assembled a collection of umbrellas, having frequently forgotten to take one out with me (they are all drying on the doorstep). Perhaps it is wasteful but at £5 a time, an umbrella collection doesn’t seem such a bad thing in comparison to the money spent on smoking 40 a day. I also liked the sound of the rain on the canopy, although how to hold the umbrella, torch and shopping bag is still a work in progress. Maybe I could get one of those umbrella hats.
So, what I have learned is that it is never too late to try new things, sometimes the hype is real. Perhaps this year I will give shower gel a try…
Unseaworthy 