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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.
I've added a bit more on the other blog about my workplace and its peculiarities, so check it out when you get a minute.
This post is basically to let Technorati get a link to this site, so that hopefully there can be a bit more awareness of my words of wisdom on the subject of work.
I may not have mentioned that I have four to six more weeks temporary work. However, on Friday there was some hint that there might be some long-term employment at this place, because another staff member is leaving. This isn't a dilemma for me, but it is interesting that this wouldn't be my first choice of place to work, even though I did get an interview with them for another position entirely last year. (I would probably have preferred to work in that part of the company.) There's nothing definite yet, and it could all fall flat on its face, but we'll see. Time will tell, as I'm always saying
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I keep meaning to describe the area I work in – temporarily.
It’s a real blue-collar industrial area, with dozens of small and large manufacturing and repair outfits, where trucks proliferate and overalls are the common uniform. The white-collar workers - like myself - are well in the minority.
Driving to work in the morning I go up and over the bridge over the railway tracks – the overbridge that runs off Cumberland St and ends up either in Portsmouth Drive or whatever the street is that runs in the opposite direction, past the wharf and Harbour. I am puzzled as to why enormous trucks carrying logs, for instance, go over this bridge. They can barely navigate the turn in from the one-way system and it’s also a tight squeeze as they turn left off in the direction I travel. One of these days the whole bridge is going to collapse under the strain. There’s no reason that I can see why they don’t head straight along the one-way system and then turn off down St Andrew St towards Anzac Avenue, since this is where they come out anyway. The route they take seems to go away from where they want to be only in order to come back again. Crazy. Why not drive on the flat all the way, instead of hauling yourself up and over a narrow bridge
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It’s been a tension-filled couple of days. I finally heard back from one of the interviewers that I hadn’t got the job I was most keen on. Very disappointing. Still hadn’t heard from the other interview at all, and finally I got hold of the guy today to hear that he’d put me on the short list, had employed several people, had found some of the staff he thought were
leaving weren’t, and wanted to keep my CV as one of the three people whom he hadn’t contacted because we are still in the (long-distance) running. Exhausting, I call it.
Meanwhile, there’s been talk at the full-time temp job I’ve been doing of me staying on for another six weeks because one of the women is having surgery for cancer. I thought this was a definite, and then found out this morning, that no, it wasn’t that definite, because the woman hadn’t had a confirmed appointment at the hospital. Pooh, I thought – along with some other thoughts.
And then, lo and behold, just before lunch the woman got a telephone call from her husband telling her that next Thursday’s the day. Great relief on her part, as I could understand. Having something definite is always a great relief
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It's been a strange week. The after-effects of the interview stayed with me for the last couple of days, making me feel very unconfident about getting the job. I rang them today to see if they could tell me when I'd hear something: early next week apparently. And there have been other people interviewed, which I wasn't previously sure about. That's a pity!
Meanwhile on the full-time temporary job front, things have improved a lot. I'm a lot more confident about the actual job, have found out a lot more about how to get things done right (always difficult when you're picking up a reasonably complex situation after a few days of training), have found the people to ask when problems arise, and...today, was asked - if I didn't have other work - whether I'd be interested in staying on for another six weeks or so because one of the women working beside me is going into hospital for an operation.
I have to say I've somewhat misjudged things there, in terms of the women. I still think things are unnecessarily negative at times, but not only do we have a woman who is quite unwell struggling along trying to be over-the-top cheerful, the other woman's mother-in-law is very unwell too. No doubt that's affecting, in part, how things are in terms of the atmosphere of the place
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Dull day at work today, so it was just as well I had an hour out of the place doing an interview. The interview went well, I thought at the time, but afterwards you begin to lose all confidence and feel as though you could have done several things better, and presented yourself differently.
For instance, I was asked: if your friends were here what five positive things would they say about you? I came up with positive things, but with a bit of difficulty (we're not used to finding the positive about ourselves...at least I'm not), but when I mentioned this to my wife tonight, she immediately said: Honest, Hardworking, Conscientious, Reliable, and something else which I've now forgotten. Maybe I should prepare a list for next time
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It's been a bit quiet on here lately because I've been working full-time and the shock has hit me - on the weekend I was very tired. However, it's a new week - and yesterday I got an email with an attachment showing how much I'd earned. I haven't had money like that since I left my last full-time job, and even then it wasn't quite that amount. Plus it appears that they're actually paying me at the hourly rate as originally advised rather than the rate less $1.
And as well last week I had my first interview in months: made it onto a short list where there were 250 applications. Admittedly there were 4 full-time and 4 part-time jobs going, but nevertheless, this is an achievement
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First day on my own at the daytime job, and it was easier than I'd expected. Not having someone looking over my shoulder was a blessing, even though it would have saved some time to have had him there to ask questions of. But not having him there means you have to find your own solutions and brings out the old creativity, which is always a bonus.
The boss finished today - vanished about three and wasn't seen again. Vanished, in fact, without saying a word to anyone. The three women who do most of the stirring round the place seemed glad to see her go, as though she'd been the one causing the trouble. I find that hard to believe: either my reading of people is totally out of kilter, or I'm right. The boss was always pleasant to me, smiled readily, and came and talked - and was helpful. The other three are difficult with many people, won't go out of their way, have mouths that seldom open without bad language and put-downs, and more. Yes, they invited me to have lunch with them today when we all had Chinese takeaways, but they weren't very forthcoming about themselves: questions about their lives outside the office tended to bog down very quickly.
It could be worse. If anything, it's better than I first thought, and that's a bonus.
Well, it's been an interesting week. For starters, I had my second interview today. Second, that is, in terms of how many I've had since I began looking for a job six months ago. (I started a month and a half before I left my previous job.)
This interview was at a book shop, and they're expanding and looking for four full-time staff and four part-timers. The only trouble is they work seven days a week, and I'm not keen on going back to working on weekends. Still, I got an interview out of 250 applicants, so that's progress.
Meanwhile, back at the day job, things have eased up a bit on the sharp edge of things. It's still there, but not quite so unfriendly as it was the first day. I can tell you I was praying hard about the place the second day I went. I didn't really want to go back. Still not comfortable there - there's a curiously unhappy atmosphere about the place - but things are better. They had an 'urgent meeting' on Tuesday, leaving me in charge of the place (!), and it seems that was about the general level of antagonism that exists in the office
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