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Work Report - Mike Crowl focuses on jobs and work and anything connected to the two.
Mike blogs in two places on Orble, and two on Blogger. His wife thinks he writes too much.
First day at the three-week full-time job. Boss is almost invisible: no hands-on lady, she. Not unfriendly, just not involved with the staff. I'm with a guy who's supposed to have been going on holiday next week (hence my presence in the place), except his wife had a heart attack on the weekend and is in hospital.
On either side of us are a couple of women, one with a fairly tart tongue, the other one with a tongue and attitude coarser still. The guys approach her with some caution. The language, as they used to say, would make a sailor blush.
I was introduced to practically everyone and everywhere, and promptly forgot most of the names and faces. But at least I now know I'm not working where I thought I was - although I did spend an hour in that building this afternoon, getting a run-down on the computer program they use (which isn't to difficult). The lady accountant gave me the 'lesson' and the staff in that part of the building seem rather more pleasant. In our section tradesmen come and go, and there's a generally more down-to-earth air to the place.
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Well, no more tapping of the numeric keys endlessly until Wednesday next week, when I work from 8 am till 5 pm and then go on to the evening job from 6 till 10. That sounds like it might be a long day.
Meantime, it's late Saturday evening, and my wife and I, after a not very busy day around the house, have not long returned from a visit to my son's new flat, which at the moment he's occupying on his own because his other two flatmates are away, holidaying.
What was intended to be a quiet meal with the three of us (and Carl the kitten) turned a little corner. My son was showing us downstairs. The living quarters are upstairs and downstairs there are two bedrooms, and a curious basement room. In the basement was stored my son's friend's gear, which he was to pick up in due course
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I've been flat out over the last couple of days getting stuff on Trade Me and Zillion, two sites here in New Zealand that are similar to the Ebay set up in the States. Trade Me is the biggest, but Zillion obviously sells stuff for you as well. I finally got rid of a book I'd had on my list since I started doing this, the other day. It went on Zillion when it hadn't had a sniffle on Trade Me. But then, that's about the only thing I've sold on Zillion.
Tonight's my last night at the evening job until next Wednesday. I'm only doing the Wednesday evenings for three weeks because I'll be working in the daytime as well, full-time. Starting at 8 am. I can't remember when I last started at 8 am
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One of the advantages of not working in the daytime is that you can do some things you'd never have time to do normally. I offered to be a volunteer 'guinea pig' in a study the local hospital is doing on genes relating to heart attacks and such. I only go in for studies that don't require a lot of extra work on my part, I'm afraid, not the kind that require to change your diet for six weeks or somesuch.
This one required only two blood pressure tests, one at the usual place on the arm, and the other on the ankle. They should have been similar, but the ankle one was a bit higher.
It also required some ultra-sound work, on both sides of my neck and on my stomach. Quite intriguing to hear your heart pumping away, and to see the huge gulps of blood leaping up through the artery. Last year I had the chance to see my heart at work in an ultra sound scan. It was much bigger than I expected, and boy, does it work! At least I know it is working
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Writing applications for jobs is a painful task. You have to get yourself all worked up with enthusiasm for a particular position, and then start all over again on the next application.
There’s something mind-splitting about the process, something schizophrenic. How can you really put yourself forward with the same amount of enthusiasm for jobs as varied – in my case – as an admin assistant in a university dept for theatre studies, or a retail role in a bookshop, or another retail job in a stationery shop, or a customer services role in the city council, or an office manager’s job in a lawyer’s firm? To name just a few of the recent ones.
Any of these jobs would be suitable, but whether I’m utterly enthusiastic about any of them – in advance - is another issue. That’s a bit of a problem, because the best you can do is say to yourself that you’re
enthusiastic. Be Enthusiastic! But what’s the reality? I’m at an age when people used to retire in the past, and yet I need to keep working. It doesn’t in fact matter what I do, particularly, as long as it’s interesting and enjoyable, and any of these jobs could possibly be so
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Two more job applications down the tubes today. And I learned that another job where one of the Personnel places is putting my name forward is only for 15 hours a week. Yup, that’ll pay the bills.
It makes you want to give up on applications and CVs and cover letters and all, because they’re all going into some great employment waste bin as far as I can see. I have never yet had an interview as a result of an application. Never. In five months that seems ridiculous. Other people have looked at my CVs and pronounced them fine. I’ve got advice from people in the know. I’ve done what they’ve told me. Does it make any difference? Not a jot.
I’m not particularly angry, just fed up with the whole routine. I guess I’m not the only one. If I’m losing out again and again, so must a host of other people be. Unless of course that large number of people is gradually being
whittled down and my turn is just about next! Yeah, right, as the Tui beer ads say
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All the newbies at my place of work have been learning 'Codeline' (I think I've mentioned this word before). I'm not going to explain what it is, but it's more interesting than the basic job we do most of the time, thank goodness. And tonight, because we were all finished with a half hour to spare, we learned Repass, which is another form of Codeline. (The Jargon!)
We're starting to feel as though we belong, even more so, as one of the other newbies said tonight, when you see other people coming in for the
speed test. Two have been in this week. (They go through staff quite fast at this place, not because it's unpleasant, but because the evening hours don't suit everyone.) Seeing these nervous people arrive in a large room with people hammering away at computers is a bit daunting. I remember it well! As always you have that ridiculous notion in your head that all these people must be better than you because they can already do the job, and you can't. Crazy
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Blogs to the left of me, blogs to the right of me - to quote Tennyson in The Charge of the Light Brigade.
Today another Crowl blog starts on Orble - Webitz.net. It's going to focus on quirky things I find in my travels on the Net - not advertising, since Orble has strictly warned me that advertising is non persona grata - but more just items that seem of interest in what's happening around the Net World
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At certain times in the evening, in this data entry job I'm doing, a hush comes over the place: everyone is racing through 'amount keying' at a great rate, entering numbers on the screen as though their lives depended on it. All you can hear is the gentle clicking of keys. It has the same soothing effect as standing in a great forest listening to the trees rustling. No one is making jokes, no one is telling the latest news, no one is gossiping. All is at peace...
Your mind strays at the same time as it's taking in numbers and conveying to the fingers (at extraordinary speed) which buttons to press. A strange feeling of something going in a circular fashion through you, from the eyes to the brain to the fingers and round again is present. But even while you're sensing that you're also aware of the speeds of the people beside you, of their posture, of what you're going to do when you get home tonight, of what the day has been like (dull or interesting), of your sense of frustration that you're doing a job you're certainly capable of and yet you're also capable of a good deal more, capable of doing something that's more creative, more interesting, less mind-soothing - however pleasant that may be for a time...
One of the things I don't enjoy about working from 6 pm to 10 pm is that you spend the whole day anticipating having to go to work. Okay, I get on with things, such as writing this comment, but as the day winds down (for most people) I'm gearing up to go to work. Come 4 pm, and I'm thinking about what I'm going to have for tea. Come 5 pm, if I'm still thinking about it, I'm starting to panic a bit as to whether it's going to get cooked in time. I need to cook something, because that's another factor with odd hours: you tend to think, 'I'll just grab something from somewhere,' and soon your whole diet is out the window. (I don't mean a diet diet, but the ordinary every day diet of eating healthily.)
So here it is, coming up 4 o'clock, and I'm now starting to think: I don't have very much of the day left. Is it worth starting this project, or that? Do I have time to fill out another application form for yet another job? You
Clock watching - this isn't me, by the way - comes courtesy of the League of Women Voters' site
become a clockwatcher of a different sort: not one who's wondering how long it is before he can go home, but one who is wondering how long he's got before he has to leave home.
Ah, me. Well, it probably won't last forever. It can't, because I'll go mad, or my wife will. Yesterday, her first back at work after the holidays, we saw each other for a short while in the morning, said goodbye, and then basically didn't see each other until 10.15 at night. (Apart from the fact that she came home for lunch on her little motor scooter and had a game of table tennis with me, but that won't be normal procedure
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After a couple of days away from town – or rather, three – I’m back with a bit of news. This site will be morphing into a different name, and will have a different focus. It may be that this ultra-exciting biographical element, detailing the incredibly interesting statistics of my (non) working life will continue between other posts….we’ll see.
In the meantime this blog will be picking up news about things on the web from here, there and everywhere: some of it will be of interest to techno people, some to business people, and some to those who don’t fit into other categories (the arty ones, probably). The aim will be keep up with some of the things that come my way that I think will be of interest to all and sundry
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Tonight I did CODELINE. Yup, as a change from hammering numbers into the computer, I hammered different numbers into the computer. But now I had to think as well. Poor brain wasn't used to this, and continually clogged up with the (relatively small) amount of information handed to it. Well, that's what learning's all about. I must say that the woman teaching me has a gift for teaching. She has immense patience (she's called on constantly by the other staff to check things out) and is humble about her approach to teaching. She's informative, and thorough, and complimentary. It's a privilege to learn under her.
I was telling her tonight about the woman who taught me when I did a ten-day stint at another place in September last year. This woman wrote stuff down, but it came out different to the notes I was taking. She was insistent that everything be done her way, even though there were plainly alternatives. (This wasn't routine stuff; it called for a bit of nous). She told me I'd 'break' the speaker phone if I kept doing something with it. (FIrst way to make someone feel uncomfortable: treat them like a child). She claimed I'd logged into her personal email, even though there was no way I could have known her password. (Second way: accuse people). And finally, when I did something that wasn't according to Hoyle (I basically used the phone system the way I had at my previous job, knowing that it would work, and it wasn't her way. She said, 'You're not working in a shop now.' (Third way: humiliate people.)
Thank God I only had to work in the same room as her for three days.
I let slip to my current employer last night that I had the prospect of a three week temporary job coming up at the end of the month, full-time, in the day time. Felt as though there was a bit of concern that it was going to be a waste of time training me any further - and I'm supposed to start on some more training tonight - as a 'code-liner'. Whoo whoo!
So it's that old juggling act. Do I just get on and work day and night; do I pretend that I'm never going to leave this current job? Do I hope that
Someone who actually can balance!
the temporary job might lead to something else with the same company (the one, coincidentally, that I actually had an interview with late last year - my only interview in five months!)? Do I just play everyone else along as though I wasn't doing anything else and everything was hunky-dory
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Two things: on the spiritual side, and on the practical, job side.
I've been re-reading Philip Yancey's Reaching the Invisible God, a book which the first time round I didn't much enjoy (so I remembered, anyway). However, this time round it's right for the where I'm at. One of the things he reminded me of was that trust in God isn't a matter of trust when things are going right, but also when they're not. Should I know this already? I've only learnt it about fourteen times, but the lesson hasn't stuck as well as it should
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NZ Post hasn't been in contact, which doesn't give me much hope for hearing any more about the job I was (rather unusually) interviewed for by cellphone, the other day.
I spent part of the morning (when I wasn't yet again hacking down branches of a tree that insists on growing across the roof of our glasshouse (and into our glasshouse - between the glasses!) applying for more jobs or making inquiries about jobs, or contacting the personnel places to remind them that I still exist. I think the latter have a motto: I blink, therefore he ain't. Get out of sight of these people and you may as well be in another country is my view. Once the initial procedures have been carried out, the registrations, the contract signings for them to be able to offer you casual work, the checking of your police record and so on, once all that's out of the way, you go into the big dark cupboard under the stairs (or the computer equivalent) and that's where you stay, until they're forced to bring you out again because you've had the temerity to remind them that you're still looking for a job
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I thought I'd written another post here yesterday, but for some reason it's gone and vanished on me. Basically I said, things were better at work on Friday. I think it was mostly me the night before that was the problem in terms of feeling unhappy there, and it was probably more related to the recent death of my mother than anything to do with the actual job.
I’m okay there, though I still want some-thing in the daytime in preference. Didn’t hear back from the NZ Post on Friday, even though I thought they said the day before that I would. Isn’t that typical? The worst is, I expected that, expected to be disappointed. Which isn’t good enough. I’ve still got about six jobs in the pipeline, and there are more in Saturday's paper that I'll have to sit down tomorrow morning and work my way through, but we seem to be back to the same place we were before Christmas: applications galore and no responses.
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It may be a reaction to my mother's recent death, or it may be just the frustration of being in a job where I'm merely the boy, but last night, after
work, I really had the blues.
It's quite humbling to be back at the bottom of the pile, with no authority about anything, no say in anything, having to ask permission to do this or that (relatively speaking) and in general being ignored by the staff who've been there longer. Some of the older staff are good, but a couple of the young ones refuse to look me in the eye, as though they were wary of having to face the dinosaur that's in their midst
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I was driving to my son and daughter-in-law's with my wife for lunch when the cellphone rang. I pulled over, since I'm no good at talking on the phone and driving, and it turned out it was in relation to a job I applied for with the NZ Post before Christmas. As I also applied for another one with them yesterday I was at first a bit confused as to which one they were talking about. This is a five day a week job, mornings, sorting the mail into
A person - not me - sorting mail
postboxes at one of the main post shops in Dunedin. Not many hours involved, but it's permanent, and it would give me a foot in the door with NZ Post again, which would, I think, be more than helpful. The other job is 25 hours a week, but it's temporary - only four months. I'd sooner have the former than the latter, though even the latter would be possible.
Hopefully tomorrow I'll hear more about it. In the meantime, if I got it, I'd carry on with the evening job until it became unviable because of other evening commitments, like the usual music show we do each year, or performing in a play...or my wife getting really really sick of me being out each night for four hours.
Ships passing in the night...
It would be nice to be more than ships passing in the night, I must admit, and the current situation, once she goes back to work will entail her arriving home just as I leave, normally. It would more likely be that she'd just miss me each night.
I applied for another job at the Post Office today; a mail officer (which can mean anything, but I think it's a sorter). It's temporary, for four months, but I think a foot in the door at the PO would be access to other jobs more readily. It's about 25 hours a week, which suits me okay, really.
That's six jobs still in the pipeline. With the Christmas holidays, nothing's happening except me applying. Responses have been nil
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Still statutory holidays here, and so my wife decided we'd go to the movies with three of the grandchildren. Unfortunately we chose Happy Feet, which turned out to be anything but happy. I'm talking about both the film and our experience.
We took the 7-year-old girl, her sister of four, and their younger cousin, a boy of three. Not a good idea. He was already fidgeting before we got far into the movie, wanting to be on the floor, losing his Eskimo Pie down his front (I had to eat the bottom portion of it - what a shame...!), kneeling down behind the seat in front and peering through the gap. The movie was very noisy, and this was his first time at the cinema...ever
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Being New Year's Day, we went to the Waikouaiti races with two of my daughters and their children. Funny sort of weather, with alternate hot patches (though cloudy) and an unpleasant little drizzling rain than was chilly.
Made about as much as I lost, so I guess that was okay! Had a picnic on the grass within a few feet of the finishing post, so periodically horses raced past to mixed enthusiasm from the crowd. We looked at our betting slips
and either threw them back in own pockets or considered which horses we could spend the less-than-enormous winnings on
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