I’d been off work for a while. Actually, I’d not really had a proper job since leaving university, and while I was sort-of content to freeload at home, I also knew I needed to get on with getting a job.
I was at a “Get Some Work” type of set of workshops set up by the employment service in Guildford, and one of the chaps there (possibly called Richard) saw there was an internet cafe due to open in the town. Solely due to encouragement from him and the workshop organisers I wrote a CV and cover letter and sent them both to Hans Heyman, the guy behind the new cafe.
Hans said he was interested in meeting with me, so I had my enormously bushy beard trimmed (I’d been warned not to have it shaved as I’d feel awkward with nothing after a few hirsute years), got dressed up and met in the cafe in at the bottom of the escalators in the Friary Centre. We chatted, and I seemed to make all the right noises as even though he already had made an appointment he offered me a job at £12,000, a fortune for me then. Why did he take me on? Apparently it was the beard. Yes, really.
Anyway, it was a job with computers, the first step i my IT life. An odd job, true, with terrible hours, and a dead end ahead, but a job nonetheless. Thanks Richard and Hans.