Monday 12 March 2007

(I must be boring you all to death with the mundane, but… maybe there are some good nuggets in here somewhere, someday, perhaps?)

Minor Inconveniences

The first thing I’ve found that’s not perfect about England (or at least Northampton)- the stores shut too early on weekdays! Most stores (except for grocery stores and restaurants/pubs, etc) will shut between 5pm and 6pm, which is really inconvenient if one needs to stop off after work. I usually don’t leave work until just before 6pm to begin with (that’ll change when I start working show nights, though). Catching things on tv like the following definitely make up for it, though!:

‘no one wants to feel like a sausage in a sausage factory’ & ’we promise to treat you like a person, not a sausage’ - from an eyecare commercial on tv.

The other minor inconvenience I have is cell phone- it’s too damned expensive to call the States, which I’ve had to do quite a bit in the past week to get things sorted out. I’ve put £ 10 on twice (forced to do the pay-as-you-go option at the moment because I have no credit history in England), and I’m almost out of my second round already. That’s almost 40 USD! I know international calls are expensive, but… I guess it’s still better than using my credit card at a payphone (ha ha- BT won’t get my money!).
Tomorrow is the big meeting with my supervisors and deputy. Actually, they’re all acting, and I have to go through the process of interviewing and hiring for the positions… but anyway. I’m looking forward to this meeting, because I think it will really help assert myself as being their boss rather than a co-worker on the same level. I already feel different than I did at Purchase, like my contributions count for something. My Boss has mentioned more than once that I’ve already made a big difference (how can I have, in only a week?), and I’ve been invited to join every department’s Tessitura implementation meeting. At the moment, I’m flattered, though I’m sure 6 meetings a week (sometimes once every two weeks) for just Tessitura will get to me eventually:-P And people are asking me for random one-on-one sessions, too. Good to know I’m loved ;-)
No news on a personal front as of yet. Mentions keep being made in passing of “oh, we should do dinner some night” or “let me know if you want to do something” but I haven’t yet taken anyone up on anything. I did, however, ask after a Royal & Derngate community choir that I heard about by accident (someone sent a system wide email announcing a rehearsal change). Maybe that’s something I can get back into. We shall see.
I don’t quite know what to do with myself- I feel like there’s hope, there’s promise, and that I might actually be content, and maybe even more than that?… (some of you will understand that one better than others)…

Wednesday 14 March

Today was my first crazy-person day. Wednesdays are particularly bad meeting days, so I was backlogged. I was supposed to leave at 5pm, and was about to leave at 6:15, when one of the sales advisors came to me and said she had a person on the phone who was really unhappy with something (turns out we had had to move him because weeks ago we sold him into seats that weren’t really there). I said to offer to move him to house seats. He wouldn’t have it. I was still trying to get out the door, so I said “fine, give him a refund.” He wouldn’t have that, so then he needed to speak to me in person. I told him the same thing, that I’d be happy to refund him his tickets, and to comp him to something else. He kept being really nasty, saying I should move someone else so he could have better seats, etc, etc, and why was he moved in the first place. Of course, I’d only been at work for a week and a half, and I didn’t know, so I asked him if he minded holding while I found out, and he’s like “you don’t know? How’d you get the job in the first place?” And he told me I had a very strong American accent, and he wasn’t pleased. Eventually, a third person was able to calm him down somehow, basically offering him the same thing I did, but maybe he liked it better from this other person because she didn’t have an American accent. It didn’t bother me at first, but the more I think about it, the more it bothers me :-P Oh well, I’ll get over it by tomorrow. It’ll be interesting to hear what the Customer Services Director has to say about it tomorrow when I tell him what happened.

Things are moving ahead with the flat- they’ve already called my place of work, and my father’s place of work (I needed a guarantor because I haven’t been living in the UK for 6 months). And I have a firm offer of help when I’m ready to go (“help” meaning pick up my two gigantic suitcases and whatever else I’ve accumulated so I don’t have to make a billion trips on the bus). I’m excited to move, even though I won’t have tv anymore. Am actually looking forward to it, in a sick way… before I left the States, I was consumed by the thought of excess, and how much of it there is (in America), and I wanted to get away from that for a bit. I think I’m also looking forward to getting into my permanent place because I feel slightly unsettled in my home life, and I don’t really want to let go, for lack of a better word (or two), until I’m in my own place.