The Short Epic

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Thank Crunchie it's Friday!!

The waking up early thing is getting old. I deliberately made myself tired last night, set my alarm for 06:30 and was awake at 04:56 (*grumble*) I did go back to sleep, but was awake again just before 6am so I got up, emptied my bin before the lorry came today, took out my flowers which died and washed up the vase, straightened my hair, tidied up and hit the road early.

I've packed my "travel" stitching stuff into my car to take with me to Garrys. I love sitting around in the evening listening to the radio and chilling out together, but reading isn't exactly social so I thought, if I take my stitching, I might a) finally get it finished b) feel a bit more calm and together (stitching has that effect on me, like washing up) and c) really feel the chill vibe in the evenings.

I do worry that I'm gradually re-distributing my clag to Garrys house though, he doesn't have any more room than I do so I shall be mindful of that. DVD's and Books are ok at the moment (since I'm taking away about as many as I bring, as I am gradually reading through his collection) but "stuff" he only has finite capacity for.

We had "Fat Friday" in the canteen today and by the time I got there I was amazed to see that my favourite thing was still available. Tesco do a cream cake selection and one of the things it has is a scone-cream-tea type of affair, with creamy stuff and jam in the middle but it's not 'real' cream it's sort of buttery cream, it probably has a proper name and you're probably all laughing at me trying to describe it but it's GAWJUS (sorry morganalefay I couldn't resist)

Usually they are the first thing to go and I rarely get down to the canteen quickly enough to get one, but this week there were TWO left :o) I enjoyed one with my coffee, slowly and relishingly (is that a word?)

Work isn't too bad, I have got a few jobs to do which will keep me busy, I have done my weekly "printer" duty, stocked them all up, spilt magenta toner all over the floor, vacuumed it up again, got rid of the stuff that people print out and then never collect etc etc.

I also discovered a gaping hole in my knowledge which could have been quite costly. V doesn't use the usual corporate car company for her airport transfers, she uses a different one that is local to her in Leamington. I didn't know this until I got an email from her this morning saying that the pick-up had gone fine (at 05:15) but that the driver had said he was "from Nottingham!!??"

Alarm bells started ringing, I went through all my training notes, all the emails from N about travel arrangements and nothing odd came up so I called N to ask the question. I am not able to do anything about her travel today, but I have arranged the proper company to pick her up next week when she goes to Europe.

Good thing about me is that I learn from mistakes (even when they are not my mistakes) so this is added to my list of things that I will now likely remember until I die!

I have started preparing for my 6 week review. J doesn't seem to think it's important enough to "prep" for, but I do, so I am. If I don't need it fine, but I'd rather have it done, besides which there are a few things I want to know/say and I don't want to forget them during the heat of the stress surrounding me being "assessed."

Ok, back to work, I'm soooo ready for this week to be over, and I can't wait to get to the pub.

I'm up already for my 7th day of work in a row. Day off tomorrow and have no real plans apart from catching up on washing/cleaning/emailing, the stuff that goes by-the-by when I haven't got time.
( Got Whine? )

I shouldn't bitch, I do get paid quite well for what I do and the shift allowance is a good thing, mornings like this though just make me wish I could have conventional working hours and attract me to the idea of financial consultant even more.

My job is easy, requires nothing from me apart my actual showing up and being able to read, it's not a challenge and other than the customers who sometimes make a day stand out either positively or negatively, I am very apathetic about actually going.

I would have the perfect job if it weren't for the targeting. I hit all my targets apart from one every month, I haven't hit my Insurance sales target since I started in March and although I don't particularly care, I want our team to do well, my sense of pride in my team and my natural competitiveness mean that I want to see us hit our plan which is to be in 2nd place by the end of the year (we're currently 4th.)

I just don't react well to being targeted, especially when I have absolutely no control over whether or not I hit it. Doesn't matter how hard I work, if there're no calls I can't make sales, if the customers don't return their offer documents I don't get the points until they do. I am one of the very few who use quiet phones to call people back and see how they're getting on, whether they need any help, or if there's a problem I can help with.

The people who consistantly hit target are the people who are ostensibly 'part-time' so they have a low target level (300 points lower than the rest of us) but then work normal hours in overtime, which seems like cheating to me. The other types of people who hit target are the ones who work full time, but work tons of hours a week in overtime, they come in at 8am and stay until 6pm on their 9a-5p weeks and come in at 8am and work 'til 8pm on their 12p-8p weeks.

Now, I don't mind at all, if those people want to 'work to live' that's fine, and I don't mind doing a bit of overtime here and there when it's needed, but I have absolutely no intention of making target if that's what's required, I don't want to burn myself out, so I have sorted out a healthy balance between working hard and having a life.

Speaking of this healthy balance, I have to go get in the shower, I am going out on the town with the girls tonight so I will be home long enough to have some tea and then get ready before meeting at Fliss' house to head into town.

Today is Patriot Day and I am confused. I have ended up choosing my "Patriotism" according to the clothing in my wardrobe, but it's a bit of a mess (to be honest).
I have blue trousers, a white tube top which I am wearing as a skirt over the trousers and a red shirt (red, white & blue, very clever eh?) however, I have two Welsh flags for my hair and a Dragon pin as well as a pair of St Andrews socks which I have cut the toe and heel out of to make long fingerless glove-type things. So, I'm a bit of a mish-mash, not helped by the American side of things by a sunshade all done out in the stars and stripes.

I have covered a lot of my heritage there I think.

I can't wait to see Charlottes face since she has to walk into work with me.... :)

After a disturbed night, I have a cuppa and I'm awake enough to write about my first full day back at work.

Firstly it was very slow on the phones, we have a rate change today and our rates are going down they have been well publicised in advance and we have introduced a special incentive basically saying "Nationwide is not owned by, or run for the profiteering of a bunch of shareholders, we are a mutual company owned and run by it's members. To demonstrate this we are going to fly in the face of the competition, reduce our reservation fees, abolish all but the minimum early redemption charges, and reduce our fixed interest rates."

As a result of that the phones were dead quiet yesterday, everyone's waiting until today to call and do their business so it was a nice slow re-introduction to work. I was also mistakenly only logged onto the quick quotes line all day, so I got no application calls, just enquiries. I was alright with that idea, but I do need a call with insurances to be scored before I go onto my new sales team so I should hopefully get that today.

New Team I have been given to Team Monte Carlo (MC) and from about the middle of the month I will be working for Lyn Evans and he is really nice. He's a bit like my dad, an older taffy with heart of gold. It's the best possible outcome really, and although I don't really plan to stay, it'll be nice in the intervening time to spend it with someone I like. Unfortunatly Charlotte has gone onto Sharon G's team so we won't be together apart from the odd occasion when our lunches happen to be at the same time, although we will still be on the same shift pattern so we can car share. Neither of us are stuck on a team with S and his harem who all (coincidentally) got put on the same team. Ahh, good news!!

I spoke to a customer yesterday and gave him a quote for moving house, we were talking about his work in PR and I managed to make a throwaway comment about there not being many jobs in that field at the moment and he put me onto a couple of publications which are absolutely jam-packed with PR jobs and even mentioned the words "event organiser" which was cool. So I made a note of them and have been looking through one of the online sites this morning. He's not wrong, it seems there's a real shortage of people with decent communication and organisational skills at the moment.

The evening was even more quiet, I spent it in MC playing games and doing quizzes which is a nice way to pass the evening. I already know and get on with most of MC, especially Saj, Rob and Alison. After work I went to Tesco and bought the makings for dads birthday cake. I am going all out with black forest gateaux from scratch, but using dream topping instead of real cream since loads of people coming are allergic to cream.

This weekend my pappy turns 59 years old, we're having a bit of an open house Saturday, AK Alex & jimbob are comign for lunch, as are Beth, Simon and the boys and I think Doreen & Tony will be there as well, but we've thrown the house open to anyone who wants to show up and wish him well. We've also had a family collection to buy him a car cd player and get it installed because he's decided 59 years is long enough to go without.

Have to go get ready for work, I'm parking straight in the park and ride car park today, no buggering about driving all over looking for parking fo me, oh no!! I quite enjoyed the walk to collect it yesterday, it was blustery and stormy looking, but I managed to get a break in the rain so I didn't get soaked and it cleared out my brain, a nice little break. Today I have my protection re-launch event at the Kings Arms pub in old town from 2pm until 5pm, so I won't be in work from about 1:30pm until about 5:30pm which is nice. We're learning all about the new insurance range and pricing over a pint :)

My first call for scoring didn't go through to my sign off because it was an amber call (good for my first attempt) and had no insurances. I did another call yesterday (also with no insurances) which has gone forward for my sign off, haven't had feedback from it yet though, and I felt it went horribly.

As long as all is green (Yes, my name is now 'Ruby Rod' "It must be green!!") I will need one more app and 2 insurances. I have a call back to do at 10am today which may yield another app, so watch this space.

I am spending my DYT in the branch this wednesday, sitting with a financial advisor and getting my feet wet before my interview in February, I'm quite looking forward to it, even though I have to gust off my suit and buy tights (shock, horror, probe) before then.

One thing is for sure, I do not want to stay in direct for a long period of time, it would be nice to get to the stage where I know what I'm doing (or at least get signed off!!) but I'm not too bothered.

Onwards and upwards McDuff!!