Party Liason

Finally we had our "flatwarming" party (which actually turned out to be the flat cooling party, having been held 4 days before the end of the lease). It only took 7 months to arrange but turned out to be a success. Ever the optimist, I was expecting it to be a disappointment, as many of the people I invited couldn't make it for various reasons (ranging from illness, working the next day to not replying at all to the invite). None of my colleagues (current and ex) made it, none of my family made it, none of my ex-flatmates (except Iain) made it... entire groups of people I've associated with were absent. Despite this, there was still a good turnout; Along with several of the ESE crew, Suzi, her brother Joe, Martyn Lyall etc were also in attendance, along with a few of the obligatory randoms. In addition, some obsessive fans had tracked down my penthouse flat and crashed the party, hoping to meet their idol. Fortunately they were harmless and a few autograph signings kept them at bay. Guys, you know I'm only kidding ;)

It was nice to top off my time in the flat with a big(gish) party and sitting amongst the debris of bottles and fage ends the next day was a very satisfying feeling. The flat is in such a mess that we're just treating it as one giant bin, just tossing any rubbish onto an arbitrary part of the floor. The laminate floors are so sticky it's as if you're walking on superglue. I find the extremes amusing... from gleaming penthouse apartment to landfill site! We'll inevitably have to clean it all up though as it would be unfair on the landlords to leave it as it is. With regards to the flat, all that remains is the cleanup operation, moving stuff out (which I did earlier today) and meeting the landlords (Edzell) to hand over the keys and get back the deposit (once they've inspected the place). I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we'll get most of the deposit back despite the large dent in the wall. There is also damp which has seeped through from the bathroom and is eating away at my bedroom walls! I just hope they don't charge me for that. My gut feeling is that they'll keep the deposit to pay off Shagger's last rent instalment and whatever's left put it towards paying for the wall. That would be unfair on me as I paid my rent but unfortunately it's a joint lease so anyhing goes. If that happens I'll be back to square one with Shagger owing the money to me again. Sigh.

At the moment I'm off work for 4 days, and the thought of going back there fills me with dread. I don't know if I'm fed up with call centres in general or if it's just this one in particular I despise. Imagine some of the possible factors which could make a job satisfying:

• Good hours
• Good pay
  
• A real sense of achievement
• The feeling that you're a valued employee
• Feeling like part of a successful team
• Caring about your work
• The feeling that you're really achieving something
• Obvious ways of progressing up the career ladder
  
• Regular performance feedback/support
• Good facilities e.g. access to quality coffee!
  
• Banter at lunchtime/breaks, good conversation
• (Female) secretaries in .. um .. short, tight skirts and cleavage-revealing tops
• You get the point, right?

...take all these things away, cram it into intensive 12-hour chunks...

...and you're left with Goldfish card services. After a few months working there I just want to throw myself out the window. I now can fully relate to those adverts which take the piss out of call centres, with the chickens wearing headsets... because that's what it feels like - a battery farm - mass-produced customer service. As my friend Allan joked in an email... "we are to produce 6 promo BTs, 50 CARE forms, and half-a-dozen eggs" - lol!!

When I first started I was told I'd be working 5 days, each 8.5 hour shifts (I'm on 12) and that stats aren't important (if we don't average 35 secs time after each call we don't get a permanent contract). The job involves a bit of inbound sales as well which we weren't told about. Because so many people leave/phone in sick, the call volumes can get quite high, even at off-peak times, and there are people who come round to check you are ready to take another call - they don't encourage taking a breather in-between. So as you can imagine, come 7pm, 10 hours into the shift, and you've just taken your 30th payment call without a break in-between, it's a struggle to sound enthusiastic to customers. What about the customers themselves? Well, put it this way, I'm losing faith in the human race as a whole. After listening to these idiots moan for hours (most of whom are English snobs) I secretly yearn for Planet Earth to be consumed by a giant fireball from outer space - just to shut them up! "I didn't receive my statement this month so therefore didn't realise I had to pay anything!" - My heart bleeds for you. "Why should I pay this interest? My payment was only 10 days late!" - Read the terms & conditions you daft bitch!! As you can see I'm slowly becoming a bitter cynic. To be honest, it's not always that bad - these people only (fortunately) reflect a small minority of the population and there are always those who are an absolute delight to speak to and make it all worthwhile - ahhh :)

As for the people who work in that place, they are either gay psychopaths or loopy girls who seem inexplicably happy all the time (admittedly that's a generalisation). To be honest though, I think 90% of the guys in there are gay - not that I've anything against gays, but it's just a very camp environment which I don't feel particularly comfortable in. Also, I don't feel particularly happy working for a company whom I don't give a toss about. I've not got anything in particular against credit cards but I don't use one myself and it's part of the mass consumer culture we live in, which I'm not too keen on personally. The job means absolutely nothing to me but yet here I am in the front line, caught in the crossfire between corporation and consumer - not a place I particularly want to be!

Kill me now. Make it quick.

To make matters worse, our team is falling apart; Karyn is going part-time, because she's going back to uni. Allan is moving to the 8.5 hour shifts and hence also going to a different team. Chris is thinking of leaving. Malcolm, a veteran of 3-and-a-half years, left 2 weeks ago, after finally having had enough. Sam left a while ago to go to 3 Mobile. I'm most definitely wanting to leave a.s.a.p. It just feels all wrong, and I'm going to start looking elsewhere. The atmosphere in goldfish has been sombre recently, as a guy from another department died. At the time, the circumstances were unknown but it's just made matters worse. The last time I was in, a girl across from me broke down in tears. I didn't know the guy but I believe he was quite young and it sounds tragic.

Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh on my job. The pay isn't too bad, we get internet access in the canteen and we get free coffee (even if it does taste like Satan's piss), and the days off are ok. However, I'm now at the stage where the job has nothing left to offer me and I have nothing to offer it either. I just don't think it's my thing any more. It's so tedious, repetitive and dull. Oh, and did I mention stressful? In truth, the only thing I look forward to before a shift is sending emails to other team members either reporting a funny customer name or taking the piss out of the job!

A degree-related job has never seemed more appealing. My plan for the next few months is to try and get a well-paid job with regular hours, pay off my debt and save up a bit with the possibility of going away for a prolonged period. I'm going to start sending my CV away and hope to get something else soon as I can't take much more of Goldfish card services!!

Apart from that, everything's fine.