Finding work OR eat!

Hey guys and girls, a slight rant or waffle if you will.

I start my days waking up and eating breakfast, showering and brushing my teeth, grooming and putting on products to make me smell nice, get dressed and then that is where your day and mine split. You go to work, I sit at home and switch on the computer. I load up the 15 or so sites for job hunting and I think of new and interesting ways to fill in application forms.

This is my second month of doing this now and I can honestly say that I have come very close to being homeless as I have accidentally spent more money on travel that I was meant to, that is if I have any money in the first place for travel. “Ummm the job center pay for travel you dickhead!” – Thank you random person that will no doubt not read my whole post but comment anyway. Yes they will pay for it, unless you cannot provide proof, or they don’t feel like it or they are having a bad day or they don’t remember to put it through the damn system. To put this into context I have the following make up this month;

£30 over draft, £25 phone bill, £323 rent.

Incoming is £134 twice in a month and £158 once.

So take away that from that and you get £49. I have also rounded things up to make it easier. Now £49 for a month of food, toiletries, travel, any new items I should require, for instance new shoes for interviews, shirts, ties, you get the idea. In a world where a loaf of bread can be over £1 to buy I find myself on a diet primarily made up of pasta and something tinned, a diet that makes my body feel lack luster and dull. A body need fresh fruit and veg to function at it’s highest and it is RIGHT NOW I need to be on my “A” game. I’m all up for reducing money from not working, think it’s a good idea but they need to balance it a little. The money situation is now hindering me finding work, which in turn will probably mean I have to sponge off the state for longer, so the reduction in out of work income, in my instance, is useless as I will be taking from the state about as much as I would have been before the changes but now just over a longer time.

There are 100 jobs and 1000 people for each one looking down this way at the moment. Not so much Cardiff but Newport and Bridgend are both doing badly and they are either side of Cardiff and the competition is eminence. Cardiff is become saturated as is Bristol. I am having to look further a field to find work, which is fine, however when you consider that the closest city to me is Cardiff and is around a 8-15 mins train ride away and costs around £6 to get to and back from every single time I want to go there, it kinda makes a longer trip to a further away location either impossible or a toss up between food buying and an interview.

Ok. I get that “As of Q1 2013 UK government debt amounted to £1,377 billion, or 88.1% of total GDP” and that is bad. But you can’t make money, or in this instance get people back to work by simply making people poor. It makes it harder.

Plus they made the changes for money in one go. so instead of gradually doing it over a year or 6 months so people flowed into work, they said HEY, 3 million people you won’t have enough money to live on unless you find work from……..

NOW GO GO GO. What the fuck did they expect?

My final ranty bit has to do with an E-mail I got yesterday from Mc Donalds. It was an email saying that I was unsuccessful in my attempt to work at one of their stores. I have a feeling it is to do with my age as the application form is not particularly taxing, with multi-choice answers for questions being presented, most of which are something along the lines of;

If an employee said something that offended you, would you, A) Beat the shit out of them. B) Put their face in the fry station or C) try and talk to them or your manager and see if something can be sorted out.

I feel that being in my 30’s now and looking for any type of job does have it’s downsides. I have traveled the world with the British Armed Forces, I’ve been back packing across Europe I’ve lived in Paris, I’ve been called all the names under the sun and I have made my mistakes. So as an employer you can expect someone of my age and up to call bullshit out. If something is wrong we will bring it up, bring it up in a polite and proper way, be that going to the manager to tell them of a leak or asking someone not to repeat something again as it is not appropriate for work etc etc. There lies the problem, they don’t want that, managers don’t want more work, they would rather employ an 18 year old who knows nothing of their rights, nothing of what is really right and wrong and will simply walk away if fired for no reason. I and many others of my “age bracket” and above simply could not and would not tolerate that.

So to sumerise I feel that I am being put into a tared group of people that does not want to work, I want to work and I actively do everything in my power to do so, but in reality I have to pick and choose which interviews I go to some days, or ring them up and try and change the date and time to a day I am already in that city, mostly this results in me no longer being offered the interview as I am already kicking up a fuss about something that should be easy to do, a view that is sensible and reasonable but yet is something that is sometimes out of my reach to accomplish. Why employ someone when they can’t even travel 15 mins down the road on a given day? Will that person even be able to make it to work for the first month of employment? How reliable is this person if he/she cannot even commit to a simple interview without wanting to change the date and/or time.

I fully expect to not have that bottle of wine in the fridge, to eat cheaper food and to commit my days to filling in forms but when the current infrastructure put in place by the government hinders that, I can only see a prolonged usage of benefits. This money could well be spent on other things in our country, if not in employment or growth but in education, the NHS, maybe even employing someone with the balls to tell the US, “You know what? we are not joining you in this war, costs too much for no return”.

Anyway rant over of a very annoyed and increasingly stressed Phil.

 

Leaving Facebook, AGAIN.

Hello one and all.

Yes, yes please do not remind me that I promised to myself and everyone that does read this that I would update this weekly, I have no excuses apart from pure laziness and bad time/life management.

So the topic of today’s update is my horror at losing a job opportunity because of Facebook, or more precisely the pictures and comments on my Facebook account.

So I had to leave my last job with CEX as they run a 6.5% rota based on what was made in the previous 4 weeks takings. Now this is an average, so you CAN spend 25% of all takings on week one but by week four the average spend across the 4 weeks has to be 6.5% of taking spent on staff. This poses a problem if the store is not doing so well one month as the hours available are limited and this resulted in me not actually earning enough money to pay rent, and as much as it pains me to say this, I was actually better off on benefits for the time being.  A pathetic omission and a pathetic truth of a person living in a first world country having to do this to survive, sad times indeed, however I digress.

So I had several interviews for a claims handler with Admiral. The job was office based, going through case files and working out liability on car crashes. I presented well enough on the application and hour long phone interview to be selected on the final stage of the interview process, a trip to Cardiff to their offices and a one to one meeting with the managers. This interview also seemed to go well too. Then Facebook happened…..

I received an e-mail informing me that I was unsuccessful in my attempt and to thank me for my time etc etc. A very nice touch that although automated, is something that very few companies seem to do these days and I was very appreciative to have this sent through. Within this E-mail was a number to call to get feedback, now as a huge supporter of feedback I gave them a call and had a little chat. As I thought I did rather well in the interview but I repeated a few things to answer questions however they said that was not the reason for not being able to continue with the process, when I asked what it was they stated that as part of the hiring stage they look for online activity and that unfortunately my Facebook account was not up to scratch.

Now I was taken back by this, I mean it is my personal account, my digital life. I tried to explain that a picture of me drunk is what goes on to Facebook, the million snapshots throughout someones life of them simply getting on with washing, chatting on the phone sleeping, walking to the shops and buying bread is not what makes an entertaining picture, I mean who wants to see that? However they stated that because of those pictures I was portrayed as someone whom would not fit the the high standards of the company. Again I tried to argue my case that in actual fact I was tagged in a total of 74 pictures from 5 friends, all from one night out, not as it seemed 74 times drunk or even 5 times drunk, just that everyone has a smart phone these days and they snap, making it look like a person does something more than they do, explaining that I had not actually even been “out” for almost a year before these pictures were taken. Sadly their minds had been made up by this point, I thanked them for their time and ended the call.

“So what to do now?” I thought to myself. Well deleting Facebook had to be done. I had posted that I would delete it 2 weeks previously but had been talked out of it, but this time there was no warning, I searched the internet for how to permanently delete Facebook and found the link to do so, in the cheek of it all Facebook requires 14 days of no activity to delete an account. I feel that as so many things are connected to Facebook, this blog posting included, that I could easily stop that process by simply accidentally pressing a button on my phone or other account with a Facebook linked account on it, a sneaky move indeed. I have now set about making sure this does not happen as I am now more determined to get rid of this plague once and for all.

This has me so upset rather than angry, I hate that we now live in a world where this can happen, that I can be misrepresented by my friends, not that it is their fault you understand, no they saw me dancing badly, drunk and took a pic. If anything I could argue that most of the pictures are not flattering to either my dancing ability or my poddgy belly but past that I can’t blame them.

So I sit here, typing away and ranting as I simply don’t know where to go from here. It was a good job, with good pay. It was something I really did need, something I wanted to do and I job I could see myself being promoted in, earning decent money and thriving in. Sadly that is not the case and although after the phone call I simply stared at the wall for almost 2 hours feeling utterly terrible with life, I have to pull myself together, I have no other choice. I owe so much money now and it’s not something that will go away easily. So onward I fight, onward I push and I guess I jump into one of those, “Take a million phone calls a day” kinda jobs and head down, try not to look to miserable with it and sort this mess out.

Anyway that cannot be the ending as it is far to glum, and I’m not glum, I’m chubby, arrogant and I voice my opinions but I am not as depressed as this post may come across. I will continue to fight and to try hard, continue to push and continue to write on here as this has been very helpful tonight in releasing some of headache and stress into writing.

So what do you think? Should employers be able to deny you a job because of Facebook, should they be able to advise you to not write something on social media? Is it right or is it wrong, or is it a case that I should have set my FB to private?

What do you think?

I want to speak to a manager!

Welcome to my little ranty world. Today’s subject is a little education for when you have been let down by a company or feel you are entitled to more, or are simply being an asshole for no reason and think it is ok to take it out on a companies staff…….

Well are you wrong!

Now I have been and still am working in inside a call centre, taking calls for a multi national company that in the UK produces and supplies energy and covers peoples boilers, plumbing and drains, electrical wiring, central heating systems and also emergency service cover as standard.

Now it does not matter what industry you work in, you will not get any bloody where by being a complete twat!  You know why you’re so angry all the time? Why you feel so disappointed by company after company and why no one seems to understand your poor little life? I’ll tell you why…. because you piss off every last person you talk to in business, from the poor little waitress that you shout at because there is no spoon for your coffee, to the flight attendant you ridicule because they forgot your pillow.  Your reactions, your attitude is the reason they forgot to give you the service others get, your stinking, shitty attitude is the reason why you won’t get the compensation you are so sure you’re  owed! Your attitude is why the customer service agent does not seem to give a shit about you, your reactions and your actions are the reason why we simply don’t care as much about you as the polite people.  It’s rather simple, so why can you not grasp such a simple concept?

Oh, and get me the boss, WHY? Is the boss going to bring his master computer over and make your life a better place? Has he/she instructed me to tell you lies until you pass all my well hidden tests and then you’re allowed to the special slots now made available by the bosses computer.  It’s a gold laptop that links directly with god to deliver you with the best service possible, oh, yes the boss can call upon the the Fucking Avengers and bring you the service you require right this minute rather than the tomorrow appointment I have already given you!

BOSSES KNOW LESS ABOUT THE SYSTEMS THAN THE AGENT DOES! Trust me ALL the boss is there to do is bug the agent about ACW (After call work) time, sort out problems with pay, book our holiday and tell us the sales targets went up another 2%. THAT’S IT.

“I know the CEO of [for arguments sake] Sony, see what he/she has to say”

Oh really mister customer, REALLY?!  So your download is not working and you will pick up the phone to the CEO, a person probably over the other side of the world, possibly speaking to world leaders, possibly in a meeting to secure a multi billion pound deal with several countries, and THEY ARE GOING TO STEP OUT TO MAKE SURE YOUR PESKY LITTLE PROBLEM IS SORTED? Good luck with that.  How can you be that thick? How has your life continued to be with a mind so dull?

Don’t even get me started on you morons that state you’re going to the press…. please, be my guest. Oh before you do, that welcome pack with all the T&C in, the one you ASSURED us you had read by agreeing to {insert product here}, yeah, perhaps you want to read it!  You know that there are editors for a reason, right?! You honestly think we are that thick that throwing out a newspapers name or dropping in that you work for the BBC is anyway shape or form going to help you when I have already told you 4 different ways that the next appointment is MONDAY!

“It’s retired Major Jenkins actually”

Fuck off! Your name is Mr Jenkins, you’re retired now, you hold the rank of ‘Get in line and wait with the rest of the population’.  That also goes for you DR Whatever s out there……… Why the hell would you think I would give a flying that you’re a doctor. Plus you know I have no idea of what you’re actually a doctor of, right? This show of bullshit only reinforces the belief that you’re a complete cock.

Plus if you really want to piss ME off why not just lie, what not tell me THAT YOUR CHILD IS AT RISK only for me to check up the next day and find the engineer got there, found NO CHILD, NO ELDERLY, NO ONE VULNERABLE at all, told you that you were scum (wishful thinking), turned off the water supply/gas supply to make it safe then left you in the shitty position that you deserve while they went off to an actual emergency down the road with a real 2 day old kid without heating, you rotten, scummy, worthless human beings!

The people I speak of above just a few in the vast majority of people that are polite, reasonable and kind, and for that I am hugely grateful. Always remember that the services person, man, woman transsexual, gay, straight, black, white, purple with yellow dots, they are all humans, they are all trying their best.  Now if you are the angry type let it be known that all of us polite folk have a far better life, we are generally treated as we treat others, so please continue to wail, to moan, to frail your arms in the air and shout, so that all can hear, please continue your shitty ways and enjoy your food with spit in, enjoy your pillow that been wiped on a dogs arse, enjoy your second class experiences and enjoy missing out on all the extras the polite, decent and happy people enjoy. By simply rising an issue in a calm, polite manner you will always get a better response.

TL:DR Reviews.

So I find myself here writing again in the very few hours of free time I get at the moment, and there is so much I wanted to write about however it has dawned on me that all games I have recently played are old and have been reviewed, all films I have seen will have been reviewed to death and the whole PS4 or XBOX One debate rages on from dawn until dusk right around the globe.

So since I would like to write about things but want to also cram in so much I think I’ll just touch on everything I have played and watched in the next few posts but just give a straight to the point, no babbling opinion rather than a review, first a few good bits, few bad in a sentence and leave it as that. Think of it as reviews for the TL:DR group 🙂

So here we go.

Monsters University 

Well it is not proper animation unless it is Pixar animations in my book and MU was no exception. The detail is divine and the  starting short almost had me in tears. The story is well put together and told, characters are loveable and well thought out.  It is arguably not as funny as the previous film however me and my girlfriend enjoyed it so much that we actually found ourselves shouting out at the film at one point.

Little kids or big ones like me? Go see it. It’s not going to write the way we tell stories but what it sets out to do it does very well. Highly recommend.

 

 

Pacific Rim

OH Jesus H! What a film. I thought it was amazing, basically because it is a no bullshit film. No pretence that it is anything but a mad CGI filled monster mash. That is the films biggest feature! The sheer cheekiness to throw almost all twist, arching story or any “Oh but it will make it sell” bull shit into the film is an ingenious twist all on its own.  Too many times have I gone to see a film that I need around 4 brain cells to watch, in the hope it will be Pacific Rim and too many times it has trudged through story I don’t give a shit about.

For a day when you just want to watch a ridiculous film with huge set pieces  , go see this, near flawless because it does exactly what it says on the tin.

 

 

This is the End

A good take on a tried and tested formula from the past. Get a bunch of famous people, put them into a stupidly over the top Scenario  and make them funny.  It is clever at parts, it is daft in others however it goes together well. With a few off bits now and again this is still a solid film and I found myself laughing out loud on more than a few occasions on this film.  If sophisticated humour, class and decency is what you’re looking for then stay well away from this one, if the opposite applies to you then go see it now.

 

 

 

 

Despicable Me 2

An adorable film that is very good to watch. I would not say it is actually that funny but then again I was a little tired when I went to see it. The film does not really link to the first at all, or at least not in may way and I feel this could put some off. Never the less it was an enjoyable film that did make me giggle all the way through. Plus who can’t resist the little minions and their cheeky ways.

 

 

 

 

The Internship 

This is again is not a film that is going to blow you away. I found its silly houmor good at times however I felt the pacing of the film was just a little slow. I didn’t get bored but felt that at times more could be going on in the film to liven it up just a tad more. Altogether though it is well written and has some very nice touches. It will become apparent that Google paid for 95% of this film by minute 11 of the film however, very heavily advertised throughout, even though the placement in the film is at Google it did see at times if I was being punched in the face with a Google logo.

 

 

 

Now You See Me

Didn’t know what to make of this film at first and was umm’ing and errr’ing over seeing it. Sat down with am instant scepticism for it and it turned me around. I would love to see this film again with a far more open mind. See if I cannot full give it the go that this film deserves.  The film is clever and intriguing, it draws you in and leaves you wondering how it could be done, just like magic shows themselves. It’s very well put together and expertly told. This film is different, its fresh and I really really enjoyed it.

Give t a go. give it a chance, I don’t think it will disappoint.

 

 

 

Croods

I forgot to mention this before in anything else I have written but it is defiantly worth a mention. It is beautifully made, the visually stunning and the story is quite good. The main reason why I put this up here is simply the fact that not since UP have I cared for an animated character/s so much. I really felt there was peril, love, danger and loss in this film and for an animated film to do that, well it is simply amazing.

Go see it and see if you can stop from gasping or shouting out at the screen 🙂

 

 

 

Well that kind of concludes my little blog today.  I hope you have enjoyed the simplistic review format and non rant like comments. Tell me if you like things this way or would rather full-blown spoiler ridden rants of a review.

Man of Steel – Review

AS THE PICTURE SUGGESTS THIS BLOG POST CONTAINS SPOILERS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! 

So the last blog post was me giving a quick over view of what has been going on in my life since I ‘went dark’ in September last year, these are things that I will write more about in the future. I do know a number of readers of this blog do like gaming articles and also rants that I do.  Now these types of posts are not going to end, in fact I hope to do far more, however I have had an unlimited Cineworld card  and I find myself watching a fair few films a month, so I thought why not do some reviews from my point of view of films I have seen.

Now lets clear up something before I start my rant, I liked the film, I though the acting was great, the visual effects were amazing, the set designs and costumes, especially on Krypton are fantastically well done and the story was of good quality  I would rate the experience of watching the film as a 6 out of 10. In the next few paragraphs I will try to explain why this film should have been greater than it was.

That brings me nicely to my inevitable rant about Man of Steel, the latest instalment of the Superman franchise from DC Comic entertainment. A re-boot of the franchise that I believe will start a bunch of films off for the Justice League charters, which will eventually combine into a Justice League film, hoping to cash in on the very popular Avengers franchise.  Now I was aware that this film was going to be a re-boot to Superman and was going to be a spring-board for more Superman films and to introduce the world to Henry Cavill as Superman. He plays the character very well and I believe he will make a fine Superman in the coming years.  The actors and actresses and their ability to act is not the problem with this film in my mind. The main problem is the feeling that this film goes on FAR too long, running at 143 mins (2 hours and 3 mins) you’re left feeling like it is a 3 hour plus trawl through the life and times of an almost dead species , the long story of Krypton’s  demise and the sending of Kal-El from his doomed home planet to earth is fairly well done and does not bore , even  if, like me you already know the story of Superman, it’s fact that the film seems to feel the need to baby step you to every single last revelation is the main problem. I know that he has difficult choices, Oh the film does not, here is another snap shot of his past, where as a child he had to hold onto his anger, had to hold on to the fact he is not human, the secret, the mystery, OK film I got it, thanks, Oh no, not finished eh? Yet another reference to THE SAME BLOODY THING AGAIN!

Not only does the film continually churn up the same problems that face Superman with a slightly different clip, it stays at that point in the film for far to long therefore making the film seem long-winded and giving you a sense of ‘Get on with it’.  Possibly the worst part of the film where this is concerned is when General Zod announces to the world that he wants Superman or he will destroy the Earth, Superman surrenders to the human race and voluntarily joins Zod aboard his ship only to be drugged into a dream state, here Superman finds out Zod’s true plans to wipe out the planet Earth and rebuild a new Krypton on top its ruins…… A plot line set in motion when you are informed that Zod has a World Changer, a machine you are told about in the first 30 mins of the film AND later on is a terraforming machine, a WMD of biblical postpositions. Now I don’t know about you, but I didn’t think he had bothered to repair the world machine and bring it untold billions of light years through space for it to be referenced  half a dozen times and not used!   We get it, he is a bad guy.

That brings me on to the next gripe I had with the film, the long-winded action scene that you wait around 1 hour 50 mins for at the end of the film. Oh yes there are other action sequences , however they seem to blend into one, General Zods minions punch Superman, superman flies through several buildings, destroying part of a town, Superman then fights back, rinse and repeat.  After several mins of this Superman saves a human commander of the military forces that are fighting both Superman and Zods forces, the humans then  realise (in a painfully slow scene)  that Superman is a friend and not foe and hence the protection of earth with humans and Superman working together can begin. So now we are at the end, the big final scene, the world-changing machine is  starting to change the world, humans best efforts are useless against the impending doom and buildings fall down left right and centre in the bustling city of New Yo…. sorry Metropolis. Without much effort Superman flies to the other end of the planet and destroys the world-changing device by basically believing he can, flies back to Metropolis and ends up destroying another portion of the city, possibly the same amount of damage done by the world machine by this point simply trying to beat up Zod, finally ending with Zods neck being broken by the mighty arm of Superman. Then that’s it, an end, seemingly uneventful death and end to a film that should have been much more. The whole build up to what this man was going to become is decided by one move by Zod,  the newly acquired powers of ‘laser eye’ try to kill a mother, father and two kids, Superman at this point decides that although he has probably killed hundreds of people by collapsing buildings in the battle between the two of them that this is the final straw, hardly an epic ending in my eyes.

Over all I felt that the film lacked a sense of pace and although I would not discourage anyone from watching it I would just say that I was somewhat disappointed with the end result.

Where the hell have you been Phill?

A very good question, Phill.

Well the last time you all heard from me I was trying to piece everything back together, trying to get something that resembled a life. Now this is not to say I was desolate, on the streets with no hope of ever becoming anything or anyone again but I was feeling that I was not moving forward, not achieving anything and I certainly didn’t have any structure to my life what so ever.

I wrote last about how I had got a new job and how I was unable to talk that much about it due to the strict rules put into place within Serco. Now I am no longer working there and have moved on to another job, but I must say that looking back on it was a unrewarding job with very little hope of progressing, well unless you were the bosses son/daughter or were bullshit enough to be in the lime light so much that you got noticed and promoted to “One of them”. After careful consideration I decided that I might not want to be a team leader in that company and started looking else where. I now find myself working for Conduit on the British Gas contract, on the phones yet again but at least with this job it is people asking for a service that I can provide and the selling side of things is rather light, ‘Oh, I can see you have X and Y with us Miss LoveCraft but have you considered winged beast protection for your guttering?’. This is something I think I can cope with and the expectations of the sales figures is rather reasonable. I also have at least one person a day that I genuinely help out, and in more than one occasion have possibly saved a life by properly diagnosing carbon monoxide escape and sent the relevant emergency/gas services and given advice to secure the safety of the customer, Superman I am not but I do feel a sense of happiness, pride and good will when I get to that part of my job.

Now I think that is enough of my job, the past and how I used to be, lets now focus on what else has happened.

Well I believe I mentioned that whilst being taught in Serco that I felt a certain something for one of my trainers, a girl named Shelley, well it is with massively huge smiles while I write this that I can inform you all that we have moved in together in Cardiff Bay. A fantastic flat with a balcony view of the sea/bay area. Shelley is a lady with letters after her name and I am not on about BSC Bronze Swimming Certificate) I am talking a degree in English lit and at the end of this year a Master degree in script witting! How the hell did I end up with a woman so intelligent is still beyond me, I can hardly string a sentence together without confusing not only myself but all those listening in 😛 . Now I will be including Shelley in my further blogs since she is a huge part of my life, as are our two cats Bilbo Baggins and Sheldon Cooper both of whom are now as part of the family as any human could ever possibly be.

Now this entry will not be a very long one. I think that a little too much has gone on since September last year that if I sat here and wrote about it it would not only bore you all to death it would possibly take me most of the week to

write.  I want to continue to tell you about me, my life, the people in it and also to mix in things on my mind, films I’ve seen, my view on gaming and a bunch of other subjects floating around my head over the next weeks, months and years rather than try to cram it all in now.

As always a massive thank you to everyone that reads this, please feel free to comment, Tweet, FB, Tumble,and/or G+ this around the web, until next week I bid you all well 🙂

High…

So here we are again, another week over and another blog post being written and now read 🙂  Such a strange thing time, it is always the same, always constant however can seem to move at drastically different speeds, for instance the week leading up to me starting my new job seemed longer than the TWO weeks I have just completed by a mile. How the mind plays tricks on you.

So work, training for two weeks, what a roller-coaster of fun fuelled learning and fun, we have been 19 strong and have gel as a team wonderfully. Everyone of us seems to be energised by the next and our banter, well it bounces around all of us until there is not one dry eye in the room, amazingly good, fun, intelligent and genuine people who I am very happy to say I consider my friends 🙂  Games that include 10 push-ups for saying the word M.I.N.E, a triangle of death that gets put over drinks that then have to be downed and a few other games have thrived within our community and I have thoroughly enjoyed every single moment of our training.

Now unfortunately I cannot go into too much detail about my jobs ins and outs as I do deal with hundreds of personal details of people from around the country every single day, hence I cannot say what systems we use, how it works, what security there is etc etc so apart from being vague I can tell you that if you ring up to purchase something from Littlewoods, Isme, Very or K&Co you now have the chance to talk to me 🙂 Also my job title is Personal Shopper, hehehe love it when companies beef up your title to make it sound far more important and high up 🙂

Anyway how am I feeling about this new fork in my life? Well for one thing I know how I feel about people asking themselves questions and then answering them, bloody hate it and can’t believe I just did it! Idiot Phill!  So no, I digress, I feel nervous as one might expect but also so looking forward to the change. I am not sure anyone here will know what it is like to be a prisoner in your own life, to be constantly reminded that you are accomplishing nothing in your life everyday, every time you open the fridge and there is no food, every time you read on FB or Twitter how that dinner out last Thursday that you were not invited to was awesome, how great that film was, while you sit in an empty house literally talking to yourself, laughing at your own jokes and telling yourself off whenever you feel a little down, well that is slowly coming to an end. In six days time I get my first pay check and admittedly I have a lot of debt and backed up bills to cover from it but I will have a cash flow, a chance to socialise a chance to live again amongst the people of this world, a chance to finally start a fresh.

This feeling of liberation is so overwhelming that I find myself taking a step back and pinching myself to make sure I am not having a horribly twisted and cruel dream. To most a pop down to the local restaurant or cinema is nothing, something you do on a whim, not I, for the last 19 months I have been NO WHERE at all and so from that I hope you can glean just a slight glimpse of how important this new job and this new life is to me. I run at this job with open arms, a smile on my face and beside me are these fantastic new friends I have made along my journey.   Thanks go out to everyone that didn’t give up, everyone that is still around me to this day Cheers guys couldn’t do it without ya all 🙂

As a side note thank you to my good friend Franki who helped out with a little money so I can continue to eat this week until payday 🙂 Comes to something when a relationship from the past comes and lends the helping hand to plug the gap the job centre leaves in its wake of  bureaucratic red tape bullshit!

Really enjoying my new job :)

So this is going to fairly quick and straight to the point as a lot has happened to me in the last week;  however all of it (apart from last nights massive piss up) has been within my new work and lets face it, unless you’re with me, there in work, you ain’t going to give much of a shit about the ins and outs of it lol.  It will just come across as boring twaddle. 🙂

So working for a company called Serco, a massive company spanning many world-wide locations and providing service for everything from the Large Hadron collider at CERN, the UK’s Interdependent Nuclear deterrent right through to looking after the parking meters in Chicago Illinois.  So where do I fit in? Well you know when you ring up for Littlewoods, Isme, Very or K&co to place an order, well you now have a chance to get through to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee 🙂  Only inbound calls as I have a soul and cannot face doing cold calling ever again in my life!

So two weeks of training before I am let out to ravage the world of customer service and ordering, and I have to say that I have LOVED every minute of it.  The people in our group are all good-natured, great fun, mature when they need to be and all incredibly hard-working with a pinch of bat shit crazy in them all. It’s great I can feel myself around these people and I am considering them my friends as of now really. Just a great bunch of guys and girls that really do make you feel at home 🙂 On top of the great group I find myself in I also feel alive again, gone are the days of dullness, of sitting at home wondering where the next meal was to come from, gone is the worry, gone is the feeling of being completely useless, a rag-tag tramp of a man scraping through life in a gutter, no no no, ALL feelings washed away, I feel great, feel like I am part of something and have a passion to become better; a fire has defiantly been lit under my ass, propelling me skywards into the upper echelons of  greatness.  Now it has to be said that at the heart of all of these new and exciting feelings flooding my body, mind and soul at the moment is the training staff we have.  They simply make me smile when I walk in and see them, an awesome amount of respect goes of to our trainers but also a massive amount of fun is had with them too. Simply magnificent and I love the trainers and my group to bits.

And in other news….

So two bits of news away from working is the somewhat devastating fact that I have lost the court battle to see my son. Sadly my own father (Now know as “Who the fuck are you, piss off”) testified against me and this has given the social services the ammunition they needed to tip the whole thing in their favour. I had this news the Friday before I started at Serco so I have not really had time to properly think through this,  maybe I am just hiding from it a little as it has totally destroyed my hopes and brought my worst fears right up in front of me as far as this situation goes. I have been given permission to send him 3 letters a year, Christmas, Easter and his Birthday, 3 letters for a child I looked after for the best part of 2 years. All I can do is work my ass off, pay of this court debt of 4k and save for the next try. 3rd of October is when I and my legal team will retract our wish for my right to see Seth officially.

That shitty news brings me to my last point (a little more smiles in this one)

I have started another blog up at http://foryouseth.wordpress.com/ for my Son Seth. This will be updated on a semi regular time frame. I have had no time what so ever to come to terms with me not seeing my son until he is in his teens but I have had today to know that I need to preserve something for when that day comes. After 13 years of not knowing me I need something for him, something he can read about me and my life just in case he does not want to talk to me in person and I think that will be a great idea.  You’re all more than welcome to read it although it is only really aimed at a person years down the line from now.

Anyway just so you lot don’t end up sad reading this I have added this picture. Any time you feel down, just remember things can always be worse…..

 

Well long time no see :)

So hello once again one and all.  I do apologise to anyone who has been waiting on an update after my rather brash, bold and altogether awesome news filled update a few weeks past.  I have not died or become depressed I simply have not had time to write and when I have had time the internet was not working, that is justthe way of things I guess 🙂

Anyway I am here now and I have a few hours spare on this sunny Sunday afternoon. The gentle warm summer breeze lapping at me through the window to my right and a house devoid of life. No sounds, no shouting, no cooking, mashing, smashing, washing, drying, no TV no music just me, the sound of a summers day and the clippaty calpaty  of the keyboard 🙂

So the job with food is unfortunately a no go. No no please hold off from the sad faces just yet, as I did actually get it. Later on the same day as writing my previous blog post I was offered the job but as with all things (like buses) you wait for one forever and a day then two come at once.  I was given the opportunity  to go on a two week interview course for a company called Serco, a public services company that is expanding through the internet and requires more people.  SO my options at this point were;

Accept the job with cafe at only 24 – 30 hours a week with no progression, which is however very close and in walking distance and is something I like to do, know how to do and am good at,

OR  

Throw all caution to the wind and go on a 2 week interview course, attend a phone interview at the end then if I get through head to the capitol for another interview and if I get through THEN start 5 weeks training.  Spend around £1000 a year on getting back and forth to work BUT have huge progression possibilities and a contracted 40 hours a week.

Now I could not attend the course and work in the cafe; also the option to hold off on the cafe job until this other job with Serco was either a yes or no was unavailable so I had to make a choice, I had to do it by the next day at 9am and so I went home. Home to relax, put my feet up and scribble out some ideas, some needs, some prospects, a nice quiet and peaceful place of my own, of course this was the very night my house mates decided a party until 3 am was the best course of action (for them). However after much thought through gritted teeth, loud music and people having sex on the lawn I came to my conclusion…….

So sat in the house that night with the floorboards vibrating, the sound of screaming, shouting, giggles, glasses smashing, the fridge and freezer door being slammed shut every few mins, the distinct droan of shit dance music plus the horrid retching sound of the one that always drinks too much I realised that I had to go for the Serco job, had to earn sensible, good money and do it in a timely manner as staying in this box room for much longer was going to lead to murder and being in a smaller, more confined room called a cell 😛

So the next day after having gingerly told the cafe manager that I was refusing her kind offer I headed into the first day of my two weeks experience…………….

 

Join me next week for what my two weeks entailed.

• Friends
• Work
• Tears
• Music
• Commitment
• Down and outs

Just some of next weeks words I can think will fit in very well with the next instalment.

I’ll hopefully see you next weekend 1st/2nd September 2012.

I am going to make a concious decision to put a new blog post up every week on either a Saturday or Sunday, that way I can write a little bit each day then publish it, I have realised that it will be better to get into an organised routine now then when I get the job and I have more stories to tell I will have it all set out and ready to go 🙂

To all my readers remember………………………………………………………….

 

Are things on the up and up?

Hey there everyone this is just a quick update for those of you that care what is going on in my tiny life at the moment 🙂

So as the title would suggest I think (fingers, toes, legs and everything else crossed) things are on the up. As previously mentioned in The Job Centre is a joke post I got some help with my CV and I dished it out to some businesses in my local town; week later and I get a call for an interview on the same day. I drop everything and make it to the coffee shop I am to be interviewed in, I’m looking dapper; clean-shaven, smartly dressed, perfect hair and a massive COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMEE OOOOOONNNN kinda attitude for success.

The interview lasted all but 20 minutes with the owner going into the kitchen to ask her daughter when a work trial could be organised, lo and behold the woman who now stood before me was once working in a bar that I used to manage, a mere 16-year-old when I last saw her, now a confident chef with a stake in the  successful coffee shop I was applying to work for. She knew my name, I hers and she remembered the time, over 12 years ago that I and the owners of the pub we used to work grabbed up all the lads and lasses one night and took them out on the town, got very drunk, had an awesome time and probably had a good old dance around too.  This memory had stayed with her as she explained to the owner (her mother) what a good time it was, after much laughing about the past I was offered the trail run for the next day, I shook both of their hands, thanked them for their time and started to walk out of the shop; just before I got to the doors I glanced back, red-faced from laughing so much as I saw both women also red-faced giving me a little friendly wave. “This could be what I’ve been looking for” I thought to myself, “This is fantastic!” as I almost skipped up the road home, remembering the night 12 years ago and laughing out loud and to myself, strangers walking past giving me rather confused looks as I failed to contain my feelings of well-being, elation, happiness, ecstasy, excitement, and joy, I was euphoric!

The next day, no sleep, too nervous, too hyped….. “What happens if I burn that, this, set the place on fire!”, Over 3 years of not working for another was not good for rest but I knew what I had to do. Scrub up, look nice and off I went. I arrived and was immediately started on learning the kitchen; within 15 minutes I was prepping, slicing, cooking and learning, I felt so alive, so right in the kitchen again. Slow to start and making sure I made no mistakes I gained more and more confidence and cooked and help cook the entire lunch section with my new boss. Plenty to still learn and realising I would require some knife time again I looked back on the afternoon with great love and respect. I was told that I was hard-working, good with food, didn’t have to be told twice to get things right and I was a quick learner, well at that point and right up until now I have had a massive smile on my face, I had forgotten how good it is to work with food, how great it is to accomplish working in a kitchen and on the basic level I had forgotten how good getting paid for some hard graft is! This might be it, this might be the time I finally get myself out of this rut, forget the Olympics, forget the landing on Mars this will be MY year if I pull this off.

There are two other people to go through and I do hope there is something wrong with both as this job would mean the world to me, lets just hope they burn everything lol.  I will find out about the job this Monday so if my next blog post is just some kind of text shouting with swearwords mixed in that you read and get a sense that I am happy then I got the job.

Also in my personal news – I am now happy to announce that I am paying child maintenance for my son Seth. Why is this such a good thing? you ask well it is another step forward in the ongoing fight to see my son. On October the 3rd my Ex and I with our legal teams will be back in court and on top of doing everything correct and above board, finding a place to live, sorting out debt, (hopefully) having a job I can now add that I pay CSA on time and the correct amount each and every month. The things in my favour now must be close to the top of where I can get them however I will strive to pile it higher until I can physically do no more.

So that was a little snap shot of what is going on with me right now. So I leave you now with the knowledge that I can only see a slit of the screen as I am grinning far too much to use the computer properly (My excuse if there are spelling mistakes lol)