A call from an old friend resulted in an opportunity to work at two F1 races this summer.
"Wait, wait, wait" seems to be something I am doing a lot at the moment, Ben wrote in one of his diary entries as he had moved forward to the last stage of an interview process which is where we last heard from him.
So how did it go?
– Unfortunately I didn’t get the job. I got to the final stage but they chose somebody else so that’s a bit of a blow, Ben Hebbourn says.
While the local job did not pan out, Ben Hebbourn did get to dip his toes back into Formula 1 which is something he had been involved in earlier in life. When Norran English speaks with him he has just got back from Italy and later this summer he is going to the Silverstone circuit in the UK.
– It’s a job I did many years ago and I hadn’t been in an F1 garage for a long time and it was great to be back there with the sights and the smells, it brought back a lot of memories, Ben says.
While its exciting to get back into the motor racing world it is only temporary and requires travelling away from home.
– Apart from that I'm sort of back to square one because I haven't had any other calls for more interviews or anything like that so it's kind of mixed emotions at the moment.
"They chose somebody else so that’s a bit of a blow", Ben Hebbourn says.
Ben Hebbourn heard from a former colleague who had also applied for the same job Ben interviewed for but got a straight rejection.
– There’s no rhyme or reason to it, the job market is literally like a lottery, he adds.
Many of Ben Hebbourn’s former colleagues and friends have already left Skellefteå, some moving to one of the three big cities down south, some finding other jobs in Europe, for example Germany.
– Everybody's sort of wondering who's left. Everyone's waiting for the dust to settle to see who's still around, who survived and who's gone. It's quite a strange time, Ben says.
Ben Hebbourn describes how it feels like the town is emptying, there are fewer events, people leave and the ones left are trying to preserve their money, not going out so much.
– You can see that on Facebook marketplace. There's a lot of people giving away all their furniture and all of their stuff because they're leaving and moving out or downsizing, Ben Hebbourn says.
"It's kind of mixed emotions at the moment", Ben Hebbourn says about his current situation.
Reflecting upon the past year Ben thinks that the authorities and municipality have done their best considering the unprecedented situation but feels for the people who are on a work visa and only has three months to find new employment.
– It felt like you went into one pile if you had a work visa and another if you didn’t, like if you've only got a short time to find a job, then it's not really something they can help you with. But then again they probably haven't had to deal with such a large influx of unemployment at the same time, Ben says.
Ben Hebbourn has made Skellefteå home with his family and wants to stay here.
There is a possibility of working in tourism in Finland in winter via a company Ben’s wife has started but until then he will be applying for jobs and wait as long as he can to sign up with the Employment Agency as he would then have to apply for jobs further afield.
– I don't really want to have to find jobs 12 hours away. Because then we'd have to move, he says.
Thinking back to last summer it is difficult to believe that anyone could have foreseen what has come to pass, according to Ben.
– I don't think anybody thought that we'd come to Northvolt literally closing down their machines and everybody leaving and there only being a handful of people left dusting off the cobwebs. The fact that it could actually just close down and not do anything is a real possibility now. And I don't think anybody had thought that. It's hard to believe that it's come to this.