This Is Frustrating

I found a great little job site for applying for work here in Madrid, yet, the application process SUCKS!!!

I can’t upload my own CV, which far surpasses the useless and limited electronic version the site has for every candidate to use. It is OK if every candidate is Spanish, but I am not, and the jobs being advertised on the site aren’t all for Spanish speakers or Spanish companies!!!

The CV on the site didn’t even have the ‘pull down’ option on there for MY degree, what the Hell!!! It couldn’t get my age correct either!! It also required either NIE (certificate of residency) or passport number – which is highly confidential information to part with, and leave lying around on an online job site, which could be hacked any time, and my complete identity then stolen!! In the UK such personal identification would NEVER be required until the interview stage or, until an actual job offer has been made.

The site also required me to input a Spanish telephone number, which I haven’t got. I don’t want one either!!!! I didn’t see the need to transfer my contract over to a Spanish contract, especially as mobile contracts are expensive here. I use texts more than calls, here, Spanish people use calls more than texts – who the Hell am I gonna call and chat to?? I don’t have an endless contact list!!!

The other down side – everything on the site’s CV was in Spanish. Yet, the jobs I wanted to apply for are not advertised in Spanish, are not for Spanish speakers, but Native English speakers. Therefore, as a non-fluent Spanish speaker – the whole site was a tad frustrating to navigate – and most of it wasn’t applicable to me!!!!

It was a classic catch 22. I need to be in a Spanish working environment to learn more Spanish, and yet getting a job to help me do that – is a nightmare! So, I rely on applying for English speaking only positions to help me get somewhere; but this is no better, as the application process is in Spanish!

Barriers, and then some!!!!!

The etiquette for interviews, and for meting people in a business capacity is completely wrong too! There is no follow up, the only option is; come at this time, this date, to this venue – there is NO, can you make this? Is this OK for you? Let us confirm this 100%. There is NO response to confirm or responses to answer questions – its just – this, that and nothing more. If that is no good for you, well, tough – and DON’T contact us again! How is that conducive for business or organisations to run?? Why can’t they clarify what is required?? Why can’t they communicate and decide what is best for all parties concerned?? How does anything ever get done if there is no negotiation and communication, just orders?!

As a candidate or enquirer about volunteering, info on jobs, organising meetings and so on, you have to do all the chasing too. Without two way communication you are often left hanging with no real answers, clarification or a way to progress. Basically, it is a one time only offer; unless you comply to what they want, when they want it and how they want it, you as a candidate or enquirer are up the creak without a paddle.

No wonder so many people here in Spain are unemployed!!!!!!!

I am at least, seemingly, making headway with volunteering. I am trying once more to arrange a meeting to discuss what I can do, and they can do – and so on and so on. Fingers crossed this will all be done and dusted by next week!!!!! Fingers crossed!!!!

A Dedicated Follower of Fashion – Beau Brummell and the History of the Quintessential Man’s Suit.

The British Regency period (1811-1820: when The Prince of Wales became Prince Regent), has been described as the most explosive and creative.

Akin to the 1960’s; enormous changes in culture and society all fused together in one enormous burst of energy.

The battle of Waterloo was won. London was completely re-designed. Turner and Constable were painting, the waltz was introduced (highly risky dance for that era), and Jane Austen and Lord Byron were inspired by the life surrounding them to write.

The glamour, the tastes, scandal and gossip, opulent aristocrats, blossoming middle classes, monarchs, decadence, the celebrity culture, the drugs and drink (minus the rock and roll); it was a celebration of youth culture and of course the fashions. The Regency era was an age of exuberance and creativity, but also of excess and deprivation.

The Dandy – Dress Etiquette and Suit Style

Amid all of this was there was rise of the ‘Dandy’, a fashion etiquette and new wave of style.

How is this important? Well, the ‘Dandy’ shunned traditional elaborate aristocratic styles of the time; wigs, breeches and powder were replaced by simplistic elegance. In short, this was when the plain black suit and ‘tie’ became the epitome of the male wardrobe; embracing masculinity and not femininity.

The person responsible for introducing and establishing this modern men’s suit, and fashion necessity was the infamous George Bryan “Beau” Brummell (7 June 1778 – 30 March 1840).

Beau Brummell became an iconic figure in Regency Britain. The arbiter of men’s fashion, and also a friend of the Prince Regent, the future King George IV; this friendship enabled Beau to entrench what might have been dismissed as an insignificant, and fleeting fashion faux pas into mainstream culture. Beau’s ideas were propelled; taking root in society, they had substantial influence.

Brummell was responsible for making a generation rethink their style choices, and ingrained a fresh sense of what fashion was. Men had never before embraced the understated. Perfectly tailored dark coats, polished boots (with Champagne of course), and full-length trousers rather than knee breeches and stockings, and above all immaculate shirt linen with an elaborately knotted cravat; a must of the ‘Dandy’.

The Beau Brummell ‘Dandy’

Beau’s personal habits were as fastidious as his fashion choices. Attention to detail was a prerequisite for any ‘Dandy’, and it was claimed he took five hours a day to dress. Cleaning his teeth, shaving, and daily bathing were part and parcel of achieving the style, just as much as the clothes.

Brummell’s dictum eventually exerted an influence upon the ‘ton’. The ‘ton’ a term used in reference to Britain’s higher echelons of polite society during the Regency era. The word is derived from the French word meaning ‘taste’ or ‘everything that is fashionable’. The full phrase is ‘le bon ton’, meaning good manners or ‘in the fashionable mode’; the characteristics which epitomised the ideals held onto by the British ‘ton’.

Once the ‘ton’ had adopted the style it then became the must for every self respecting fashion conscious man. Brummell’s niche fashion etiquette then became global; making an impression on all fashion from that day to this.

Bronze Statue of Beau Brummell in Jermyn Street, London

Copy Right Notice:
© Bex Houghagen and The Savvy Senorita, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Bex Houghagen and The Savvy Senorita with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Are We Calling Time On The Gentlemen?

In a recent interview Dita Von Teese (famous Burlesque Dancer), said she believes that ‘a gentleman is sexy’. Yet, aren’t such old-fashioned standards dead and forgotten by men, carried away by their expectations of a quick and easy one night tryst?! I wonder what qualities a man has to possess to constitute being classed a ‘gentleman’ these days? Hasn’t that ideal shifted and taken quite a severe dent? Even if gentlemen still exist, do women want one? Is there room for such men in today’s society?

I know I have been brought up a little old-fashioned. Instilled with manners, etiquette, principles, scruples and standards; in short I know how to behaviour in polite company, how to conduct myself. I in turn value these things in others, but it doesn’t make me any less forward thinking, liberal or liberated; I am outspoken (I can fight my corner like a tiger if needs be), I am not weak, submissive, dull, stupid, dependent or somehow sub normal. I know that for some women, the very notion of a man holding a door open for her is considered an outrage, a ghastly and degrading act; well, I respect such actions, as I would do the same for anyone myself! That act does not detract anything from my independence as a woman, who has rights. What puts me off is a lack of manners; ‘manners maketh the person’ after all. An example of such bad manners; a group of men who were happy to ogle at me, but then quickly enough barged me off the sidewalk and into the road so they could pass first, as though I was mere trash. Now that ladies is more degrading than a simple act of holding a door open out of mannerly courtesy.

Having manners, showing respect, being courteous and acting with dignity isn’t something to be viewed as suspicious, a clash with women’s rights, nor is it out of touch with modernity. I think it demonstrates the old adage, ‘do unto others as you would have done unto yourself’, at least until given a reason to do the contrary!

Now surely being a gentleman embodies such traits too? Official Oxford Dictionary definition of gentleman; ‘a chivalrous, courteous, or honourable man’, originated from Middle English (in the sense ‘man of noble birth’): in later use the term denoted a man of a good family.  So the term still bears the same qualitative meaning!

Consider momentarily a man who doesn’t demonstrate, dignity, respect, courtesy and manners; what type of lover would he make? These are essential elements in any would be relationship, without them you are just an object, and the man has no concern for you as a person at all. Why then do we so easily compromise on manners? Or gentlemanly qualities? Why do we forgive burly machismo, but abhor a man with kindly manners?

I know I’m not the only woman out there who is despondent with what seems to be the ‘show me your boobs’, drink until we collapse culture of today. When I see such leery and obnoxious men, this is when it is more obvious just how infrequently I get to see the species called gentlemen. This is when we all need to see the gentleman the most; to restore faith in all women, to show that not all men are just sex crazed idiots, who categorize women according to how good their breast look. That there are many men out there who are genuine, do care and that can treat women like human beings, not just objects.

With all things considered I believe there are gentlemen out there in the world, I have seen the proof. They are not the Prince who will whisk you away on a white horse into the sunset, but real men; men who value women, and don’t compromise their manners, courtesy or respect towards other people. Gentlemen are something worth vindicating, valuing and celebrating; a world without them would be a world lacking much-needed class.

Below pic:  Gentlemen, just a thing of the past???

As ever I would like to have your opinions on this topic please.

Leave your comments below, thanks 🙂

Copy Right Notice:
© Bex Houghagen and The Savvy Senorita, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Bex Houghagen and The Savvy Senorita with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.