THE NEW JOB!

Bonjour all,

 
My sincerest apologies for not writing in a while but I have been very busy indeed with my new job. I get out of bed at 6am every morning and don’t get back to the flat until about 6.30-7 every day. So it’s a little tiring. Though in saying that I used to commute between Liverpool and London 2-3 times a week and that was between 5am and 9pm so really I should stop moaning. Though there was considerably less walking involved in London. I guess I am just out of practice and soon I shall be an awful lot less tired as my body adjusts to working for a considerable time every day rather than part time hours down the road. I am working full time 11 miles as the crow flies or 28 miles by car… daft m60, could they just bulldoze it through Manchester for my convenience? then give me a car? no? damn.
 
So I am writing this in work, which according to the IT guy who is rather cool I think, is Ok providing it is outside of working hours. I work 8.15-5 so I get maybe 30 minutes of a morning to write which isn’t bad at all so hopefully over the course of the week I shall have an entry to post for my OD.
 
The new job is great, i’m really enjoying it so far. I’ve been testing a fair few products which are going all over the world to a lot of household names. I’ve been writing instruction manuals for a lot of different products which is fun as I get play, sorry test them to see they work at the same time. For example, a popcorn maker, how do you test a popcorn maker? you make popcorn, so i’m to be doing that today! I’m quite eager to get stuck in though already I have developed a reputation for the manuals so I feel like I may not be getting away from them for a while alongside my other duties, though to be fair I do enjoy writing them. In a few months time, after training I may get the opportunity to visit China with work. We have two offices there. This excites me very muchly! Thats a word!
 
Things with Eve are good, I hope. We have 99% ups, the other 0.9% is either neither of us deciding on what food to have and then 0.1%, like every woman she gets occassionally gets angry with her man and as I am quite forgetful and make clumsy mistakes which her Mum then shouts at her for. To be honest, I am pretty crap and Eve doesn’t actually shout. I don’t think i’ve actually ever heard her shout. Anyway, I can’t help it. I have a poor memory for anything but places and numbers. I’ll literally forget things seconds afterwards. Which I contribute to the fact there is always an ongoing battle in my head withy one half telling me I am completely awful and useless and there is no real point to me whilst the other half is generally trying to big me up, saying that I can do things and actually quite well sometimes. I say half, the negative is usually 90%, the good 1% and the rest is about 8.5% worry and 0.5% why does nobody love me? So understandably it gets frustrating. Though I will say why I make stupid mistakes. To be honest I am constantly trying to give 200% at all times so often I miss the smaller details because I’m usually worrying about a grand scheme to make Eve like me more or to be a better boyfriend and in doing so forget things like pulling the shower curtain out, like I did last night. Though in my defense, my work day is about 12-13 hours long so my brain is absolute mush when I get home. I’m bound to forget things for a while until my body adjusts. A real man doesn’t spend his time trying to love every woman, he spends all his time trying every way to love just one.
 
I think if I would have came here straight from working with Miro then I would have been a bit better as there I woke at 5am and didnt get home until 8-9pm where as here I wake at 6 and don’t get home till 6.30-7 and since I haven’t worked with Miro for a good few months I am getting used to the long days, though yesterday, despite having a lot of close of business deadlines and having a moderately stressful day, I didn’t feel tired when I got home and still washed 2 days of dishes (shame… grim) went the Tesco and then Eve cooked my food which was Bratwurst (dirty again. Just grilled Bratwurst) but tasty mind. My apetite is just lazy of late. I’ll get more energy and cook proper food again soon. LIke I said, it’s just a case of getting used to the longer days but I feel good. I like being a morning person. My body clock has adjusted and without fail wakes me 10 minutes before my alarm which is frustrating but handy at the same time.
 
I was looking at taking Eve away for our 1 year anniversary, nothing special. Maybe Blackpool as Eve likes Coral Island which is a huge amusements arcade there. So I was going to book a decent hotel or B&B to stay in for the weekend so we can have a cheap and cheerful weekend. Eve doesn’t like thrill rides so I don’t think we’ll be going to Pleasure Beach which is fair enough. I know they have to meet stringent safety regulations and such but I always feel more safe at say Alton Towers than I do at Blackpool, must be all that sea air and metal structures… hmmm rusty indeed! Though there are plenty more things to do in Blackpool, there is a Zoo, a cinema, all the other arcades and attractions and hopefully some fantastically kinky sex in the hotel. So with any luck we shall always have something to do!
 
I have a drive to perform well at everything I do. Somethings that I am not very good at bother me a lot more. Nobody ever got to being the best by being awful or moderate at something. The key word with being the best is best! I want to be the very best, like noone ever was *pokemon tuuuunnneee*
 
So I sit at my desk eating my nutrigrain biscuits for breakfast and drinking my bottled water, which sounds horridly plain, it actually is but luckily the job has exciting things to play with so i’m kept amused.
 
My friend Jo split with her boyfriend Gary again. They split every so often and I feel compelled to try and cheer Jo back up and help her sort it out with Gary so they can get back together and be happy. It’s just that JO and Gary seem like ‘typical’ man and woman, in that (this may sound sexist) Gary is seemingly completely oblivious to anything he has done wrong. We are men, we aren’t mind readers and often it’s a lot of hassle and we’re lazy. Jo is a ‘typical’ woman where she is super stubborn and will wait it out until Gary apologises, which I tell Jo he probably won’t do because he has no idea what he has done wrong. I have literally no idea what I should be saying! I am awful at relationships. Every woman I have dated has used me and cheated on me, the majority did both! My head is so broken that even I don’t know what the hell a relationship is supposed to be like! Though it has to be said that with Eve, things feel a lot better. I know that ‘typical’ men and women represent a tiny sample as there are oblivious women and stubborn men. It was just generalising with no basis in fact or reality. I just hope they make up and get back together.
 
I think I am starting to fit in a bit more in the office now my second week is over. We all went to Nandos and then yesterday, as it was my line managers birthday we all went the pub and I ended up having a pint for dinner along with everyone else. It was nice. Then I came back into the office and tested a Popcorn maker sample that someone had left for me to write an Instruction Manual for. It made a lot of popcorn which being nice, I shared across the office and departments and such to anyone who wanted some. I found that when I was mentoring kids, chocolate would be a huge help, apparently, Popcorn works for adults, it would work for me.
 
It’s a bank holiday weekend and also payus dayus which means I get my first full time paycheck. I’ve worked 2 weeks so far so not a FULL, Full time paycheck but the amount in my bank so far is considerably more than i’ve actually ever earned from any part time job! Huzzah! It’s just a shame that an awful lot of it has to go back out on bills but next month, after tax and bills I’ll still have 125% of what I earned at Quicksilver or Co-op per month, solely for disposable income, thats more than an old months wage as mess about money! *salivates* I WANT ALL THE USELESS SHINY THINGS! MOAAAAAARRRR! So quite looking forward to buying a new pair of shoes, maybe some headphones! It’s terribly exciting, so exciting that today I am going to Greggs for Lunch! HOLY SMOKES! Burning several candles at both ends, in fact so many candles, authorities are calling it the Oldham Inferno as so many candles are being burned!
 
Well, the weekend being over (I did say this may take a while to write) I had a lot of fun. I stayed over in Tom’s with Lee and much fun was had indeed. Lee and I went into the town center, there was a festival on for the 70th anniversary of the battle of the Atlantic. So it was pretty busy. We went to Barburrito which is epic nom. Lee as ever has the spicy beans, hottest salsa and then devoured the whole thing. When asked if he wanted Jalepino’s he said no. I called him a pussy. Knowing full well that my medium salsa would do very little in the way of making me look manly. We then went to Starbucks. I don’t usually drink Starbucks as once, I asked for an iced latte which is the best drink ever, being the only person in the store, I thought all was well. Given there was no distractions, how could anything go wrong. What I was given was a gingerbread soy latte, which I didn’t realise until I had gotten out of the store. Disgusted in myself for going being Costa’s back like the slut of trust that I am, I ended up going back to Costa, apologising, saying that it is the only coffee shop for me and then happily ordering and recieving a large iced latte, mmmm.
 
I digress, there was a goth girl behind us, must have been about 16, when the barista asked her name she said "Scarlet" to which Lee quipped "No love, your name, not your avatar!" I was nearly in tears. You cannot take Lee anywhere, but we do, because the results are always hilarious.
 
Tom was the host with the most and when it came down to eating, Lee wanted Steak, so went to Sainsbury’s after deciding all of the takeaways sounded awful. We got to Sainsbury’s and then decided that was awful too so we went to the pub where Lee and Tom opted for the same starter, main and desert. To be fair, I too had the same starter and desert. Bromantic! For my main though I had a 20oz steak. Up to Saturday, in all of my 26 years the biggest steak I had eaten was 12oz. I demolished the 20oz. It was huuuuggggeee! And tasty, then I polished off a foot tall sundae. I don’t know how I did it. Everybody I know with the exception of Miro can pack away much more food than me, yet there I was, going strong in the face of a mountain of moo cow. Medium Rare. Feeling quite good about that, despite feeling awful the morning afterwards. I got really down. Plus I spent the whole night on a ‘matress’ made entirely of old pointy springs. Though I pride myself on my ability to fall asleep on everything. Lee had a huge matress on the floor and during the night he sleep talks, this night it was something to do with "Speakers" and "Multiplayer" which is great, considering he spends 99% of his time awake gaming, he does it in his sleep too! That is hardcore!
 
Today is Miro’s birthday. I have him a card and present which still needs tinkering and all before I see him on Saturday. I won’t say what I have gotten him until after I have given it to him. Because I have suspicions that he may have a cheeky look on the diary and exclaim AHA! But we talked about it some time ago and I think I may have forgotten but a part of me remembers something obscure so thats what I have bought him. I think Marija is coming over too, which would be nice to see them both! …naked… covered in bees… that got a bit Eddie Izzard. Help! I’m covered in bees!
 
Yes, so on the whole. Rather super! Though I have been tasked with testing and writing a manual for a Mince Pie maker. I have never made a mince pie in my life! How in the sweet merciful world do I make a mince pie? The popcorn maker was easy, heck even the cacke pop, cake and muffin makers where easy. Mince pies however… nooo! Also one of the team of people I work with in my pod has been let go. He was Ok too, I don’t fully understand why he was let go but it’s made me extra vigilant about my work, which I was vigilant about anyway. I love this job. I’m sure the honey moon period will wear off but honestly, it’s continually engaging and interesting getting to see how everything works. I just need to know how a mince pie maker works for now. Though we do have a new member on our team who started yesterday. She seems Ok too, she is from Bolton which means, like me, she has a really stand out accent. Because I am scouse, Liverpudlian; like Ringo Star, Ok, maybe not exacxtly like Ringo star, or the Scousers on Harry Enfield. I don’t actually sound scouse at all i’m told, until I get angry or go back into Liverpool.
 
Example, normal people would say… Oh my! what are you wearing, when faced with their best friend in a tight pair of leopard print boxer shorts with "Too sexy" written on the back.. no lie… as I was in Liverpool, what came out of my mouth was "Kinell lad! Sort ya bills out now!" which roughly translates to; Wow, my friend, I suggest you change your undergarmets post haste! Lee wore tight pants. Aint nobody got time for that (just litering this entry with Meme’s)
 
So this has gone on for a while now. I doubt that anybody will read all of it and if you do then you are a legend! Legend I say!
 
Eve posted on OD as she hasn’t for a while. It’s nice to have her back! Though I see her every day, I don’t see her writing and usually this is the best way for me to get an idea of whats going on in that pretty head of hers as she doesn’t really like to talk in depth about some things but she will write them on her diary. This is good.She mentioned that this now job must mean a lot to me. I’ve not really thought about it. But it does. It has finally proven all of the doubters (especially me) that I am good enough to employ. The fact I have been and am being trusted with responsibility and given trust and the freedom to self manage and I’d like to think that I can flourish in such an environment and that I will prosper and progress and become even more employableif a time comes where I feel it is time to leave UPGS. However I like it here so far and I think there may be an honest chance for progression if I keep working hard. So watch this space.
 
Much Love
 
(S)aint x
 
also, i’ll catch up with notes 🙂