Tim Connor Hits Trouble Read Free

room, his stiff leather interview shoes squeaking plaintively on the hard, stone floor.
    ‘Best of luck,’ Tim called after him. He checked his watch. He had about ten minutes to figure out how to use Hobsbawn’s information.
    Teaching methods? This was an area where academics were often at their most opinionated and dogmatic. Whatever he said was likely to offend someone. But maybe his experience with the sixteen to eighteen year olds could be made to count. His strategies for keeping mid-teenagers engaged or at least occupied for two-hour sessions might translate well into higher education, now that it was almost fully comprehensive. What were the buzz words and ideas? There were plenty of them: student centred education, resources based learning, individualised learning. Tim had tinkered with all these approaches but what he most enjoyed was face to face interaction with the students, trying to spark and respond to curiosity. He knew this could sound old-fashioned; not the image he wanted to create, but perhaps he could put his own views as an add-on after he’d spouted all the ‘best practice’ patter? Risky. It was the techno rather than the humanistic line that usually went down well these days. The education mechanics were taking over. He decided he would cover both angles,appealing to the nuts and bolts lobby but also defending divergent and critical thinking. Should he risk a joke referring to his ‘default survival kit of read, summarise and discuss among your-selves?’
Forget it! Don’t go there
.
    The tension was getting to him. His dismal interview track record nagged at his self-belief. Usually laid-back and self-confident, despite his gangly clumsiness, he was becoming neurotic about this pesky blockage to his life’s progress. Yet the fact that he was still called to interview meant that he remained a serious contender. What was he doing wrong? Did he talk too much as one interviewer had unhelpfully implied in the middle of an interview? Or too little? Did he freeze up, sounding wooden and boring? Or, did his attempts at originality come across as too adventurous, even wild? Maybe he just tried too hard. Whatever the answer to the riddle of selection he needed to find it now. An unlikely combination of circumstances had thrown up a real chance, probably a last chance. He’d better take it. He felt momentarily exhausted. He hadn’t slept much the previous night. Then the chaotic journey: what a buffoon to try to walk from the station. A band of tension gripped across his temples. He hooked his glasses over his knee and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes; sweet oblivion!
    The sudden click of a door returned him to the moment. Aisha Khan emerged alone. She smiled at him. Tim smiled back, a blank goggle.
    ‘How did it go?’ he found himself asking.
    ‘Not bad, well ok, better than I expected,’ she replied hesitantly, reluctant to sound too optimistic.
    ‘Well, oh, good.’ He half meant it. It was not easy to wish ill luck on this lovely woman, even if her success was to be at his expense. ‘So you think you might have got…’ He stopped mid-sentence as the door clicked open again. It was Howard Swankie.
    ‘Dr Connor, we’re ready for you now.’ Without waiting for a response he turned to Aisha Khan and said, ‘Don’t forget to pick up your expenses claim form, Ms. Khan.You can get it from Reception.’ With what Tim interpreted as a meaningful smile, he added ‘You’ll be hearing from us very shortly.’
    Tim got up and walked towards the oak door of the interview room. It was at this point at previous interviews that his brain fled to a remote part of his cranium where it lodged irretrievably until the ordeal was over. He breathed deeply, determined to remain if not calm at least coherent. Swankie held the door open for him. As he entered the room he got a whiff of expensive eau-de-toilette. With a gargantuan effort he managed not to sneeze.
     
    Aisha Khan skipped down