✍️✍️ Job Deadlines ✍️✍️ — January 28

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Jan 28, 2022

Hello folks! I don’t know about you but I definitely have that Friday feeling. Which is lucky, because I don’t know if I can take anymore stress for a few days…

It’s been one helluva 24 hours trying to get from Peru to Argentina, and I’m not sure my nerves have yet settled down. Turns out getting to Lima airport seven hours before my midnight flight to Buenos Aires wasn’t enough time to prepare myself for what was about to unfold.

After being told I wasn’t allowed to check in until 10pm, I perched myself at a lovely little restaurant overlooking the array of check-in desks. Perfect, I thought, as I’d plan the perfect timing of my descent to the queue for minimal stress.

One bowl of soup, a plate of spaghetti and several manzanilla (camomile) teas later, it was 9pm and I took a glance down to the forecourt. To my shock, there were already around 100 people in line to check in. Did they know something I didn’t? Probably, so I hustled down. Three hours to check in and clear security. No problem I thought, especially with the priority pass I’d bought — literally the best $4 I’ve ever spent.

With around 20 people in front of me, the spreadsheet in my brain calculated that if everyone took five minutes to check in, I’d still have plenty of time to have one last tea to put me to sleep on the flight.

But then suddenly a group of around 50 angry passengers came marching down the escalator, chanting all sorts of stuff in Spanish. Their flight to Cusco had been cancelled twice and now they were stranded for the night at the airport. Despite approximately 80 people still in line for the flight to BA, the irate group wedged themselves at the front, banged the desks and demanded answers, halting proceedings for 20 minutes. Still, no problem I thought, I just might have to skip the cheeky browse of duty free I was planning.

As the minutes slipped by and the line moved like a snail, it was suddenly 11pm. One hour until my flight. Finally, I made it to the front, presented all of my documents — passport, boarding pass, negative PCR test and Covid insurance. The one document I didn’t have was the health affidavit required by the Argentinian government to say I didn’t have Covid — even though the staff were staring at a negative PCR test. I explained to them that I’d completed the form twice, but hadn’t received the confirmation email. They told me no bueno, I had to have the confirmation email.

So I proceeded to frantically fill out the form again, and again, and again, and again. I think I counted nine times before I demanded, in broken Spanish and English, a printer to fill the form out manually. Still, no bueno. The feeling that I might be fucked started to seep in, and I started to think about the £750 I was about to lose, and more importantly where I was going to stay the bloody night!

Then, I received a text from friend of the newsletter and part-time BA resident Anna Mazurek, wishing me a safe flight. After explaining the situation and that it didn’t look like I was coming, she told me her friends had to create multiple forms and email addresses in the past. So that’s what I did: two new Gmails and one Outlook address (remember them?), but still nothing. 11:40pm and my acceptance of the situation began.

I’m not a religious person by any means, but I did look up and ask what the heck I’d done to deserve this. And like a miracle dropped from heaven, Anna suggested one last holy grail: filling out the form via a VPN. So that's what we did and five painful minutes later, the poxy PDF finally came through. But then, my suitcase was 2kg overweight. Why me?!? Like out of the movies, I started chucking stuff behind me: sun cream, aftershave, aftersun, shampoo, fucking insect repellent.

Finally I was given the green light and I sprinted for 10 minutes to the gate, to the point where I thought I was actually going to pass out due to a lack of oxygen.

I got onto the plane with three minutes to spare, and as the great Charles Barkley once said, you couldn’t get a pin up my ass with a jackhammer.

Anyway, that’s enough chaos for one week. Below are this week’s jobs deadlines and we literally have hundreds on there. Literally! We’ll be back in your inboxes on Monday with another giant batch of new openings on the job board. Have great weekends and we’ll speak soon. 👋