Because you should love your work...

Hello, dear internet and people therein.

This is a bit different to the norm. Today I would like to tell you about my Job.

I have recently started a new Job. I like it. This may not sound much, but let me fill you in on a bit of background. Since I started working at 16 I have had an impressive number of jobs. My CV runs to pages. This is mostly because I have been in retail of one sort or another, or other customer facing roles. I have worked in a betting shop, a food kiosk inside a factory, for a financial software company, hotel, waterslide park, golf promotions, real estate, construction, bakery, catalogue distribution, retail clothing, bookstore, computer sales, printers, video rental store, mobile snack distribution to offices, nail technician, chinese restaurant, regular restaurant, motorway services, Post Office and freelance artist. I have worked in roles from stock girl to store manager, volunteer to business owner.

This type of job is generally underpaid and overworked. The 'Company' often takes advantage of staff who don't know their rights and often don't care as they will be somewhere else in six months. It is hard to get recognition for work well done and easy to get noticed when mistakes are made. In almost all of these jobs, I have moved on of my own choice, for various reasons.

In one role, the tills were left open for any member of staff to access at any time, and yet they were assigned to specific members. In the four weeks that I was in that job, my till was £50 or so down maybe 60% of the time. As it had always been like this and the nature of the job ensured total confusion most of the time and no way of keeping track of who does what when, I assumed that this was just how it was. I was therefore shocked and devastated when I turned up for work one day to find someone from head office there to interview me. I was in tears by the end of the interview, which resulted in me being suspended with no pay, pending investigation. They did all but accuse me out loud of stealing the money.

This was not helped by the fact that I had given my last store manager's name as a reference. Now, according to that company's policy, all references should go through head office, but as a till girl, I hadn't known that. I had left that job due to the new manager being as bent as a toilet's plumbing. I had elected to get out before grief befell me as it had most of my colleagues in the weeks following his appointment. Unfortunately, I gave his name, as I had left without blemish, to the new company. He had gone to town on me, culminating in telling them that had I not left, I would have been under investigation. Of course, my fate was sealed right then and there.

Mostly it's not been that bad. I have usually left due to a change in circumstance; moving house, having a child, or simply finding a better offer. I have made friends and have been sad to leave more often than I've run out of the door. I loved the waterslide park the most and I hated my two day stint in dodgy telephone sales where I couldn't give out my real name and had to pretend I was in Zurich.

But anyway, back to my Job. A lot of you know that I am a nail technician. This is not my new Job. My new Job is as a Virtual Receptionist.

Sounds posh, hey? I have actually done this job before, I did it for a year a couple of years ago. The company was fairly young then, full of bounce and learning new tricks. I gave it up in the end, very reluctantly, and after trying very hard to stay on there with reduced hours, because I had kind of fallen into the nail thing. The nail thing took off in a big way and I was extremely busy. I got, in fact, too busy. My son spent an inordinate amount of time sitting outside the house waiting for me to come home (He could have gone to the library, or hung out with his friends, but no, he had to sit outside the house, apparently). They got palmed off on friends and family or dragged with me to clients' houses. The constant travel wore me down. So I cut down my workload and became part time. I had time for the kids again, but of course the disposable income disappeared. I had a few health issues and everything suffered. So I decided to once again take up my virtual mantle and hit the internet running.

Now I work for a company called Norango and I love it. There's not too many people there so we can all stay friendly and keep up with eachother's news. The company itself is easy to get along with. If you have a problem, you can take it to someone who will sort it out. If they have a problem, they will speak to you quietly and discretely and with a can-do attitude. The people are all so friendly and I have learnt a few life skills in my time here that have helped me immensely in my personal life. Not least, I have received the support and encouragement necessary to promote myself as a small business and to increase my belief in myself to the point where I volunteered to be my church's warden.

So that's the company. They're all loves. And the job is great. It's almost two jobs depending on what hours you do. We answer the phone/internet for various companies and direct the callers to their best option. We cover everything from PA work to engineer callout lines, helpdesks, accident reporting and confidential staff helplines. We also field online orders, queries and problems. I would say that we never know who we are answering the phone to, but the system in place gives us all the information that we need on screen with greetings and everything. If you can't for any reason find the info you need, there is full backup right there with you on skype. You are constantly plugged into the main chat room, job specific chatrooms, shift runners and management. You are not alone! Of course, your work is monitored very closely, more closely than any other job that I have had, but as I have already said, praise is swift and problems dealt with. 

I love the variety. I have a working knowledge of how a shower is put together and how a thermostatic tap works. I can do basic diagnosis of wifi server problems. I know the common problems of air traffic monitoring systems. I can tell you the usual heights of dining chairs and I know more than I ever wanted to about blocked drains. I have a good working relationship with travel agents, engineers, people in training, finance, education and aviation. I speak to people from around the world and I need the time in New York and Denver on display on my screen. In my work I am helping people with everything from screws loose to reporting abuse. My handling of a call might affect commercial dock trading, staff paychecks, refugee travel. Or I could simply be a set of ears to listen and a friendly voice to assure you that something will be done. I am making a difference, and I'm doing it from the comfort of my own home, doing the hours that I want to do. Norango and I are both flexible and might need help at a moment's notice and I know that we are there for each other. I am glad to be back and I won't be leaving again any time soon!

The Trip, part 4 - On expectations versus reality

Hello once more. I don't like feeling rushed about writing and therefore I have not posted recently. If we're going to be honest, I have not done much of anything but rush around in a tizzy not achieving things lately. I can never even get to the computer lately and when I do a thousand things (and I really feel I am not over stating that one) seem to need my attention. I have not even been able to keep my food log going and, well, we won't talk about what kind of meals have been served up these last few weeks!

It has been over a month now since my visit to England to meet my new friends in suffering and it seems like such old news now! I think that I have captured the general feeling of the trip so far in my previous posts, so I shall dive right in. Firstly, you need to know that I can't go into detail (hooray! I hear you say...) as I have to respect the privacy of the amazing people that I met. What I can tell you is that I learned a LOT about my condition and my future. This has had a big impact on how I am living my life now.

It was with some trepidation that I made my way down to the dining room that we had to ourselves. I now had on a beautiful dress borrowed from a friend as I was very unsure as to the poshness level needed here. My favourite high heels and a soft shawl round my shoulders and I reckoned that I looked the part. It was certainly an improvement on what I had arrived in, which was now sulking in a corner of the bathroom where it had been thrown in my hurry to get into clean water. As I stepped into the corridor I could see someone just calling the lift. They spied me and made motions to indicate that they would hold it for me. I scampered down the hall, employing that half run, half tiptoe kind of gait used when one is dressed nicely, in a nice establishment, and is trying to run whilst looking like one is daintily meandering, wafting scent and appreciating art. In short, I looked like a wally. I arrived at the lift, pleasantries were exchanged, and the nice lady said to me: Are you Katie?

How did she know? Was I inadvertently wearing my church warden name badge? 'Yes,' I ventured back, and stabbed in the dark. 'You must be Jill!'

She was, indeed, Jill, who had organised us all together for the trip. This was our first time speaking and apparently I am just like people imagine me when they read my posts. Well, I guess you can just call me Ronseal, because I do exactly what it says on the tin. My favourite part of the whole adventure, I think, was at the end of the meeting, when the executive from the pharmaceutical company hosting the event shook my hand and said 'Thank you so much for coming, Katie, your energy has made this fun!' Which is a great compliment, really, when you consider that a fair amount of the conversation of the day was on the subjects of diarrhoea, vomiting and childbirth, along with not a few tears!

My main aim in coming to this meeting had been to get everyone's tips and cheats for getting enough energy to get through the day. I had expectations of wonder foods that I had missed, or some sort of supplement that would help. I was disappointed. Although everyone presents a little differently, there are a number of symptoms familiar to a lot of us, and tiredness is a biggie. It seems that if we 'cheat' and eat over our fat levels (which are different for different people. Mine is actually one of the highest at 20g per day), if we are able to do so without hospitalisation, although we get enough energy in, as most of it is gained through fat (fat gives 30kJ energy per gram, compared to protein and carbohydrates 17kJ and fibre's paltry 8kJ), we still can't access it. Even if we get enough through the other nutrients, there is such a buildup of fat, like a bottleneck at a busy junction onto the motorway, that our body shuts down extra processes to concentrate on clearing the traffic. Fat molecules need to be broken down into smaller fat molecules to be used by the body, and our bodies don't do this properly. It's a bit like none of the cars on the motorway letting the guys on the slip road in, and everyone just sits there until an opportunity arises. One of the doctors present explained this tiredness to us by saying that it's like the feeling you get after a big Sunday roast, and all you want to do is sit down and sleep it off. Well, that. But ALL the time.

If we are good and keep our levels low, then we simply do not get enough energy in. Protein is usually associated with fat. With the exception of beans and pulses, it is found mostly in animal products. Even low fat animal products are generally higher fat than we can deal with, except white fish. Carbohydrates are found in fruits and veg, although in veg, in quantities too small to be of use. And of course, most of the fruits carbs are sugar. When I first started logging the diet earlier this year, I was having tea with sugar, cereal with sugar, fruit drinks... and keeping the energy to maybe 3/4 recommended daily levels (not including deducting for exercise). At this meeting, I learned that diabetes is a common symptom of LPLD. Diabetes, or rather the methods employed to process sugar are closely related to those for processing fat and cholesterol. The pancreas is the key player. In our case, our pancreas is constantly under stress trying to keep up with the fat processing. This makes it vulnerable to breakdown, resulting in diabetes. In my particular case, it is no small miracle that I haven't already contracted it, as I have lived a sugarful life for over thirty years. Much sobered by the prospect of not being able to eat fat or sugar, when I returned home I had to make the difficult decision to cut out as much sugar as possible in the hope that I can stave off the seemingly inevitable for as long as possible. I am in no way eating as a diabetic yet, but I have adjusted a lot of what I eat to try to achieve more realistic sugar levels. This is a problem as a) I am not good at it. And I live in a country not set up for it. and b) I now only achieve energy levels of maybe 1/2 to 2/3 the RDA.

And all the others are in the same boat, and there's nothing to be done about it. One lady explained it well by telling us that she would happily make up schedules and set tasks for the day or week and then when she woke up that morning, she would just know that it wasn't going to happen. It's not even the will to do it that's missing, you just know that you physically can't. I have days like this when I have to. Sometimes, you just can't say you just can't. This leads to 'brain fog', which I will cover in another post. On the plus side, it's now official. I can stop and sleep when I need to without feeling guilty. I also do stop and sleep, whereas before I would maybe sit down in front of the TV for an hour or so. This, of course, never helped, as I don't need relaxing, chilling, time out, I need sleep. So now I have made the bedroom a pleasant room to spend daytime hours in, not just a place to go at the end of the day. And I go and sleep when I need it.

So, that got all serious pretty quickly. Back to silly walks please. I am off to pay attention to my overflowing inbox and maybe listen to a few more songs. We are planning a wedding blessing (I might have mentioned this ;) ), and we just can't settle on a soundtrack. Next time, cognitive impairment and cod carapaccio. Stay tuned.

The Trip part 3 - On credit cards and chauffeurs.

Hello boys and girls, long time no see. Easter has been upon us and I have been flat out with holidays, visits, Easter services and annual general meeting reports. Plus I actually have to let my son on the computer occasionally, although he has made this easy by adopting a protocol of sleeping all day and computer-ing all night. But at last term time is nearly upon us again, sleeping schedules are being knocked back into shape, homework is being trawled through and most of the reports are done. I can blog again.

I left you all hungry in Amsterdam. Now all is left is to board the last 'plane to Heathrow, which was by far the scariest. I do not like flying much to begin with and this journey didn't help. In the last flight I was in seat 21A, the window seat, right on the wing as I have told you. This time I was in 18A, so boarded with the hope that I would have a clear view. Nope, this 'plane is smaller, so I am right over the wing again and get to sit and watch the landscape swirl by as the 'plane does gentle acrobatics in the air. At one point the land underneath the tip of the wing was flying by backwards as the bit under the window slipped past forwards. We were literally turning on a wingtip and I could have done without it. A slight delay at Heathrow meant that we circled round, to add to my joy. After landing and another marathon journey to a parking slot we were in the building and on UK soil.

My paperwork tells me that I am to be met by a driver. I am to be one of those that have a man waiting for me at the gate with a sign with my name on it. This is a little (read, a lot) out of my usual daily routine and I am feeling quite lightheaded. I scan the crowd as I exit customs and there he is! A very smart gentleman in a suit is stoically holding up the printed word 'BODSWORTH' and I point delightedly at him, grinning. I negotiated my way to the end of the railings, after going straight up to him and realising that something had come between us, and we shook hands. He identified himself as David and asked if I had any baggage. 'No,' I reply, 'Just my rucksack.' The rucksack in question was a giant black Hello Kitty bag with multiple pockets, wheels and an extendable trolley handle, unusable by me as it was designed for a much smaller person. David, the perfect gentleman, took if off me and hoisted it up onto his shoulder. Did I mention the glittery zips? As I scurried behind him through the throng, I couldn't help myself. 'Suits you, sir!' I gleefully shouted over to him. He looked back and winked. And we were friends.

The journey from Heathrow to the St Pancras area took longer than the one from Amsterdam to London. I was the perfect tourist, staring out of the windows with my mouth hanging open. I have been to London plenty of times, although not for a few years now, but compared to my adjusted idea of metropolis (a 20 car traffic queue is something to write to the newspaper about), it is just all so big and busy. I love the life of central London, I love the arquitecture and the opportunity, but oh my word, you can keep the traffic. The car was wonderful, buttons all over the place, which I didn't dare push. Under the seats and the door pockets were all lit with a purple glow and I briefly wondered if this wasn't all an elaborate alien abduction. Upon arrival at the hotel, we were greeted by an Eastern European woman with sunglasses and a black trench coat. A microphone jutted out from underneath her hat. Careful negotiation on David's part eventually got us entrance to the front drive so he could drop me off at the door. 'It's like a Bond movie!', he cheerfully comments as he opens the door for me.

The hotel was beautiful, but I was already feeling a little out of my depth before even entering the front door. I took a deep breath and stepped forward. I reached the reception desk without being asked to leave, which frankly amazed me. Everyone there, and it was a huge lobby, people sitting around and people striding purposefully from one great wooden doorway to another, everyone was immaculate. High heels and grey suits abounded, with one particularly gorgeous bunch all dressed up in tailored coats and coiffeured hair looking like they had just stepped out of the 1940's. I, in contrast, was still wearing the beat up discarded old trainers that I had found under the car seat that morning when forced to walk to the airport. I had brushed my teeth in the airport loos and the most attention my hair had received was a distracted thought on a plane that I hadn't brushed it that day. I had thought back to the toothbrushing, where I must have looked in the mirror, and come to the conclusion that as I hadn't specifically noticed it then, it can't have been that bad. Oh, and don't forget the Hello Kitty bag. I walked up to the reception desk and waved my paperwork at them.

In a cool, professional tone of voice that I found rather hard to hear, the receptionist asked for my credit card to cover 'incidental costs'. I do not have a credit card, I inform her, would a debit card do? The look of shock on her face was priceless. No credit card? I feel a bit smaller. This is helped by the fact that the desk is obviously designed with 6" stillettos in mind and I am on tiptoes to comfortably lean on it. After her hesitation, she confirms that a debit card will be fine. 'As long as you're not going to empty my account!' I jokingly say as I find the card in the debris chocking up my purse.

'Oh no, it's just a token amount we take, madam, £100.'

I stop and look at her. '£100?? Gosh, you'd better take the other card then!' I stammer, giving her the one for the savings account. Off she goes with it. A minute later, she is back. 'I'm afraid that we don't accept Maestro, madam.'

I look at her once more. How can they accept debit cards but not Maestro? 'Well, what can we do then?' I ask her.

For the first time, she looks a bit uncomfortable. She decides to go ask her manager. As she is about to walk off I ask her if she would like me to just give her the cash. She brightens up. Yes, cash is acceptable. I ask where the nearest cash machine is and she directs me to the train station. I have to go out of the back way to the hotel and negotiate two floors of train station before I find a cash exchange desk with an ATM. Wincing, I pull £100 out of my account, knowing that the exchange rate is not going to be favourable and that they slap a charge on top. As I return to the desk clutching a wad of notes that look like they've come straight from the 19th century compared to the monopoly money of the euro I wonder if there's any chance that they will give it back to me in euros when I check out or whether I will have to put it back in my bank account in sterling, paying more fees and charges.

Finally I am checked in, and I head upstairs to my room. It is now 5.30pm and I have been travelling since 6.30am. I have an hour and a half until the welcome dinner, so I run a bath as hot as it will go and sink into it with my book. I am absolutely shattered, but so excited to meet my fellow sufferers. Roll on dinner!