A Blog from Another World

…the room won’t stop spinning! Someone help me.

That was 2am, now its nearly 6am I have slept for a couple of hours and can’t get back to sleep!

I was out for a quiet drink with my housemates and then bumped into a couple of people from my course at Uni (which was nearly 2 years ago now!). The upshot of it was that I got brought lots of beer and then a shot of tequila, complete with salt and lemons!

They suggested I go back to University and try to do the course I originally wanted to do – computer systems and networks. Whilst I know I have the brain to do the work, I have this alter ego, lets call him Mr ADHD, that likes to get in the way of doing that work. My original plan was to try and get treatment for that and THEN go back to University. Well, two years after being suicidal because I couldn’t get the work I knew I could do done, I’m STILL waiting for some kind of treatment for that, although I have seen 2 shrinks now!

So, what do you think? Continue the search for mindless annoying jobs or go back to Uni?

So I completed week one of my new job. At least it didn’t go as badly as the last job I had when I didn’t show after the first day!

It started off with listening to some calls on Monday and then on Tuesday the training got underway, a lot of stuff I knew already from my technical experience and working in call centres in the past, today the training ended and I got to take calls for real.

Now they didn’t drop me in the deep end, I did have a buddy with me who was helping me, but what I didn’t realise is how stupid 80% of the people who call in are and how they use aggression to try and cover that.

When I worked my last call centre job I was doing fairly simple tasks, all I had to do was get information out of people about their cell phones, their name/address and their credit card details so that I could register their phone. Trying to talk someone who has no clue about computers how to troubleshoot problems is a whole ‘nother ballgame.

I really don’t know if I can keep doing it. I have come home every night this week physically exhausted, I have to get up at 7am and then ride the bus for 30-45mins to get to work for 8:50 and then take calls for 8hrs, although I get a 1hr lunch break. That’s a 40hr week, 9am-6pm 5 days per week. Most jobs in the UK are 37.5hrs per week. In France, you can’t be forced to work more than 35hrs per week!

I know what everyone is going to say, don’t make a mess of this, don’t run off… but I am finding it very difficult to suppress those feelings. I should probably put more into it, but I really don’t feel like being abused because someone isn’t smart enough to go to a book store or a library and get a simple book on Windows XP or Vista – there are enough titles out there!

So should I:
[A]   Stick it out next week and see what happens.
[B]   Call/Email in Monday, say I am sick or I can’t do it any more.
or
[C]   Wait for my replacement Visa card to arrive and take a spur-of-the moment trip to Denver.

Maybe you can decide for me, but I can’t guarantee I’ll take your advice!

Well today was a great day, first off I got up at a reasonable time – 9am, not like last week when I was lucky to be asleep by that time! Then I had to go to an interview, the job – which I saw advertised through an Agency is with InfoTeam who have the contract to repair and provide technical support to customers of Acer equipment, including PC’s, Laptops and other IT paraphernalia! The interview went well, I was able to answer their questions really easily and I felt comfortable.

The great news was that about 2hrs after the interview, I was told I got the job and start on Monday at 9am!

Later I went to take the first of the CompTIA A+ exams, which is a qualification to show that you can fix computer hardware and software and provide technical support.

I passed that as well, the required score was 675 and I got 750 out of 900! So now I have to take part 2, I have a choice of Phone Support, In Person Support or never talking to a customer back room stuff!

Tonight we (as in TermiSoc) shall be going out for a curry to celebrate the 21st birthday of our great comrade, Ben A’Lee. He was actually 21 two weeks ago, but everyone was busy back then!

It has been a great day and I am definitely feeling better about myself!