So I’ve managed to get through the app form, tests and then 2-minute audio clip for KPMG, only to be told that my application is ‘on hold’ because it seems like spaces might be full up.
I’ve told them I’ll happily move to Leeds, Liverpool or Manchester if they have spaces but apparently those are in doubt as well. Complete piss-take that they’ve left non-existant vacancies up on their careers portal. Very poor form. Oh well.
This is all telling you something Mr Tramps, it’s like the Final Destination but in reverse and applied to accountancy.
I’d train to be a BA pilot if I were you, at least you can wear your stockings in the cockpit.
At least at BA you can lock yourself in a cockpit (pun intended) to pleasure yourself. What would you have at KPMG? Trap three in the bogs, hoping that Fatso from accounts hadn’t been in 5mins beforehand and had a last night curry dump…
I once went for a days team exercise as part of a interview process for something up in Basingstoke. Cannot remember what the job was. got told I was appointable. No job appeared.
I wonder if it was some experiment that I wasn’t aware of. Although I aced at problem solving if I remember right.
I recently had a job interview and I was offered a different job to the one I applied for. So maybe try that tack 
Yeah apparently that can happen - they’ll offer you options for graduate schemes open in different regions/service lines. For a lot of people however they’re just told to jog on. Fucking scumbags.
Tell you one thing. Applying to all these jobs outside of London (and being from London originally), has made me realise something; I’m honestly fed up to the back teeth with London.
Looking on Zoopla at the kinds of nice flats you can rent up in Leeds and Manchester (which would cost you literally 2 or 3 times the price in London) which are walking distance from the city centres with all the offices etc. and I just can’t see why I’d want to spend 700 p/m for a shared room in some zone 4 shithole. I could afford it if I was earning 27k or whatever but the sheer ridiculousness of the rental price in London would literally annoy me every damn day. And you’re paying at least £150 quid p/m for work-essential-travel (a Zone 1-3 travelcard is £146 p/m but I’m sure Sadiq will bump that up a few bob to pay for those poor, poor tube drivers constant demands for increasing salaries).
I’ve applied to the National Audit Office. You’ve got 2 locations you can apply for - London or Newcastle. I chose Newcastle - and funnily enough, the prospect of moving a fair old distance away to a new town where I’d barely know anyone is, in the darndest way, kind of exciting.
Jesus, for someone who has literally spent this entire thread crying about how hard it is to live in London and how you need more money, you don’t half come across as a twat. So what you’re saying is that Philosophy graduates who want to be accountants or anything (it really doesn’t matter, absolutely anything) deserve more than tube drivers. Don’t they live in London? Don’t they have families to support? You are an incredibly self centred person and you can’t see the irony of what you write. Stop fucking whinging about how bad you have it whilst bemoaning the success of others that you see as beneath you.
Mr Trampoline,
Not sure if any of us have said it before (surely one of us have?) but yes outside of London is cheaper. There are jobs outside of the place. You can buy a house for what you’d pay on a 1 bed flat etc. I moved to Newcastle many years ago. It’s really nice. The countryside is beautiful too. I spent one Xmas day with a bank robber. It was delightful. I’d happily go back and live there. But once I was made redundant I did struggle to find a new job.
You seem to have a bit of a bee in your bonnet about tube drivers. For your inner peace why not let it go (maybe try some mindfullness). So someone else has it better than you. They’ve got a good union who pushes for its members. I wish my union did as much. Does anyone know a tube driver and can we get it from them about how amazing it all is for them?
If you cannot let it go. Check out tfl jobs website. Start low and you never know one day you could be in charge of millions of people’s lives in a hot tunnel. #livingthedream
What’s the issue with tube drivers? Yes, London’s expensive if you want to live close in, but there are lots of ‘reasonably priced’ commutable areas. It’s all what is classed a reasonable I guess.
I earn a decent salary. I live in a late Georgian house which needs a ton of work. It will take time because despite earning a decent amount, we have chosen to spend our spare change on doing things as a family before juvenile unit decides I am too cool to be seen with and she is cramping my style. We make choices and compromises - but we are lucky in that we can afford to make those choices… a big part of that is that whilst my office is in Reading, I live in Scotland. I have 5 bedrooms, a character property, which cost under 250k… only a few years ago… We CHOSE to live up here because it would mean more for your money and more in our pocket…our house would be well over £1mil if within 45 mins of London, and thus way beyond what we would ever be able to afford.
Maybe its because My dad was in the army and I was used to him being posted around Germany and UK every 3 years, but moving to where you get work seems natural to me… the whole concept of ‘where you are from’ and sticking there seems alien to me… even when I wasin my 20s living in a shitehole flat with damp in East Ham, this was because of work… Moving to Oxford (had to live outside as could not afford city living) after a few years experience and a new better paid job…
For me,my problem all along with Tramps posts has been the impatience of ‘youth’ - a belief that all us 40-50s with decent livings somehow got here straight after uni… To me, nothing that Tramps has described is unusal for 20-30 year olds, from the confusion of what they want to do, to the struggles for money and accom… we have all been there. For me though it was always about going where the job was,not where i wanted to live…But after my first dire living experience in London, I no longer applied for jobs in London… I would never be happy there because of the cost of living…
Another thing Tramps, not sure what the beef is with Tube drivers, but most are also older have families and have to live in London… You dont envy them their jobs, you envy them their wage. Best chance of gettiing out this rut you are in is to stop comparing yourself to others and start thinkning about what will make you happy in your work and think about how you can adjust your expectations to make it affordable. Why? Because if you are truely happy in your job those others things matter less, and you are also likely to be better at it, and progress.
Accountant at a top 4? Remember these companies tend to operate a pyramid progression scheme - an ‘up or out’ policy designed to weed out those who dont want to be solely dedicated to company profits. Its why recruitment is so tough - get 20 fresh grunts in all smart, all keen and hungry, and let them fight it out - natural wastage will get rid of those not progressing quick enough… BUT the extra cash comes at some price. I know because I work in an environment with a similar progression culture…the only thing missing is that cunt Lucifer asking you to meet him at the crossroads.
Considering, I missed our daughters first crawl ,steps, words, day at school, various school plays and events… It was not worth it, and I sadly there is fuck allI can do about it. No good being able to afford a family if you aint around for them…
Euphemism?
(Has anyone noticed how this particulary penis emoticon looks like Donald Trump…scary)
As I suspected, you’ve completely straw-manned what I’ve said to the point where its pretty much outright slander. Find me a quote which indicates I ‘see tube drivers as beneath me’?
You’re just a common-or-garden keyboard warrior. And yes, I do think its me with the moral high ground.
Just nipping to the shop. Going to get popcorn among other things.
Plus you said in an earlier post that you and your girlfriend split up because she lives up north and you in London, and the distance was too much. Yet now you say you’d happily move up north for the money and cheaper cost of living… weird.
Originally posted by @areloa-grandee
For me,my problem all along with Tramps posts has been the impatience of ‘youth’ - a belief that all us 40-50s with decent livings somehow got here straight after uni… To me, nothing that Tramps has described is unusal for 20-30 year olds, from the confusion of what they want to do, to the struggles for money and accom… we have all been there.
You’ve written a lot of interesting stuff in your post that I very much sympathise with but I just want to zoom in on this point here because I think its key to our misunderstanding.
I’m not complaining about the situation I’m in at the moment and I do not think that all you chaps in your 40s-50s got there straight after uni. I’m comfortable and not in danger, I’m able to live at home and so on. My concern is entirely about my future and where I’ll be in my 30s/40s/50s. I’m happy to climb the ladder as long as I do get the chance to climb the ladder. My concern is that I’ll only manage to flitter to and fro between entry level jobs & never really have a chance to make a future/have a family/make my parents happy etc.
The ‘flitter’ between jobs is just symptomatic of not having found what you really want to do, or what you are at least prepared to do for the opportunity it may present. Again that is choice you have to make. Either keep looking for what excites you and will drive you acknowledging that whilst doing so money is crap, or decide that it matters not and start on the rung of a career that you may not love, but that provides opportunity… and there are planty of those outside of the cut and thrust of a top accountancy firm.
If chosing the former path, it only really works if you have a completely open mind, both in what seems interesting and in being willing to move to take a punt be it city or town or country…
It isn’t the tube drivers themselves (who can blame them?) it’s the complete hypocrisy surrounding the debate.
Tube drivers only allow their jobs to be advertised internally in order to protect them from migrant Labour (who could competently do the job for £20k p/a and save the taxpayer a fortune).
If the tube drivers all voted Conservative this would be racist. Because they vote Labour they should be praised for their protectionism and having a strong union. Its just a clear example of double-standards.
In addition, the tube is effing expensive for people earning jack shit. The cleaners at my last workplace commuted in from Barnet and Barking respectively. That’s £212 per month for work-essential travel for someone probably £1200 per month or so? Surely if you believe in egalitarianism you’d support lowering the wage bill of the drivers to ease up on the passengers? (most of whom earn far less than the driver).
Let students drive the tube. Let single mums drive the tube. Let recent immigrants struggling to get on their feet drive the tube. Almost everyone in London *needs* the tube. Its one of the biggest things that unites us as a city and one of the most uniform things of which we are all consumers. Driving the cost down would be a good thing.
LOL!, what a dirty old bastard! I blame Autopilot. There’s fuck all to do once you take off and you’re mid flight - I say this without any experience of being a pilot, just what i’ve heard - that i s’pose a sherman is something to pass the odd 30 seconds or so. But to take pictures of it, suggests a massive boredom factor for the poor fella.
I don’t see the tube as massively expensive though, not when I spend £3k a year on getting a train to Waterloo every day. Unfortunately after Brexit I don’t really believe in egalitarianism…
I don’t understand why you don’t think you’ll ever progress? You could get yourself an entry level job in any big company in London, and then apply internally to what you fancy doing.
What do you honestly feel is holding you back?
Well at the time I was working in London and she was aiming to move down to London. If I were to move up to Leeds I wouldn’t be surprised if we got back together *if* she found something she was happy with there. She’s trying to get into TV and film and obviously Manchester is a hub for that as well, so she could end up there. Or she could wind up in London. We don’t know.
It wasn’t just the distance - but the fact we didn’t know where we were going to wind up. Put it this way - if we both had jobs we were happy in and lived in the same city we’d probably get back together.
Its more about the fact that those that rigidly support the tube drivers tend to do so in direct contradiction with a lot of their supposed principles. Put it this way; in a parallel universe where the unions didn’t exist/EU migrants were allowed to apply for the job and tube drivers were paid £18k on a pro-rata basis for driving the tube on shifts on zero-hours-contracts, then I garauntee that those same people defending the tube drivers earning ~£50k would be labelling tube driving as another example of immigrants ‘doing the jobs British people don’t want to do’.
Oh, and finally, it is a significant expense to a lot of people whether or not you’re rich and fortunate enough not to feel it. The objective metric being the cost of public transport in other capital cities throughout Europe/the world. London’s tube is expensive relative to that (New York is pricey I guess).
In answer to your other question…hmmm… I guess just plain old competition? Look at the KPMG application for instance. I’ve passed the required stages and whack, the sheer volume of applications has buggered me.
Having said that. I must admit that I’m feeling far more positive than I did recently. I’m getting interest from a lot of accountancy firms that I’ve applied to and quitting my job has made me realise just how unhappy I was there. It took me ages to admit to myself that I hated it and I’m glad to be free.