It's the Work, the Working, Just the Working Life

So - the market research call centre has availed itself of my services for just over two months now. It was never a job I'd considered before, especially as cold-calling seemed like the most demoralising way in the world to earn a crust. The job details were a little misleading, suggesting that we would be calling people who had either said they were happy to be contacted by phone or were actually expecting a call. Not so! Quite simply, various companies ask our market research company to conduct customer satisfaction surveys by telephone with their customers. However, it's safe to say that most of those customers have no idea that their contact numbers will be used in this way. No doubt, it's somewhere in the small print of their contracts, or one of those little tick boxes, but really - who reads those?

It's been an interesting experience if for no other reason than hearing the many and varied reasons people come up with for not being able/willing to participate in the survey at that time (or at all). Some of my favourites so far are:

- But I'm watching Countdown!
- I would but I'm just going out to buy plums.
- God, ten minutes is a REALLY long time!
- My son's got a blister so I can't possibly.
- It's Sunday - the day of our Lord. Sod off. (Spoken by a vicar!)
- Sorry, my biscuits will go soggy if I do it.
- I'm on a piss-up at the moment so it might not be the best time to be asking me questions.
- Are the government paying you to do this because you can't get a real job? (Asked to one of my colleagues)
- I'm in the bath so I would sound all bubbly if I talked to you.
- No, my wife won't want to do the survey. But, Emily (!) you sound very sweet and lovely so I can promise that Santa will look after you very, very well this year.
- I know you mean well, and it's probably an awful job, but I just don't want to talk to anyone at the moment. I'm so very very sorry.
- Can I take the survey in the shower?
- I can't stop now. I'm just looking for a hamster that's gone missing.

As expected, I've also been shouted at, sworn at, told where I can stick my survey, and generally abused! And of course, all of these tirades have to be met with a completely fake, sickly-sweet "Well, thank you for your time anyway. Goodbye." Mind you, by the time I've reached the second word of that, they've usually hung up.

It's easy to be pretty thick-skinned about these when they only occur once in a while but if several of them crop up consecutively, I'll admit it does get to me. One day last week, on a shift due to finish at 9pm, I was on the verge of walking out at 7pm. For a solid half an hour, everyone I spoke to was either rude, unhelpful, unco-operative, pissed off or all of the above. I have no problem with people simply refusing to take part, with "I don't want to do it" - I would say no too - but there's really no reason to shout and swear in the process.

One surprising thing I've learnt is that people really don't like being disturbed on a Sunday. I guess because I worked shifts for so long and weekends meant nothing to me, plus the fact that shops etc open seven days a week now, I forget that some people still consider Sundays to be sacrosanct, whether on religious grounds or not. I've also discovered (though I'm unconvinced by the truthfulness of some of the claims) that "traditional" Sunday lunchtime now starts at about 11.30am and runs right through until about 4.30pm.

I'm in a bit of a quandary about the job though. I can really only hack about five hours at a time (except at weekends when the shifts are all six or eight hours), but that means I only work about a 26-hour week. Given the stupidly low hourly rate (even on the bonus rate when you beat the target number of completed calls), that really doesn't give me an income I can live on. The upside of the job is the flexibility of being able to choose your own shifts on a weekly basis, and I can't deny that not having to start work until 4 or 5pm is quite nice! What I could really do with is a nice little part-time job on three full days a week, which I could mix with the obligatory three shifts at the call centre.

It looked like it might get a little more interesting when I was asked to coach some of the poorer performers regarding the quality side of the calls. I've only been there eight weeks, but I'm currently ranked number 2 in the whole centre, and my quality feedback is at 100%. After the coaching, there's potentially some mini-training that they might want me to run, along with a couple of other members of the phone staff. They're trying to get away from all training being done by supervisors as they believe, probably rightly, that people generally accept advice and coaching better from their peers - people who are actually also on the phones day in, day out. However, as with most other things there, the coaching wasn't very well organised and the actual potential training hasn't even been devised yet, nor have any days or times been chosen for it. The people I was speaking to wanted to know the details before they signed up to their refresher training (as it was all voluntary). Suffice to say, that little diversion actually isn't going to make me inclined to stick at the job any longer than I was already going to.

So the hunt continues for something else/additional, reasonably flexible but more interesting. At least the latter shouldn't be too hard!

Back to the land of the employed

Finally, I have a job!!! I've been back in the UK for just over two months, and I just realised that this is the longest I've gone without working since I was 18.

When I first returned, I had no reason to look for a job. I was only meant to be back for a few weeks to sort out the flat, and then head back to Madrid. But that was not to be, as most of you already know. So having made the decision to stay in the UK until the end of the year, I had to face the fact that money really doesn't grow on trees and I'd actually have to earn some!

The obvious answer, as many people said, would have been to cut short my career break and go back to Gatwick for a few months. However, there were a few issues with that idea:

1) If I'd gone back until December and then tried to recommence my career break, I'm quite sure they'd have said no and I'd have had to resign there and then.

2) Having been away for over a year, it's very unlikely that I'd have been able to go back to my previous office, leaving the possibility that I'd have to go back to the main airport terminal, doing the frontline job that I've not done since 2002. I'd be facing refresher training and then the prospect of working at an office which I already know has zero staff satisfaction and with a small number of people I swore I would never work with (again).

3) Transport - when I had a car, getting to and from Gatwick was easy. On public transport, I'd be faced with heading out of the flat some days around 5.45am for the walk to the station, then the delights of the train trip to the airport to be ready to start by 7am.

4) The bottom line - it would be a backward step. When I walked out of that office in February 2009, I was determined I would never go back. Realising I'd been in the Civil Service for just under 20 years was what made me go to Spain in the first place. The only reason I'm on a career break is just in case one day I get so utterly, seriously desperate for a job that I might actually bring myself to go back, briefly or otherwise. That day most certainly has not come, nor do I want it to.

So - job-hunting began in earnest at the end of July when I decided for sure I was staying put for a few months. Having never really done anything apart from the Civil Service (before the English teaching, of course) I really didn't know what on earth to look for, let alone what I was good at. I've never had to write a CV before so that was a learning curve (thanks go to Ange for her advice). I was quite sure that immigration had given me no transferable skills whatsoever, unless I wanted to go into another law-enforcement type job. However, the more I thought about it, and as various people pointed out, I'd basically spent 20 years doing a variety of administrative and customer service roles, and had at least had the chance to show I was fairly flexible (not bendy!) and up for a challenge with some of the things that job entailed.

I had a CV, now I needed a job to apply for. I'd registered with every temp agency I could think of and given a fairly wide list of criteria, yet three weeks later, I'd heard from none of them! I know there's a recession but I couldn't believe that not a single one of them had found one job that suited my stated preferences. In the last week, one of them has started to send me emails listing jobs I "may" be interested in. Bear in mind that what I asked them to look out for were jobs in secretarial/admin/typing/data entry/filing within 3 miles of Brighton. An email from them last week offered me: Weighbridge Operator, Small Dole; Quantity Surveyor, Guildford; Finnish speaking salesperson, Edinburgh! Call me fussy, but what on earth made them think I would/could do any of those?!

Next ports of call were the Friday-Ad, Evening Argus and Gumtree websites (yes, the one where I found the slightly bizarre naked admin assistant job!) There's a bewildering array of jobs out there, it appears, several of which I fired off my CV to, without getting so much as an acknowledgement, let alone an interview. Then finally, I heard back from one - a telephone market research job (no sales, which was very important to me). Last Tuesday, I had a face-to-face interview and had to do a 10-minute test call (which admittedly seemed to only prove that I could read from a pre-prepared script on screen and click the mouse a few times!), then the next morning they called to offer me the job.

No, it's not the most exciting job in the world, nor the best paid but it's a job, it's pretty flexible (choose your own shifts each week, and no weekday shift starts before 2pm!) and they offer temporary, short-term or long-term contracts. Training starts on Wednesday for two days, then work proper next week. My bank manager will be delighted!

Damn dawn delights

Sunrise from the window of the Ministry of the Environment, before my class!

In the words of The Monkees, and if I had my way, "the six o'clock alarm would never ring".

On the 21st of September 2009, I "officially" became employed again. Yes, I'd had private students before the summer, but now I had a real job. With a contract (though I've not actually seen it yet!), and proper pay - hurrah - minus tax - boo!


The day before my first class, I did the sensible thing and made a reccy out to the Ministry of the Environment, to time the journey and make sure I could find it. Easy enough. 5 stops on the Metro and a 7 minute walk down one straight road! Even I can do that. Having found it, I decided to take a stroll back a different way and to a different Metro station. The area between Nuevos Ministerios, Rios Rosas and Cuatro Caminos is really nice. If I were to move, I'd quite like to go there. During my wander I found a cool looking wine shop, the very posh Scuela Italian de Madrid, a Pilates centre, a million pastelerias with their tempting window displays, a great little travel bookshop, a couple of tempting restaurants, the beautiful Antigua Hospedal de Maudes (now some kind of council building) and my absolute favourite - a kitchen furniture/equipment shop called, in a particularly un-PC fashion "ForLady"!!!


Anyway, work! It's going pretty well, if I say so myself. My 2 students at the ministry are a director and a sub-director. The director is nice but scary. She's clearly something very, very high up and has an office that wouldn't look out of place in the White House. I'm meant to teach her every Monday and Wednesday morning at 8.15 but so far she's cancelled every Wednesday due to work commitments. I only get paid for a cancelled class if they cancel with less than 12 hours' notice - damn. The sub-director, however, is absolutely lovely. She's happy, bubbly, smiley, enthusiastic, does yoga and belly dancing and seems to find pretty much everything I say funny. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and taking that as a good thing!


As I said, the only down side is the early morning start. Alarm goes off at 6.30 and I'm out the door at 7.20. It's kind of weird being back in the normal working routine and going to the Metro station with all the other commuters! My Metro routine is to listen to my MP3 player all the way there, then pick up a free paper as I exit the station so that on the way back after class I can listen to more music, but read up on the news in Spanish. It's a hilarious free paper - it carries the important stories but mostly it's about Madrid and its suburbs. In that great way that those kind of local publications do, it has amusing stories about, for instance, a car being abandoned on a street corner in one of the suburbs. If that's the most exciting thing that happens there, well......!!


Getting into the Ministry has at least got easier and faster. On my first day, the security desk didn't have the requisite authorisation email about me and they wouldn't let me in! A couple of frantic phone calls to the school didn't help as it was out of hours so I just got the machine. Finally, I went back to the security desk and asked if I could at least phone my student on the internal phone to explain that I was there, I had actually turned up and that I would see her at the next lesson. The security guy rang her office, and 2 minutes later, I was in! I guess he rang the student himself and if she's as important as she seems, she probably just said "Let my teacher in!"


So, there it is. I'm working. I even got my first pay cheque on the 1st of October. It's all gone, of course!!!

How did I ever work a 40 hour week?!

Now I realise that anyone I've worked with since 1989 will be well aware that I've probably never actually worked a 40-hour week, but that's what I was paid for so....!

The point is, since Monday I've had 3 students (about to become 4), for the grand total of 10 hours a week (will be 12 hours). And I'm knackered!

The students are spread over the day - first at 9.30am, next at 4 then the last at 6.30. Between the first and second students, I'm doing 2-3 hours lesson prep. The first is a half hour walk each way, the second is a 10 minute walk, then a 20 minute bus ride, then a 5 minute walk!!! OK, the third is a 6 minute walk from my flat. But it makes the day very long and drawn-out. Having been used to either starting at 7am and being done by 2, or starting at 1.30pm and finishing at 9, it's quite difficult to adapt to working both ends of the day!!! But it's going a long way to paying the rent and at least some spending money, so I won't be totally depleting my savings!

Anyway, other than teaching, what have I done over the last week? Sat in the park or on the balcony whenever possible, reading and topping up my tan. Watched a disturbing amount of online TV, mostly in the middle of the night, on some dodgy streaming website. Had some late night, deep, meaningful conversations with Eve (my lovely flatmate) about everything under the sun. Went to Lavapies for the first time, to be treated to curry, chat and card games by Dade (and China, who is a sweetheart). Discovered that slamming the phone down on someone on Skype isn't quite as satisfying as the old-fashioned way! Caved in and went clothes shopping today - something I hate doing. Still hate it!

2 friends had very bad news this week - it's not my place to say who, but one knew the family that was found at Beachy Head, and the other had a friend on the Air France plane. Hugs to both.

And so, what's in store? Weekly English speaking group tonight - my grand plan is to not stay too late. Famous last words. Meant to be playing padel (paddleball) tomorrow - should be entertaining! Then a birthday party in the evening. And recovering Sunday, I imagine, before the proper language exchange on Sunday night, at which I am determined to speak more Spanish!!!

The famous roadworks outside the flat are still going on. Now they're building new pavements, kerbs, parking spaces etc. Constant racket of diggers, dumper trucks, skips being delivered and collected. For some reason, the trucks seem determined to go everywhere in reverse, so as well as the noise of the trucks, we get the constant beeping that warns you that they're reversing! And everything, including my throat and nose, is coated with a thin layer of pink powdery dust!!

The weird pipe noise continues to frustrate - it's louder, longer and more frequent some days, then sometimes it barely seems to happen at all. The president of the building came up for a meeting with the owner of the flat and me about it, but he could only say that he thought that the replacement of the water pipes in the street may be trapping air and causing the problem. He felt sure it would stop when the works are over. In October!!!!

God, this is a really negative blog, isn't it?! Which it really shouldn't be because on the whole, I'm loving it here! Now, surely it's time to grill some more asparagus.....

New home, old rain!

My lovely, new, sunny flat is not quite living up to its reputation! It's been raining pretty much ever since I arrived on Tuesday evening. Today it decided to dump a downpour on the washing that was valiantly trying to dry on the balcony.

Thanks to the lovely Nacho (Ignacio) and his Citroen C3, I didn't have to move house on the metro. That would have been interesting, with a huge suitcase, rucksack, laptop bag and 3 bags of food (and beer!) But not only did he help me move my stuff, he carried most of it up the 4 flights of stairs to the flat. Trust me to move to the 4th floor in a building with no lift. When I move out, I think I'll just throw everything off the balcony!

My new flatmate, at least for the next 6 weeks, is a lovely Dublin girl called Eve. She's a happy, bouncy, athletic thing who has a penchant for Spanish men!! ;-) I'll be disappointed when she moves out, her company has been a nice change from my little house on my own before. She's also letting me use her laptop while mine is being repaired/replaced - for this I will be eternally grateful!

Talking of the laptop, I deposited it at the Toshiba repair place near here on Thursday morning and IF I understood the lady correctly, they should call in 2 working days if it's repairable on-site, but if it has to go back to Toshiba then it'll be another 3-5 days on top of that. I'm not holding my breath but it still sounds theoretically quicker than the probably guaranteed minimum of 2-3 weeks it would have taken in the UK. Where I would also have had to post it, insure it etc etc instead of just dropping it off at an authorised repair centre.

The weather hasn't been conducive to doing much over the last couple of days so I've wandered around the new local area, stocked the fridge (though I appear to have run out of beer AGAIN!) and made inroads into getting some work. I emailed every Spaniard I ever met on a Vaughan Town to explain that I'm in Madrid and available to give English classes. Within 12 hours I had one definite request for lessons, plus a potential offer of teaching someone's 2 daughters (ages not yet known - could be interesting!) So things appear to be moving. My American, chirpy, eternally optimistic mate Julie also has a bit of a plan for when she returns in September which I'm hoping to be part of.

It's Friday so it's the English speaking meet-up at Brasserie Locandita tonight, after which I've been invited to a party. Hopefully I won't be paying the price tomorrow! ;-)