Ugh, only just got the comp to work again - stupid piece of crap. Funny how they have yet to make a comp that actually works properly, but they don't mind charging the money as though they have. Of course I technically didn't pay for this comp, but I do remember paying out £1500 a few years back and this is the result of that hard earned money. With this kinda quality I might as well have taken up smoking bank notes - or maybe just use them as roll to wipe my ass with. Although that wouldn't be too comfatable and it brings back bad memories of Junior school with that hateful shitty tracing paper like toilet paper they used to provide - probably not like that in America - but it sure as hell was the case at my school.
The only good memory of school at that time really was Miss Foster - don't remember her in much detail, but I remember that she was every young boys future wife dream (and when I say young, I mean like 8).
Anyway, here I am now, thinking of what the hell to do with my life career wise. Most people should have decided what they actually wanna do at my age and so do I.....kinda. The problem is, I'm into office style jobs (bar the dream jobs such as running back in a Florida NFL team, games designer/tester or lord of slumber land) and this work tends to be rock bottom, live with your parents forever wages.
Every office I know of, particularly in this area, pay less than a sodding Macdonalds - I guess they assume everyone lives at the same home generation after generation - the death of your parents bringing you the house as inheritance and then this link goes on and on.
The only job that seems to pay anything are warehouses, which really are crappy jobs. Of course its not in the same region as garbage man (yes I know they pay well, but they have to - you're wading in peoples bags of shit !) or the poor bastard who has to go through a large company complex and scrape the mature employee's shit off the walls, but its still not great to be in a job where you'll walk past and be on the same level of worklife as a bloke who dribbles over himself, can't spell any words that are over four letters long and generally spends most of his free moments picking at his ass.
One option that seems kind of open is to get into the railway - do the guard thing and try to get onto train driving. It pays really well - particularly the train driving. So why don't I pursue that ? Because I'm reluctant to. Although it pays well, its not really what I wanna do. As I said, I'm into office work, any kind of office work really - particularly data input, etc. Thats how I started worklife, but all it took was one mistake and suddenly, things took some strange turns as far as work goes. What was my mistake ? Loyalty. I worked in my first job for 2 years - then came the time where they had to lay like 30 people off - which was half the office practically. The ones that stayed were the older lot that had been there since the dawn of time - they probably knew Jesus personally - he probably even recruited his disciples from there, hence why they all have English names. As for Zebede, or however you spell his name - probably an asylum seeker or something.
Anyway, so yeah, I got laid off. So with 2 weeks notice, I started quickly looking for another job and sure enough, a new company was just starting to employ data input staff - so I was quick to get in touch and almost straight away, they were ready to welcome me in - the interview was practically a formality. Then, with a few days left of life at my first workplace, I got called in for a chat along with 3 other people. Turned out they wanted to keep us, but work in a Southend branch. Of course this is where I just wish I could go back in time and kick the pen out of my hand, to stop any signing upto it. Loyalty kicked in and off I went to Southend where I assumed I would be carrying on doing my old job. No. I arrived for my first day in the Southend branch - I was now working in this Readers Digest post room (along with the other poor mugs that were suckered in). This job required me to sit at a desk on my own with a pile of letters, open them, take out these subscription things and throw away the part that wasn't needed.
Basically the layout of the place was like a classroom, everyone with their own little table on their own and it was really quiet. The best it got was to bring in your personal CD player and listen to it while you worked. For the first hour it seemed kinda bearable at least temporarily - my little group of screwed over friends and I had been given these legendary tales of the place such as people getting pissed off with the Readers Digest junk mail and sending back envelopes full of nails and even home made porno pics. Seemed like there was a light side to the job to at least cause a halt in the constant stream of pick up, open, rip, put down, pick up, open, rip, put down. But the porno pics never came, the fuckin nails didn't even come and I woulda been happy to even cut my finger on those after a few days.
A month on and I was told I wasn't really the person they wanted - probably because I could no longer hold my fuckin head up and kept falling asleep. I wasn't staying up late, I just found it too unbearably boring and my brain was so insulted at being woken up for a place like that, that it just went back to sleep and the rest of me soon followed.
Of course after a day there, I should have been motivated for job hunting, but it actually managed to do the opposite - it completely drained me and I needed to have some entertainment when I got home - something fun, cause I was so knackered from boredom.
Of course by the time I got out of there, the other job had gone and I ended up going after other jobs through agencies which were always temporary positions and crap. Then the type of work changed a few times and now I'm at this point. I started off generally doing what I wanted to do, but at the same time, its one of those jobs where you can get the decent money if you've been there for ages. So now I'm not in a good position as far as that type of work goes, I really can't spend the next 5 years on crap wages to try and work my way into a higher job in a company like that because I really can't get a house for me and Jul on the low wages. And I certainly don't wanna wait that long to be with Jul. So now its a case of looking around at a new direction. Seems theres a fine line between a half decent job and a job that pays well. Theres a lesson here people - company loyalty blows.
Anyway, I'm off to bed, need to shave this unemployed facial hair off in the morning - sure it fuckin grows quicker when you're not working.
Tuesday, March 09, 2004
