I once went to Aylesbury, to a young offenders' centre to train as a mentor for young men at the prison who were about to be released, to encourage them to not come back, essentially.
So I had a phone interview, then an interview in person then two days of training. Everyone else there had also had two interviews so I'm not sure how this girl made it to the next stage.
She was one of those people who is totally socially unaware. When the woman running the session asked us to take a few minutes to write something, like why we wanted to become a mentor, we would all fall silent. But this girl didn't seem to realise what was going on. She was sitting, talking aloud and sighing and huffing and puffing.
"Why do I want to be a.... *loud sigh* .... hm... a mentor... hffffff... Why do I..... Erm.... *sigh*."
It was bizarre! We were all silent, scribbling away and she was talking aloud to herself as though it was the most normal thing in the world.
When we were asked to each read one thing off our list it went as such...
"To help people."
"To help reduce crime by repeat offenders."
"Because I'd like to do criminal defense work so feel this would help me understand the issues involved."
"Because I just retired and would like to do more voluntary work."
And then it gets to her at the end of the line and she is asked for a reason. She looks at the list of things other people have said, which have been written up on a board and sighs, then picks one.
"To reduce crime by repeat offenders."
"O, haven't you got something off your own list that you wrote?"
She continues looking up at the board, not even glancing down at her own paper and goes, in a vacant type of way, "Yeh, it's the same. All the same ones."
Erm. It doesn't make any sense. How can she have those same same things? The whole day went like that, talking aloud, sighing, saying odd things, copying whatever anyone else said.
When we left at the end of the day, I was offered a lift to the station by a woman who then offered the strange girl a lift too. It was hilarious. Five minutes in to the journey, she freaks and goes, "I've lost my passport! I've lost my passport."
So we pull over and she talks v e r y slowly through what she might have done with it. And she figures out she has thrown it in the bin in the prison! Yes. That's right. She has thrown it. In the bin. The BIN! How stupid is she?
I forget how she worked it out. But she ended up calling the prison to ask them to go and check in the bin. Of course, in a prison, you do not just run around different buildings looking in bins. Every door is opened and closed by keys. You never have two doors open at a time. You open one and close it behind you and it all takes a long time. We had been in the admin building, the staff of which had all gone home when we left. No-one was allowed in the building when the staff left. The security measures were tight.
She tried persuading the officers to go in the admin building. They obviously said no. She was going, "But my passport is in the bin!" like an idiot.
It was unbelievable.
I forget if she got it back. I just remember that I had to stare out the window really intently when we were in the car and try not to laugh out loud.
When we got to the train station, she got the same train as me! It was awful. She said, "I can't believe I've left my passport in the bin," about a billion and four times.
Now I've met strange people in life but I think she might have been the worst.
P.S. It's Danda's birthday today!
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