Interviewing: housemates (day 1)

Ok, the email scrutinising/culling process is past, now onto the meeting and the greeting.

We had 4 people pencilled in for today and another who just happened to call at the right time and find a slot - bypassing the first level of filtering. (More on this shortly)

Our first girl (no names, no pack drill - what the hell does that expression mean, by the by) who we shall call ABC girl for obvious reasons turned up pretty well bang on time.

Now those who know me a little will know that I'm something of a media junkie - if I can read it, listen to it, watch it or play it, I'm there. I'm particularly interested in the people and organisations that look at our world and tell us what is going on - most particularly when they try to do it with less of a corporate slant - so public media such as the ABC, community media and the "quality" papers (The Age, SMH etc) score higher points here.

So ABC girl is off to a good start as far as I'm concerned just by virtue of being there. She's part of their cadet programme, so is one of only 7 selected for the year, making her a little special.

Of course, it didn't take too long to figure out that she kind of knew it. (This was mostly my take - my housemate Abi thought she seemed quite down to earth)

Maybe I'll digress for a moment to bring some context to the house.

There's me - 35 year old multimedia guy from Melbourne, there's Eric, 30 year old evolution Ph.D from France and there's Abi, 26(?) year old student from Sydney. (I've asked her half a dozen times now what she is studying - I know that it's Asian studies and something - law? - but I keep forgetting - she's only been here a week, really).

Ok, so back to ABC girl - like everyone today, she's young, hip*, keen to get a house and cluey enough to have made it to interview. :)

(*Whatever the hell that means)

So we do the tour - first one for a while so there are the odd stumbles here and there but ultimately, it's a great house (and we're great housemates) so the place really sells itself. We move on to the kitchen table chat and while she seems interesting, there's a too-cool-for-school Sydney-ness that raises my long dormant Melbourne hackles.

I like the idea of a house where we're all a bit of a unit - not living in each other's pockets necessarily but able to hang out and do things together a bit.

So we get towards the end of her slot and the next girl arrives early.

Next girl (let's call her grad for now) settles in the loungeroom with outgoing housemate Tim in front of the telly to give us a little more time to wrap up with ABC girl.

I don't actually remember which city she has come from - the Sydney/Melbourne thing thus was no issue - as she was entirely charming.

Eminently personable, she's either putting on the charm or is the real deal, just a genuinely nice and interesting person. She speaks a fistful of languages and is going to work for a govt department (AusAID)(which coincidentally I seem to know at least half a dozen people in now) that scores high on the right-on meter.

Third up we have a local girl just about to start work in the press gallery at Parliament as a researcher for one of the aforementioned quality papers. Again, great, personable, interesting and stepping into a world that I find fascinating at a particularly interesting time (leading up to a federal election). Abi makes the point that she doesn't need a place as much as the other girls (she's currently staying with her parents a hop, step and jump away from Parliament House) which I hadn't considered but is quite true.

Lucky (?) last we have a 20 year old multimedia student who's also working for a media production company in town. Another Canberra native, she's nice but really quite young and makes a big show of the fact that she doesn't want to be in a house where she's expected to hang out / do things with the other housemates. (A little bit of a suburban Cheryl as well perhaps).

So we have a nuh-huh and 3 prospects with 3 more to come today. (Actually, the 12.30 hasn't shown up - no phone call either - so I guess it's two).

More to come.

Preferences so far:

Abi - 1.ABC girl, 2.AusAID, 3. Age
Eric - 1. AusAID, 2. ABC girl, 3. Age
Me - 1. AusAID, 2. Age, 3. ABC

More news as it comes to hand.

(Oh and the fourth scheduled girl called and cancelled - nice to see manners alive and well)