RandyDandy, an American Expat in London

Nearly two months after leaving my wonderful job at St. Luke’s, I am fully diving in to my UK job search process. First I had to spend the obligatory few days feeling depressed, thoroughly convinced that I have absolutely no skills whatsoever (my partner is a software engineer, so my non-technical background does look a bit silly and trivial by comparison). I think a big part of that depression was more closely related to the jet-lag-induced lack of sleep the first week, plus the flu, and certainly our relative lack of sunlight here. Even on a beautiful day like today, the January sun just doesn’t travel very high into the sky. 10am skips straight to 3pm, and the sun is gone from the sky before 5. According to timeanddate.com, the London sun at this time of year rises about 20 degrees into the sky (5 degrees higher than its lowest point in December). In June it will reach nearly 62 degrees. Compare this to Houston, where the sun currently rises over 40 degrees, with a peak of nearly 84 degrees in the summer. Not that I will miss Houston summers, mind you.

Oh right, this is about employment . . .

I have a short list of network contacts to phone and email today and tomorrow, courtesy of my friend and former boss Sid, as well as our friend Anne, who sang here professionally for 20 years or so. The Guardian also has a large number of listings for jobs that look interesting and pay relatively well. The CV is uploaded, I’ve shortlisted a few jobs, and it all seems rather easy so far. I’m a little worried that I haven’t figured out our voicemail setup yet. I phoned our temporary housing agent yesterday, and she told me a progression of numbers which she thought was the voicemail code. No luck. I tried dialing some London numbers yesterday as well, and had just as much luck getting those calls to go through. Operator error? According to my research, I am dialing correctly.

I miss my cellphone . . .

Tags:   jetlag · jobs · London · network · sun · UK · weather · work1 Comment