Browned off

After successfully negotiating the circus of computer "games" -- they're no fun -- that railway companies use to sift the job applicants, I was invited to an assessment day for a better job (they're all better than mine).

My mood sank when I saw that a woman I used to work with on the trolleys had been promoted to something in HR. She met my smile with the same unchanged black looks she wore when we worked together almost six years ago. They said "but you got sacked for turning up tipsy. How have you got this far?"

I've done the exercises before. They were in four sections. Some of my fellow interviewees didn't get past the maths test in section three; most young people have no idea how to do arithmetic without a phone. I did well, I know.

A week later, I got the expected email saying I hadn't got the job. A couple of nights ago I bumped into another old railway colleague on the bus. He said that he'd met Miss Black. "I believe you interviewed my mate looby the other day." "Oh yes, well, as soon as his name came up I knew he wasn't going to get it."

I asked for feedback, but none was forthcoming. I assume that no-one in HR, including Miss Black, wants to broach the reason for my dismissal.

I was asked recently if I'd like to stand for election in our union as one of the reps. A great part of the attraction for me was the possibility of being sent to Doncaster with the other delegates for a week, to do a course about the regulations and legislation that I need to know. I like being in hotels I'm not paying for.

In order to achieve such office, I had to present myself at a branch meeting. In my head, I had a picture of a warm room in a church or Labour Hall, with a high table of men with papers and minutes and procedures, and an audience of a dozen "I've seen it all before" men and two fat lesbians.

Instead, me and my proposer, walked up a set of steps crumbling under the weight of its own flora and knocked on the door to a working men's club. We were admitted to a freezing cold pub populated by five union members, a young girl with two children and a dog, and a couple of blokes playing pool. My fellow union members were all around my age except for one young man who looked like he'd mistaken Gwent for Tenerife. "You dress for the weather you want," he said.

I sat turning my hands over together or pulling them up inside my coat sleeves. My proposer brought the drinks thick and fast; a show of hands, and I was accepted in to office in a branch where new members will turn up to one meeting and go home cold, never to return.

Just as I will be leaving here soon: I've been offered a flat (well, a "studio") in the city centre. I'm very much looking forward to having such modern amenities as pubs, and there are shops that sell things you can eat, rather than browning you in a big microwave before you go gambling. I hope to move in next month.