Working in the Land of Milk and Honey

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Well, it's been a while since I've had a moment to sit down to update you on the working life in good old NZ...life has been pretty hectic since I arrived but I have been loving every moment....

"If I give you my credit card number for the deposit does that mean you're gonna charge the deposit to my credit card?"
I sort of fell into my first job... Jo's fiance told me that the swimming school he teaches at had just lost their receptionist and so I phoned up and offered my services...I thought that I was going for an interview but when I arrived the owner said "I need someone who can do at least 20 hours a week, can you start tomorrow at 2?" Best interview ever!!!!!

I worked there for 3 weeks during the re-booking period and am now a pro at checking the chlorine level of a pool...so annoying that the smallest chemical change affects the pH level and so you have to keep monitoring it and then adjusting it to compensate for the changes while wondering exactly what the kids were doing in the water that created the imbalance...glad that I'm not a swimming teacher 😉

Had a few blonde moments...the dumbest being trying to put the adapter thingy on the hosepipe while it was on...drenched myself from head to toe and was asked to repeat the action as it had greatly entertained the teacher's present...always fun pretending to be a professional receptionist when you are dripping water on the desk while assisting clients...

"Company policy prohibits me from providing a reference for XXX, this does not mean that XXX was a good employee nor that he was bad one...I can, however, confirm the employment period...hope this helps..."
2 weeks before my whirlwind visit to the UK I signed up with a recruitment agency with the hope that they would be able to find me a job fairly soon after I returned...they did one better and offered me a job within the agency itself which kept me busy until the day I left...I was employed to do reference checking for potential candidates...getting glowing reports was quite boring and monotonous but occassionally you would get truly terrible references and I couldn't believe that the candidates had actually nominated the person as a referee...

My favourite was the 40 minute call I had with a lovely lady regarding her previous employee...turns out the employee just wouldn't turn up for work and wouldn't notify anyone (didn't even bother faking a sickie)...she blatantly stole from the company and on one occassion didn't turn up for a whole working week but on pay day she completed her timesheet as if she had been working blood, sweat and tears. When questioned, she explained that she had decided that she needed a holiday and so took the liberty of scheduling it herself (retrospectively)...she swore during presentations in front of clients and had taken to stalking the owners after her contract was terminated...I felt so sorry for the lady, but couldn't understand how she had put up with it for so long or why the employee would nominate her as a referee..

I was quite glad when my UK trip came up as after this call all other references seemed really boring...

"Thank you for calling XXX. Goodbye. Beep Beep Beep"
On paper my last job seems to be good to be true...I was part of a team that tested a company's new automatic customer service system...basically we were given scripts and had to follow them and then either pass or fail each test depending on whether the desired result was achieved or not...sounds easy right...well that part was, but if I ever hear a voice going "to return to the main menu please press #..." again, I may rip the phone out of the wall socket... The thing with this job was that they had too many testers and so we were whizzing through the test case stages quicker than the techies could correct the mistakes...this meant that a typical working day proceeded as follows:
-- arrive for 11h00 start
-- actually start @ +- 11h15
-- tea break from 13h00 - 13h30
-- lunch break from 15h00 - 16h15
-- tea break from 18h00 - 18h30
-- leave @ 19h50
and this was the busy days...one of the days we did 2 hours of work and entertained ourselves for the other 7...the office was awesome and you could have all the hot chocolate you could drink as well as watch television during breaks...even though it all seems perfect I kept thinking about all the productive stuff I could have been doing and so didn't enjoy the job quite as much...I did, however, love the company's pedantic view on health and safety...above each basin was a step by step guide on how to wash your hands...apparently this requires 9 steps...and lathering soap on your hands and between your fingers are 2 separate steps...man, I've been so poorly educated!!!!

Anyway, I'm back to square one now...trying to decide whether I wanna stay in Auckland and work to save money...or start exploring the country properly and look for a job when the money runs out...sigh...decisions decisions....

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