14 November 2009 – entertained by the neighbours

A broken fence

Storms battered the house last night, rain pounding on the bedroom window, wind whistling down the chimney. According to the news gusts of 100 miles an hour were recorded at the Needles Lighthouse on the Isle of Wight, just a few miles away. Thankfully the floods and the worst of the storm missed Southampton although the fire station opposite the Mad House offices lost part if its roof in the early hours. Ironically crews from another fire station had to be called out to help. Lucky that didn’t happen when I was walking past on my way to the bus stop.

8 October 2009 – walking through the war zone to work

Not the safest walk to work

On my walk from the bus stop to the office this morning there was a woman collapsed on the pavement by the shops. At first I thought she was ill and I actually walked up to her to see if I could help before I saw the three empty Special Brew cans and smelt the alcohol fumes. She wasn’t ill, she was dead drunk at eight thirty in the morning! Really I should have guessed, the walk from the bus to to office is a little like walking through a war zone, drunks, beggars, odd looking people muttering to themselves. It feels like it’s only a matter of time before I get mugged.

7 October 2009 – a storm and a good deed

Spectacular storm

Today was more of the same. We spent the morning learning how to take a basic order for the product we learned about yesterday afternoon, same process as yesterday, Dev demonstrating on the big screen, practice, test then role play. This time we were supposed to ‘reinforce the benefit’ of said product to the pretend customer. Personally I couldn’t see the point of the reinforcing, I mean, if the customer has called to make an order they obviously know the benefit of the product or they wouldn’t have phoned to buy it. Like last time Kim and I were last and we had to go through the indignity of having everyone listen in. When Jas praised my reinforcing, telling everyone what a good point I’d made about peace of mind knowing there was a two year guarantee I felt stupidly proud of myself.

6 October 2009 – coffee, tests and trying not to fall asleep

Temptation in the canteen

The highlight of today was when they handed out the pass cards. This meant I could get a coffee from the canteen at lunchtime. Dev showed me how to work the machine to put money on the card, which was a tad on the embarrassing side because it turned out to be extremely simple, basically just put the card in the slot at the top and the money in the other slot then press the button. It even takes notes, although I didn’t have any, but there’s an ATM at the other end of the canteen so I guess I could have got some money out if I’d wanted to. Probably best not though or I might have been tempted by all the cooked food, chocolate bars and cakes.