Competency-based job interviews should be banned

Most of my free time and mental energy this week has been focused on getting ready for a job interview on Tuesday.  Back in the day, I used to be quite successful at interviews - when all's you had to do was look intelligent and make a good impression with your CV and qualifications.

But now it's all "Tell me about a time when you..." followed by some completely artificial question that requires you to delve into the most ancient history, bend facts, and do your best impression of a professional actor as you try to present your over-rehearsed/under memorised script in a coherent and plausible fashion. I don't have a very good memory, plus my 'achievements' from up to five years ago feel like they happened in another lifetime, and I'm not very good at spinning BS.  The only way I can survive is to write down what I've been doing in each job before I leave it, so that I have something to memorise for the next set of interviews.   It seems to me that these competency-based interviews, where they are literally counting your buzzwords and scoring you on whether you've used the right key messages, are like some bizarre form of Bingo that favours those who 'talk the talk' without necessarily being able to 'walk the talk'.  Bleah.  Wish me luck because I will need it big time.

So the main craft activity this week has been knitting (re-knitting) the Rowan Summer Tweed Cardigan.  I laboured back up to the armholes for the third time, and have now completed one front and am working up the second one.

I've also done a bit of cross-stitch, and finished the first sample of Bucks Point bobbin lace.

I've started a second sample of Bucks Point but haven't got very far.  I've also done some more piecing for the Friendship Braid Table Runner.  I had so many pieces cut that I'm making three: one long one for us, and two short ones for my m-i-l and a friend.

The plastic underbed boxes I ordered for the dollshouse room turned up and they fit perfectly into the cupboards.  So I've been able to unpack the various excess furniture pieces from their hiding places in cardboard boxes, and lay them out in plain view on a layer of bubble wrap in the boxes.  Four boxes then stack on top of each other inside the 60cm wide cupboard.

DS also kindly put together the IKEA desk which fits perfectly into the bend of the cellar stair. Yesterday I screwed the two IKEA legs onto the bit of leftover worktop and attached the back of it to the wall to make a second desk.

Can you spot the design flaw?  Look closely...

Gold star if you spotted that the  blue drawer on the IKEA desk is completely blocked by the worktop desk. So either I don't use the drawer at all, or I will have to cut away the corner of it so it slides under the worktop.  Even then it will hit the desk leg after a few inches.  On the plus side, the two work surfaces are almost exactly the same height so it creates a nice little L-shape to work at.  No excuse now (except perhaps the drawer...) not to get busy with the minis again.

We had some good news - the brickie that had the heart problem has unexpectedly returned to work after all, so our builder thinks he can start the repairs on our boundary wall (that I've been asking about since February) possibly as soon as next week.  That will be good because it's been really autumnal here, cool and wet so I was worried that the weather wasn't going to be any good for using mortar by the time the builder had another brickie free in October.  He's also cut down his cost estimate which is really helpful.  It will be great to get that work done this year. So next weekend we need to move everything in the garden away from that run of wall, and I need to cut down the rudbeckia even though it's still in flower, because it's in the way as well.  I'm going to run some hazard tape on canes around the flowers I don't want them to step on, that are too near the work area.  They'll be bringing in scaffold as well so there will be a fair bit of traffic, just hope it doesn't churn up the garden too much.