When it comes to life, if I step back and look at everything I have and do, I can honestly say I’m happy. I have a lovely partner and home, lovely friends and a lovely family. The only part of my life that I simply cannot get a handle on it my work life.
As I am sitting here, writing this, it is 12.30pm on Monday and I am at home. I quit my job this morning, after being lumbered with yet another dreadful boss with all the people skills of a tin of salmon. I am once again unemployed, sitting at home and feeling worthless. There are 1001 reasons I could give you as to why I left but I wouldn’t want to bore you. It is easier to say that it became so difficult and so trying that I had to.
Just before I left, my colleague came down for a brief chat. He told me he knows one of the main reasons I struggle so much in jobs is because I take so much to heart and let things upset me. This is true. I do this. I simply cannot help it- I do really care about what I do for a living and I want to do it well. I want to be part of something that matters. I’ve had some really difficult jobs like working for criminal justice agencies, children’s services and the emergency services. I’ve read reports of domestic abuse, violence, sexual abuse and rape that would make even the coldest of hearts melt. I’ve listened to people on the phone who tell you of the saddest things- for example a woman who came home from work to find her husband had taken an overdose, or the man who found his paraplegic wife had parked her wheelchair at the top of the stairs and then tumbled out of it, breaking her neck. Unfortunately, as bad as it is for my blood pressure I really thrive in environments like this.
The other trouble is that once you’ve worked in an environment such as this you can’t bring yourself to care about much afterwards. People ring up to complain, for example, that an item hasn’t arrived on time and they are screaming and abusive. I used to sit and think “I’ve taken calls from people who were actually dying- physically literally dying and they were calmer than you.” It took a lot of care not to drop the phone into a glass of water, put my fist through my monitor and leave. In an old job- we used to have the following saying “It may not be your emergency, but it is their emergency.” This is a very good saying. In a training exercise, we listened to a call from a lady in her mid 20’s. She was completely hysterical, screaming and crying and saying “Please help me it hurts so much!” She was calling because she had put perfumed cream on her feet and it stung. No, I am serious. She had rung 999 for that. Goes to show what some people are like.
“Customer service” is a hideous term and gets passed around like a beer at a teenage party. I simply cannot and will not complain in shops or over the telephone because I can’t anymore. I have been on the other side of the counter or other end of the phone for too long. I know how it feels. It takes every ounce of strength not to reply “I don’t care, okay? Whatever it is, why are you ringing me up and whining like a baby with wind? I don’t care. Get a life, you sad little idiot”.
Were I ever to fulfil a life ambition and open a bookshop, I’d have the following sign over the counter:
“Customer Notice
Our staff don’t get paid much, and they really don’t care if you have to have that book in time for little Sally’s birthday. You should have ordered it earlier. If you are polite to us, we will be polite to you. If you are rude to any member of staff- the door is over there. We don’t want or need customers like you.”
I think that would be marvellous. I am absolutely sick and tired of bending over backwards for dreadful customers- manners don’t cost a penny so use them. I am not saying don’t complain- by all means do if you have received poor service- but remember, the poor little girl on the end of the phone on £7.00 an hour isn’t the one you’re really mad at. Odds are it wasn’t even her mistake. You are speaking to the monkey, not the organ grinder. I am that dreadful woman in shops who if I find you yelling at someone I will march over and tell you to get lost. I can’t stand rudeness- it is unnecessary and doesn’t get you anywhere.
I also ring up shops if I feel service has been great. I’m appalled by how many people bother to do this. In the course of things, I’ve got free vouchers and tickets, and genuine gasps of delight from an exhausted customer service agent who has been screamed at all day. The last time I rang a supermarket to tell them how pleased I was with an item I’d bought, the young girl on the end of the phone told me that last call she’d taken was from a woman crying about a trifle. If you ring up and then start crying because you didn’t like a trifle, I’ll give you this advice for free. Hand in your notice on life- it is clearly that hollow and pointless for you. A compliment takes moments to say and you gain so much.
In my employment- I’ll be absolutely blunt. Should you ever have the misfortune to speak to me don’t expect much. I have completely lost my mojo for working. I hate it and I know it is the wrong attitude to have, but 7 years of horrible jobs, horrible colleagues and horrible customers has completely worn me down. I’m not naturally pessimistic or grumpy but when I am at work I have all the charm of a dead pigeon. I don’t want to try anymore because it never gets me anywhere. I come in, do my work like an automaton and that’s it.
I just don’t know what I want to do. I don’t have any bankable skills. I have done a few pieces of voiceover work for the radio, but there are far too many people out there who are a million times better than me. I love to write, but deep down in my heart I know I am not good enough to make a living from this. I am not saying this because I expect thousands of comments to the contrary; I am saying this because it is true. I read a lot of blogs, books, newspapers and magazines and I know of what I speak. There are so many people out there whose talent and knowledge is vast, and I am just an opinionated dipstick with a computer. I have only ever worked in administration, and although I am apparently quite good at it I don’t actually like it at all- I merely fell into it because it was an easy sector to get into. It is dull and repetitive and every day feels like Groundhog Day. I can’t sing, I can’t act, and I can’t be a model. I can dance, but seeing as I have a figure like a space hopper on legs I don’t think the Royal Ballet will be banging on my door any day soon. I don’t have any vocational skills; I can’t build walls or mend roofs. I don’t have a degree, and I can’t afford to go back to school, college or university. I don’t drive, so I couldn’t be a police officer or a paramedic or a fire-fighter. I don’t like talking to people so I can’t work in sales. Pigeon holed at 24. Didn’t think it was possible.
I’ve often thought what my 16 year old self would say if she saw me now. I had the world at my feet back then, until (what feels like) a lifetime of hideous jobs wore me down to a tiny nub. I know she’d flick her pink hair out of her face and adjust her lip ring and punch me square on the jaw. I wouldn’t blame her either.
Maybe I need to consider therapy. I am obviously a total fool who can’t hold down a job and this needs to change. I don’t have any semblance of a career and no sign of getting one any time soon. I’ve met some absolute dribbling idiots in my time and they’re doing a lot better than me. I have a mortgage and bills to pay and I have to work. Try as I might to avoid this fact it isn’t going to go away. I made my bed and now I have to lie in it.
If anyone has any idea what I should be doing with my life please let me know. I am available all day every day now seeing as I am unemployed, again. The only upside to all of this hideous mess is you can go ahead and expect a lot more articles. I have the free time now.
