Has anyone else out there been doing cold calls for jobs?

My situation is up in there air but today I cold-called 11 places, hotel chains mainly to ask if they had any work going.

When I asked the receptionist, it was 50/50 as to whether or not there were jobs going. I was then referred to the Personnel dept for one call and that’s when I started asking to be referred to Personnel.

Of the 11 calls I made today:

….Only 1 had an active vacancy that they were recruiting for, which was a part-time hotel reception position.

What do you think of cold calling for jobs? Is  it a bit of a fools errand to do so … or can you really find work this way?

–Aulelia desperate for the job hunt!

Who thought finding a job was this much of an effort?

I am struggling to find work and I don’t even know where the next payslip is coming from.

I am going to Sweden for a family function from the 22 Nov until 29 Nov. The living situation is still hard to define and describe as I am still not back home.

I have no money, no job and my mum says she can’t help me financially anymore.

It’s a hard situation so please forgive me for keeping the blog scarce.

Once I get my life back on track, Charcoal will be back. Until then, I will post when I can.

My living situation is still up in the air, but one thing I am trying hard to concentrate on is vox, the careers site I created for my MA project.

Don’t they say that once one part of your life goes wrong (my living situation), one part can cheer up.

I think that this is incredibly true (well as of recently). It has been such a struggle to keep vox afloat and I have to pay hosting charges next week by Sunday and I have £0. But it is still my passion! The thing that is wicked that has happened is I got a few PRs interested in doing this survey I have done and I just am pushing so hard to make the survey a success. Information is the key to knowledge and that is one aim I am trying to push forward with my careers website.

The one thing that I need to work on more is not thinking about people’s bad reactions too much. I had one PR who wasn’t too friendly to me concerning a particular issue. It made me a little upset and I spoke to my friends about it and they were like, don’t get upset about it.

My current plan for now is to finish distributing the survey and pass it on to other PRs so I can put it up on vox.

I don’t know whether vox will be a success but I know I am in love with it and I am desperate for it to succeed. And you know what love is like, it is all consuming.

Picture from Daily Mail - B out in LDN last night

My girl Bee is the shit.

I love this bishette. According to the Daily Mail, Beyoncé packed 25 wigs for the tour [1].

I don’t know who the source is but I can believe that lol because she has so many set pieces for the tour.

How many wigs do you think the avg black woman owns? I don’t own any wigs.

I love Bee to the end, but I’d love to see her venture outside the blonde look. It would be cute.

and how AMAZING does Bee sound on GaGa’s Telephone remix? Get it, Beyoncétte! I love the marching drums in the track, which you can hear at Necole Bitchie.

[1] – I am so jealous that I couldn’t go again to see her. Boo!

I find it shocking and flabbergasting that the first female Beefeater employed at the Tower of London was actually bullied.

And to make matters worse, she developed alopecia as a stress related disease due to the bullying.

What would you do if this was your mum or sister?

Moira Cameron is now suing for harassment and bullying and good on her. She was treated appallingly by these some male Beefeater who objected to having a woman work at the Tower as a Beefeater.

Oh and after 522 years, you have to have served in the Armed Forces for at least 20 years before you can be a Beefeater.

2 of the men have been suspended for alledgely defacing her uniform and leaving nasty, intimidating notes for her at work.

This is how it happened.

The final straw came last week when I was sitting in my sitting room on the computer.

Straw #1: The woman asked me if I was wearing deodarant when she came in the house. I was like, WTF??? I just ignored her because all she likes doing is getting a rise out of me.

Straw #2: She lost her own keys in the sitting room and started ranting and raving at me as to whether I had seen them….umm how can I have seen your keys if you just bopped into the sitting room?

Straw #3: She told me that she wanted to make a phone call. I was still in the sitting room and because her room is next door to the sitting room, she has this wild fantasical idea that if anyone is in the sitting room, they should go all the way to their room (mine which is at the end of the flat). I told her I wasn’t going to listen to her conversation. To cut things short, she was being so hostile with me that I just left the sitting room and then spoke to my friend in my room.

Straw #4: Continuously interrupting me when I am on the phone. To my friend. Next!

Straw #5: I put a rosary around the doorknob of my door and she somehow thinks it is all about her and how I want to protect myself from her. Um, NO. I am a Catholic and Catholics tend to show their faith with artefacts and possessions of Christ in their home. Why on earth would she think I am making my religion about her?

The Final Straw #6: This is what made me leave the house. She said she wanted to talk to me about something. I went to the kitchen with my rosary in my hand as I was about to pray in my room. She then made another comment about my rosary. I just went into my room and started saying a Hail Mary, to give me strength.

What ensued was the following (here is a short excerpt, paraphrased of what she said). All of these things she said was all when I was praying and she shouted them from the corridor like a teenager having a tantrum:

Such a Catholic when you are bonking men

That is a reference to me and Bank Man. Not only is that a low blow, but I would never ever try and link someone’s religion to their sex life, even if they were my best friend. Religion is incredibly personal so for anyone to say that, I think it is not only intolerant but offensive and childish.

She made an indiscriminate comment about Catholic priests being convicted of paedophilia

Clearly she only said that to hurt my feelings.

She made another comment, screaming saying how I should clean and vacuum more

If she wants me to clean more (which I do), that isn’t an issue. But to scream and shout all the while when I am praying and when you KNOW that I am praying. I told her to stop talking to me as I was praying but she continued to shout at me from the corridor.

Not only is this woman irrational but she is unhinged. She told me she was into meditating, but I thought spiritual people were calm souls — what happened?

I have not returned to sleep at the flat for over 1 week.

I have never been bullied before nor have I ever been threatened to be hit (which she did, when she told me a few weeks ago that she would slap me down after an argument).

I have been in a state of shock that this has happened to me. I have always seen myself as a cheerful and happy woman, ready to get along with most people. I never gave her the opportunity or reason to be upset with me. I am not perfect but do I deserve verbal abuse no?

What would you do?

Wow, everyone it was a roller-coaster week.

It took me a long time to realise that I have been a victim of a bully. It was a shocking thing, which I will explain soon.

I am currently with friends as I look to get this situation sorted out.

If any of you read the stamped posts or any password posts,  I will write up what exactly happened with that same password.

I hope you are all well and safe

In cheerful news, my girl Bee is happy to call out her husband in her speeches! Too cute — it’s at the 5:00 minute mark.

and who’s legs are seriously better than hers? No one’s!

Something has happened to me emotionally where I have been the victim of a campaign of verbal and emotional abuse.

I cannot go into too much detail but it is related to my living situation.

I have alerted my mother to the news. I will not be blogging as I am no longer living at my flat for the time being. I am staying with a friend until the end of the week and I will stay with another friend for next week.

I am sorry for this hiatus but it is beyond my control as I will not be sleeping at home for a while now due to my flatmate’s campaign of bullying and verbal abuse.

I will be back soon.

–a

I was in Borders today and in the UK, the latest issue of ESSENCE is the one with Nia Long on the cover.

There was an interesting roundtable discussion which included Solo Knowles, Nia of course and the stunning Tanika Ray, as well as Mikki Taylor, Tonya Lewis, Ursula Stephens (Rihanna’s hairdresser) & another lady called Ledisi.

ESSENCE are trying to step up their game, and that is a good way to go about it.

There was one shocking statistic that I read in the mag at Borders and I paraphrase, it said something like 20-something per cent of black women don’t think a man would like natural hair.

Well F that man then!