new contract

i got a call today from the agency that put me forward for the job i interviewed at on tuesday. they have offered me a 6 month contract and it looks like once i get through security checks i will be starting in around a week. the firm is a hedge fund in central london and it will be a good name to have on the CV to add to my collection of investment banks.

as i predicted and is always the way with these things, i then almost immediately got a call to invite me for an interview at a very large investment bank. nothing for ages and then 2 come along with in a few minutes of each other. i nearly blew it out having accepted the job at the hedge fund but i think i might just go along and see what its like. this particular firm is a huge global organisation and have a reputation for being a bit of a sprawl and not fun, but i am curious to see what they have and how they run things. it is a lot more money, but to be honest that wouldnt be the reason to take it if an offer was made. i could have been paid double what i was getting at my last contract and i still would have hated it. i dont want to hate my job.

part of me was thinking of getting a late ticket and flying off to NYC tomorrow and the price was quite reasonable but the weather is a bit changeable there at the moment and if anything i am in the mood for beaches on the west coast, so i think i will do that instead later in the year. i dont think it will be in september but after my contracts end at the end of december or beginning of jan. its just the way things have worked out.

it also transpires that the couple i rented my flat out to are idiots. i gave them 2 sets of keys, but i only had 1 key for the remote control gate for the parking area. i told them to take care of it as its quite expensive and i only had 1. they were careful for 3 days and then lost it. i got a call from the estate agent asking me to order another one. in fact they lost 1 complete set of keys including passes to get into the building, so i have to order those as well. fucking idiots. 3 fucking days. in the meantime they are having to park their car on the street which costs money as they didnt but a residents permit, because you wouldnt need one if you had a space you could use in the secure gated parking lot. they are also going to have to cough up £80 for 2 new remote gate openers. well done idiots. hope you will be more careful next time. cant wait to get my flat back from them next year and do it up nice and move in.

today i have mostly been listening to bruce sprinsteen - the ghost of tom joad. i sometimes get the impression artists sometime run out of things to write about once they become rich and successful, because their lives and experiences become seperated from what was normality. quite often they lose that fire in their bellys that drove them on when they were unknown and also they might fear alienating audiences and lose out on sales with anything that might sound different to what gave them that big audience. springsteen clearly didnt mind all that when he made this. stripped down acoustic recording singing about experiences and things he had seen and heard whilst living in california. i think its one of his best albums. enjoy.