Picture the scene. Its in the early hours of the morning. Tired and getting nervous about THE LIST! Yes thats right, THE LIST! Forget the Bucket List, the Guest List and even Mark Vincents list of his favourite British rivers (the mighty Cam fighting off the Wensum for no 1), this is THE LIST. The list has been in the back in my mind for weeks. Its the internal transfer list for International House. IH, as we cool (former) employees know it, is a big chain of TEFL schools, of which the school in Bucharest is a part. This is where the good jobs are. On their website theres a secret and shadily named, affiliates area. You need a password and thats where employees get first dibs on any jobs coming up. They get to choose what they want and what ever is left is put out to outsiders, I didn't think I'd ever call people that again after leaving East Anglia.
The reason I was up in the early hours (nothing suspicious, that came later) was that I was rehearsing signing in to the affiliates area, as a former employee I'm still entitled. I have been waiting for weeks for the list to be published. I had looked through all the possible schools, pictured myself in lovely places, imagining being employed again rather than sitting in my shorts watching snooker. I was excited. I was sent my details earlier, sat down, entered the details, nothing happened.
After contemplating a weep, I pulled myself together and rolled into action. Emails were flying. To IH head office, to Bucharest and to Affiliate support, or Yvonne to her friends. The List was going to be published at two in the afternoon and is available for only a short time, it was a race against time. I was refreshing my inbox every twenty seconds, hoping that this was the time when a shiny new email would appear to solve my problems. I had formulated excuses for my parents of why I had not tested the password earlier. My habit of putting things off is near the top of my mums list of things that annoy her about her only son; just above poor dishwasher etiquette and just below my irrational hatred of next door's cat. I got a new user name and password, tried again, Affiliates Area is unavailable. There are few things in the world that lead me to feel more despair and hopelessness than a computer saying something is unavailable. After getting pretty annoyed and muttering about how I should have known this was going to be difficult. I started entering the details over and over, that didn't work either. It had gone two by now. I tried to think of what it could be, I'm on the right site, its the right time, I have new details, its Wednesday... oh. After hours of panic, nerves, apprehension and email, its not published until tomorrow.
I have since apologized to the lap top for calling it rude names and to my bedroom door for the lack of love and affection it has felt after being repeatedly slammed. However, me and the cat are still no where near reaching an amicable solution.
