Good chance to spot potential friends and socialites since I’d just moved to the office base in Berkshire from my home in London

Good chance to spot potential friends and socialites since I’d just moved to the office base in Berkshire from my home in London.Afternoon was spent shadowing people and then going round building sites. Next stage was actual work – looking through documents and attempting to understand what I’d be doing, ie dealing with architects, planning and technical side of sites before passing info through to commercial and construction ready for next stage of building homes I felt tired already.Lunch was welcome Everyone sits around and chats. Rule number one, I decided, was not to risk calling anyone by a name for the first week.By 11am, I started to relax very slightly as I realised everyone was in fact nice and incredibly willing to tell me exactly what their role was – if not their name again I asked a lot of questions for good measure. Seemed nice but I knew I wouldn’t stand a chance of remembering all the sites for homes that he told me our department was currently working on Started to panic. Similar problem with Fiona, who introduced me to everyone in the office.

I had visited the office before for my second and third interviews, so I had some idea of the environment I was to be working in But now, I just felt apprehensive. I’d done work experience before and knew roughly what to expect but now I was getting paid. That meant expectations.The first person I met was Clive, the manager. Great timing, I’d thought at the time, and had felt quite proud and settled ever since. Name: Jo Butler

Age: 22
Education: Just graduated with a degree (2.2) in land management from Reading UniversityMission: First week as graduate development manager for Laing HomesMonday: The first morning, and immediately I stopped feeling quite so pleased with myself for having been accepted for the job just before I did my finals. My colleague thought she was perfect and insisted we give her the job.That lady is now my wife. If I’d had my way and given the job to someone else, I wouldn’t now be in the position to confirm my suspicions – she most certainly is bossy.Daisy Price.

I would never let my mother come on an interview with me, and I wouldn’t advise anyone else to either.Another time a senior colleague and I interviewed a lady for a hotel vacancy I thought she was far too bossy and didn’t want to hire her. I almost felt like asking, “Well, if I do hire you, do I get your mother as part of the package?”I couldn’t work out which was more sad, mother for doing the interview or daughter for letting her. I thought it strange, but assumed she had asked her daughter along for support.Fifteen minutes into the interview, the question about `hobbies’ came up. The younger woman said she liked “clubbing and going out with friends”. I then realised that I was interviewing the mother, when it was the daughter who wanted the job.

I asked if I could speak to her daughter and she said: “oh, no, no, no… she’s terribly shy.”I was astonished, as being a waitress would obviously involve talking to customers. I didn’t really know what to do, so I just bumbled my way through the rest of the interview It was very strange I felt really sorry for the daughter. The older lady motioned the younger girl to take the chair at the side of the room, while she took the chair in front of me.