Monday, September 04, 2006

First day blues

First day at new job today. Thrown totally in at the deep end. I aimed to get there nice and early but the trains were not playing. My first train was cancelled and the next one, when it finally arrived, was choc-a-bloc. I spent the next 45 minutes sandwiched between the fattest couple I have ever seen. Okay, that's fine, but one of them must have been using fried onions as a collogne or something. It wasn't nice. I finally got a seat and then endured the rest of the journey being continually smacked around the head by a scrawny youth with a gym bag almost as big as he was. I arrived at my new work, half way through the Monday morning meeting. I walked in, everyone turned round and stared at me. I waved a feeble wave and introduced myself. I was directed to a seat and when the random tuts and eye rolling finished the meeting continued. I was introduced as a new started and assigned to the customer support team. Ten minutes later I was marched unarmed to the front line and the wolves were released. I was on the customer complaints hotline and the natives were restless today.
"You people suck! Your product is the worst I have ever had the misfortune to use. It almost burnt my house down! What are you going to do to compensate me?", shouted angry caller number 25.
"I'm so sorry, sir..."
"My name is Regina, I am not a sir!"
"Sorry, I'm really sorry but this is my first day", I said.
"Oh typical!", they said and hung up. The rest of the day was pretty much the same. I left the office exhausted both physically and mentally, not to mention morally (having to deflect accusations and say the products in question were actually good).
I got home and Mags wasn't speaking to me. She said I'd promised to be home by 6 (which the trains decided to prevent) and that if I can't be relied on follow up on my promises then she shouldn't have to follow up on hers. I've no idea what she has ever promised me other than to nag me into an early grave. I now understand why the men usually go first and I bet the number of smiling male corpses the undertakers get to see would make for an outrageous statistic.

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