Trying Something New

I called my boss – just minutes ago – apparently it’s my fault that I’m doing overtime. I ended up crying, what’s new? She made me sound like I’m not good enough. Thanks a-fucking-lot! Should she have someone show me what to do? I beg your fucking pardon!?! She reckons I have less work than everyone else. I don’t think so. My job is spread over a bigger area AND I have people around and they turn the lights off in some areas after 7. How is that easier? She’s going to let me try working on two different floors tonight. (No lifts, ha!) See if that makes a difference. I just want my money! I’m too upset. I’m so angry too.

UPDATE:
Rather than write another boring post about work I'll say in the end I didn't get to do two new floors. But I was all right with that because I thought doing something new would just slow me down anyway. Plus I didn't want to on Friday night because I am going to a gig after work with a friend. I know how to "cheat" and cut corners in my area.

My boss was sort of nice to me when I got to work. She's happy with my work but basically I will NEVER get paid any overtime unless it's a specific extra task they've asked me to do. Bugger! I just have to let it go. I'm still going to get cross and sad about my job but I've done all I can for the time being.

Time to look forward to good things coming up, like Terry's visit this weekend. I'm nervous, of course, but at the same time I did go get myself some sexy underwear. It's from K-Mart but give me a break I'm only a part time cleaner. A girl who's doing ALL the Christmas shopping because she's a fool and can't help getting sucked up into the excitement and build-up to a day that almost never fails to disappoint. [Yea!]

What I really hate is I don't get a Christmas holiday; just the public holidays and weekends. As they overlap this year I may not get the extra day off that Boxing Day would normally allow. I really should find out about that.

"It's most the wonderful time of the year!" (Or is it marvelous? Shit. Magical?)

xox Amy

Madness, Sadness and Badness (Not necessarily in that order)

Been caught crying at work again. But it won’t happen again because I intend to resign. At first I was tempted to quit and walk out but I’m not a total bitch. I am however sick to death of being told what I am doing wrong. If I am so bad at my job then for the love of God and Mercy fire me because I can’t take the criticism any more. I am not looking for a compliment. I work and try so hard but if in the end it’s not good enough then fuck it! No more unpaid overtime for something I hate and apparently do wrong anyway. Two weeks notice. I can’t do fairer then that. In my madness (and sadness) I’ve even asked my old cleaning boss if she’s got any work available at the moment. I’d rather do those brutal hours and be cut off from people than carry on doing this job.

Okay, I wrote the above while at work last night. I had to get it out then and there. But it is a new day now and things have happened, although my headache is not completely gone I do feel a bit better.

This morning I turned on my phone to discover I got a response from my old boss. She does have a shift. Yikes! Truly those hours are insane and I know my mum won’t let me do them anyway. I sent her a text saying I was upset when I’d written to her and that I am still at my current job. She called me and asked me what was wrong. I found it a bit hard but I told her some of the things that were upsetting me. You see I really don’t think my bosses are arseholes like people keep telling me and I KNOW I am super sensitive and I already feel embarrassed about this job so I’m extra sensitive to criticism and complaints. It doesn’t help that everything I’m told to do I’m doing already. Hence my earlier comments if I’m no good at the job just fire me, please!

I told my old boss my mum probably wouldn’t let me go back to the 3am shift and to my surprise she told me there is an afternoon shift. It starts at the same time as my current job. It’s more of a roving job she said. Just do what needs to be done. Anyway it’s an extra hour of work a day but is only four days a week. I hate cleaning but to quit outright scares the shit out of me. She said if I wanted to start on Monday she’d deal with my current boss. I feel a bit of a coward admitting that is such a relief. I have talked to my (current) boss about some of the issues, for example cleaning the elevators which I’ve never been able to do properly and find quite stressful, but nothing is ever done about it. I have to stress I don’t think the criticism is as personal as I’m taking it and I totally understand what kind of pressure they are under. It’s always, “ inspections, inspections and we don’t want to lose the contract.” Fair enough, but when all you hear is what you’re doing wrong it gets to you. It’s such mixed messages because they tell you people have complained about this and then when I see people who work in the building and they bother to acknowledge my existence they say I’m doing a good job. So no wonder I went schizoid and broke down last night. Seriously I was that close to walking out. (As my unfortunate Uncle found out. He was the only one to reply to my distress text message and I just went for it. Totally suicidal. I can’t apologise enough to him. Sorry Nick!) And the supervisor who was talking to me, telling me about the lifts, asked if I was all right. I was tempted to scream. Instead I mumbled a yeah, walked off and cried, classic Amy.

So I talked to my mum and she says go for this new afternoon shift. I don’t want to be cleaning (of course), but I feel so much better leaving this job for another one. And Friday off, I’m giddy! LOL. However I feel extremely guilty. Like I’m going behind my current boss’s back. I have talked to her about some of these issues before though. Shit, shit, shit. Then again after last night it should be clear I’m not happy where I am now. Nevertheless I think she (current boss ) knows I work very hard and she did say she didn’t want to lose me when I was cheeky and asked for more time off recently.

I better go. I’ve got off to a slow start today because of my headache and feeling like such an idiot. It was too tempting to stay in bed and pretend I don’t exist. But now I’ve got some of this off my chest I should shower and take more pain killers, fuck the four hour period between pills, I’ll live.

The Weak In Review

I was very unhappy to return to work on Monday. I got so depressed. I mean I wasn’t away that long but I just couldn’t stand to go back to my “life.” I was a little down after initially getting back to Melbourne but by Monday I was completely wretched. So much so, that by Wednesday, (Thursday, and Friday) I was getting drunk on the job. And man did I cry my eyes out on Wednesday; almost as much as the night of “The Incident” before my holidays.

You see, on Wednesday I finally managed not to sleep in, and thus I was able to drop-in and see Margaret at work. I had to ask her if I could take some more time off. Man I was nervous. She could see it on my face and asked me to sit down once we were alone in her office. I know it is asking a lot of her by requesting more time off but I really, really want to go to the UK for a memorial gathering and birthday celebration for the late great Kirsty MacColl.

I fucked up. I could have tried harder to combine my trip to Iceland and Sweden with this Kirsty event but for various reasons, or you could say, “as per usual,” I didn’t get my act together. It seems crazy but I am pretty sure I can afford to do both and I would like to. I have the backing of my parents and sister. Not just financially if I get in trouble, they also know how much I hate my job and can tell how much I want to do this. "Life is too short." And cleaning is forever.

Ah, yes I should report on Margaret's response. I didn’t tell her exactly what it was I wanted to do but I said it was something very important to me and something I could only do at this time. (Sure the Kirsty fans gather every year on her birthday but this year she would have been 50, and okay that’s just a number but it feels extra special. When I found out about this I wanted/hoped I could make it for this one. See I’m pretty sure it’s an annual event but my sister thought it was a special gathering because she would have been 50. I haven’t double checked on who was right, but it doesn’t matter. For a long time now this is the year I wanted to do it).

The thing is Margaret didn’t give me a straight answer. I mean she just wasn’t sure. She thought I could probably do it. She asked how much annual leave I had left (not much, not enough actually, but I told her I don’t mind, that I’m fine with it being leave without pay). She also asked how long it would be (well about as much time as my last holiday, in fact a day of two longer, oops. Hadn’t quite worked it out when she asked me. Plus I can’t decide if I’m crazy enough to leave for the airport straight after work or just take that day off too. I can guess what my family would say, but I am a bit crazy and I do feel bad about taking time off again so soon – less than a month after my return people!)

Margaret told me she wouldn’t want to lose me. I think that’s definitely a positive sign. The main problem is timing. A lot of people are on annual leave. Perhaps more than they can cope with. One person who is on it is the man that I think is her boss and who with her grants annual leave. On the plus side for me she did imply it was good that there was someone who’d “learnt” my job. (I use quotation marks because although he did shadow me one night to learn my job there were a few things he didn’t do. Apparently because I didn’t tell him he had to do it. When my supervisors’ told me this I said I’m sure I did tell him, but I honestly couldn’t remember. The area, the Mezzanine, was the one area I did before he found me that night he was shadowing me - which is what I told them. However I’m fairly certain I would have told him I do this area too. Sorry this is a bit banal I know, what I was told is he didn’t do the toilet on that floor. Why wouldn’t you check the whole area when you’re cleaning anyway? I mean it’s right next to the kitchen. What did he think it was? My impression is that they have a bit of trouble with him anyway. I’m not sure if it’s simply a language problem or he just isn’t good at cleaning. I wouldn’t take the latter as an insult! After all who the fuck wants that feather in their cap?)

In other news, I hope to have set in motion getting some feedback on my application as a Researcher for ABC3. The job started this month, although when exactly I never knew. I couldn’t work out who to send my enquiry to so I sent it to the woman who emailed me an acknowledgment of my application. I knew she wasn’t the right person but I thought she might be able to point me in the right direction. I was surprised to see a reply in my inbox later that day. She’s sent on my enquiry to a couple of people, including the man I originally applied to. It was nice of her to do that. I don’t know if I’ll get any feedback from the people who reviewed my application and in some ways I don’t want to hear it!

When I talk to people about asking for feedback they always recommend it, while acknowledging that it can be painful. The theory being how else can you improve? I also talked to my best friend about it and he reckons it would be worth getting directly in touch with the man I applied to. He thinks it will show him I’m still interested and of course it’s an opportunity to ask if there are any other jobs coming up. I found his phone number (and the woman who emailed me gave me his number too), but I’m too shy to call. My friend thought I could fax him but I really wanted to find an email address for him. A couple of days ago I did! So I will try to email him soon. I want to attach the supporting letter my former boss wrote for me. I would have attached it at the time but I got it too late. I’m a bit nervous about that too. I want my email to be worded just right. Of course!

It annoys me that I didn’t even merit an interview. Annoys and hurts. This did seem entry level enough even for the likes of me. I have done some stuff with Rouge Productions too so I’m not a complete novice. I name dropped as much as I could in my cover letter. LOL. I like to think it was more mentioning the courses in writing, etc. I’ve done since uni, rather than I know such and such a person. The ABC is quite good in setting out what they want you to include in your cover letter. Perhaps I didn’t cover it well enough. I wouldn’t put that past me.

There is a bit of a connection, besides work, to these two topics. My more romantic and confident side thought, Hey if I get this Researcher job I won’t be able to go to Kirsty’s birthday anyway. I’d be sad that I’d miss out but a proper media job, oh my God! I do get carried away with my hopes when I apply to jobs I actually want to get; makes my fall particularly nasty and sometimes messy/bloody. The time before this ABC job application I took the failure so badly I cut myself, a lot. Not deep enough to be fatal, but that’s not the point. Yes I knew I had to do something after that. Get some help. I did, but without going into it too much, I still do have a lot to sort out in my mind. No time! I’ve got travel to organise.

Another reason I didn’t want to talk to Margaret about time off is that I knew she would ask me to go back to the City Baths on the weekends. The renovation works are still going on. I’m not surprised, that sort of thing always takes a long time to finish. She joked that it would be over by the time I went overseas. I think I smiled but in my head I’m thinking I’d be back there on my return.

That’s of course if I don’t lose my job over this trip. That could happen. It probably should, cheeky bitch that I am, asking for MORE! So what if I work my guts out and do a lot of overtime that goes unpaid? (Yeah you guessed it, I CARE). This is why I need to know if it’s okay or not. Really and truly. I dish out more “maybes” then is within my rights, but this time I’m asking for something more concrete. I’m anxious, but tomorrow I really want to make a decision so I can book that ticket and get on with organising accommodation and an itinerary for a trip up to Scotland. It would help, or at least influence my decision, if I knew I had a job to come home to. I know it’s crazy and I suppose I am asking too much but...I want this so much. A mere blog can't express my desire.