Bear with me...

So I wasn't sure what I was going to blog about today and there is little idea of structure in my head so 'bear with me'. I was going to blog about 'Men' and then decided it would be either;

• full of stereotypes
• repetitive 
• insanely boring
• too personal and a little too revealing about my barren love life and latest traumas

So I decided not to. Instead you can read about the joys of my minimum wage job.

I am REALLY tired of hearing above phrase. 'Bear with me'. I am determined NOT to use it as it rings in my ears all day from the office I work in. I am currently fortunate enough to work in a call centre, taking orders and customer service calls. Unless you have worked in a similar scenario, it would be hard for you to imagine the type of moron you have to deal with on a daily basis. A lot of the people I have to talk to are bloody lucky I am bearing with them for less than £6 an hour. I'm not allowed to say - "it's not the end of the fucking world- you were expecting 'pink' and you have 'peachy-pink', YOU ARE NOT IN LIBYA, YOU ARE NOT REBUILDING YOUR LIFE IN JAPAN. You have an item which is not 100% as bloody perfect as you hoped. Well shit. You paid £9.99. You didn't lose an eye."
They record your calls so I have to bite my tongue.

Yesterday a customer rang in barely understandable tones about some goods he had received in 2009 that he wanted to get credit for in order to get new things this year. He had not bothered to ring in in 2009 and I as the phone operator was apparently meant to take his word that the goods from 2009 were a bit shit and give him lots of free stuff.
Even if I believed him, which I don't as his story was very sketchy, I would not be thanked by the powers that be for sending out free goods/vouchers etc on the say-so of slightly confused elderly man re goods received in 2009.

Today a nasty snappy woman rang in wanting me to resend goods whilst her order is still being dispatched. Apparently I am to 'get on to the courier and have a word'. The courier is Royal Mail. My office is based about 300 miles from where the goods are dispatched. When I say 'my office' I mean my bit of desk with a decrepit computer and a headset that is so precious to me now, I get in 15 minutes before my shift will start in order to have THIS chair and THIS computer and headset which I clean daily with germ killing wipes as a man in the office has recently been off with impetigo.
I know that if I get in later, I will have to sit opposite miserable 'J' or next to very loud 'G' or cannot do anything for herself  'D' barely holding onto her job, under a flickering fluorescent tube with a phone with a non-working transfer button. Customers don't like when you cut them off instead of transferring them.

I'm aware I am bemoaning a job and I ought to be grateful I even HAVE a job under the Tory Reich but it is hard when you have studied for 4 years, trained and built a good reputation for yourself, to be doing this. Hard isn't the word. There are days I have total meltdowns and think I should run away and join the circus. I won't. I would have to have an act that incorporated my dog and cat. My dog is stubborn as a mule and my cat is half wild.

So for now, you and my family will have to 'bear with me' while I feel my brain soften or as in the words of Bernard Black- 'fall away like wet cake' and clock watch, knowing that in the last 15 minutes I will have earned enough to buy a sandwich at lunch. I had a five minute conversation with some old bat today about a picture in the catalogue. It was 6.04pm and I was there 4 minutes past the clocking out time. Precious, non-paid minutes wasting my life.

Minutes are not just precious to me, but for the company I work for. If I am at lunch- I have to enter a code onto my phone- the same for a break. I even have a number for loo breaks, an; "I am going to the toilet" code. I am a machine. Mary Portas would have a field day here. There are NO incentives to work harder- and if you do not take enough calls, your name goes on a name and shame list in red. Nice.

I am learning to find small things interesting to keep me from drowning in a pool of my own drool whilst I rock slowly and bang my head on the desk. Today I found the street name 'Electric Avenue' highly amusing. And when a customer has an incorrect code - I like to say - 'computer says no' but this is wasted on pensioners.

God help me I need a new teaching post.