Thanks to our new starter, Reece Enfield, for sharing his story of how he became a Glider.
Image: Diaryheart.com
The names Bill…Bill Board Baggins…or so James Villarreal calls me.
My real name is Reece Enfield and I’m the guy who walked up and down Birmingham’s New Street, wearing a sandwich board, for an entire week searching for a job.
On the fourth day of the search, a man, who is now my manager, ran towards me cradling a bucket of KFC. He tapped me on the shoulder and asked for my CV. Without hesitation, I handed it him as he regained his breath. We exchanged a brief conversation before I continued with my search. Later that week my other manager, Grace, called me with the news of a job interview.
The following week, I was working for Glide.
So the reason I did it you ask?
To cut a long story short, after a heavy Wednesday night of drinking (not my finest moment) a rather hungover I was lay in bed at 4pm, regretting the fact I had missed university again.
I lay staring at the ceiling for half an hour and all I could think about was how much I hated my course, and how every day was a battle dragging myself there. I wanted out for a long time but the thing that scared me the most was change. I had applied for 50+ jobs a few weeks before, maintaining a pretty laid back “if it happens, it happens” kind of mentality.
But this time I wanted to throw myself out into the battle field. So, later that night, I used the last of my printer credits to print off what I needed for my sandwich board. I taped the pages to a discarded Tuborg box and fixed it together with the last of the string I found hanging from the ceiling from New Year’s Eve decorations.
I tried it on…I looked ridiculous.
I had all weekend to mentally prepare myself, and kept what I was doing a secret from everyone except the Birmingham Mail, who picked up on my story. After the most awkward 15 minute meeting in history, I walked up and down New Street for the remainder of the day and then went home.
The next day my phone was ringing off the hook and my Twitter followers had doubled overnight. I had made front page news and everyone knew. Newspapers, radio stations, television producers, O2 customer services…everyone wanted ‘Bill Board Baggins’. It was the first time I had gotten any media attention and it was exciting!
But with the good comes the bad, and I came across a website who had published an article about me titled, ‘HAHAHAHAHA Good luck!’ On the same day a man spat at me in the streets and told me that what I was doing wasn’t ‘British’.
Just as I was ready to pack it all in, I received a call from Glide. It sounded perfect after the week I’d had and I took their job offer the moment it was offered to me.
So far I’ve been here a week, the people are awesome and I finally have a job title. It’s what I wanted to achieve from my bill board and more. I found a job perfect for me.