Standing in a wishing hole...

Hallo LJ!:) I have missed you guys. I've been having some real trouble getting LJ to load at all. This combined with being stupidly busy has made for a total lack of LJ blabbing.

I've had a right royal hoo-haa with a temping agency this week. They found me a temp placement, cocked up the assignment/contract decided they were going to offer me about 80p an HOUR less than originally agreed verbally and have been impossible to contact to rectify this balls-up. 80p an hour is £128.00 a month. That's pretty much what we spend on food these days. It's a lot to us. And I wouldn't have agreed to travel 45 minutes and spend £18.50 on buses a week for LESS than what I was on before. -_-

So after explaining all of this to my temp manager she pulled a few strings and they basically offered me an alternative position - in a more interesting role - on a permanent contact. ^-^ YAY!

And so I have a new job. It's exhausting so far but the first week in a new job is exciting and tiring, espcially when combined with a temp agency trying to arse-rape you. P.S. fellow UK citizens - avoid Roevin employment in Leeds the guy who was my agent is crap and the rest don't seem so on the ball either.

Maelstrom was awesome - much fun was had. I am still recovering.

This weekend is his parents Ruby wedding anniversary. Next weekend is Down South for a picnic should the weather hold. Busy busy busy.

I'd like a nice quiet day off soon please ^-^

Waz is good and looking well for sparkying again. He's sold his soul to P.D. and signed up as a member of the crew/sparky team. It means he gets discounts towards event tickets which is pretty mint and he gets to contribute and show of his skills for those who a) need the help and b) really appreciate it. Awesome-sauce.

New!Tabletop starts next Monday. There will be Rolemaster Middle Earth nonsense to report on. I've never placed Rolemaster before, I know next-to-nothing of Middle Earth having only seen the LOTR films and read the Hobbit once a very long time ago and I have never played with the guys I'm gonna be playing with. All good friends, all exciting, all the time? Not all the time but I am looking forward to it. I think I'm going to roll a healer class as I've done rogue and thump-monkey so maybe it's time for a magic user.

This post has gotten long so I will wrap up with my Three Things I am grateful for:

1)My new job - oh the relief of working with people who seem really awesome
2)Having some 'keen' back for all my hobbies. I'm crocheting again. I'm reading again (yay for bus journeys in that respect) I am happily busy when I come home in a relaxed manner
3)Lovely housemates who make me smile, Waz included. He bore the brunt of my grouchy this week and I am eternally in awe of how he puts up with it.

Soooo I had my interview today. It was with a young and upcoming accountancy firm.

Format was a group interview. 'Group'. Only two candidates out of four turned up. There were 8 members of the team there - all of the company less 2. One of them was the girl who the succesful candidate will be replacing.

All of them were very approachable, seemed fairly down to earth. Nice and human. Heh. Not sure what I was expecting there.

So after the preliminary barble about the company we were asked to do a brief introduction of ourselves and then ask questions. It was pretty much seminar style. Righto - nice familiar format there but felt weird. Then we had to sit down to do writen answers to a handful of questions (standard interview stuff) and a psycho(babble)metric test. Then two of them came back, the owner and the girl to be replaced to have an informal chit chat.

From all of this I took away the feeling that the company is doing well, growing quickly and the team are all enthusiastic about what they do.

The role at hand is interesting enough. Lots of PA duties - diary management, keeping an eye on prospective to client conversion, being first point of contact. Nothing I am scared of, some stuff I've done, some I haven't, nothing I can't pick up. There's a small pay rise in it for me but an extra half an hour in my working day. Nevermind that's no problem either.

I don't really have a 'problem'.... I just can't shake the feeling that this corporate, BNI attending, crazy go-getting, sales orientated, finance focused accountancy world is not for me. The lass to be replaced is going off to be a primary teacher - she landed a place on the one of those on-the-job teacher training courses. I'm jealous. And I think that's what it came down to.

So the job would be busier, more exciting and at least 'client facing' meaning I talk to more people than a handful of colleagues and my boss all day. But at the moment although I am only a tiny cog in a big wheel... if I didn't do my job, then Heather couldn't do her job, and if Heather (PA to the operations director) didn't do her job, then Graham couldn't do his and if he couldn't do his job properly then Guide Dogs wouldn't be moving forwards as well as it does. What I do, in a very round about way, trickles all the way down to something that really helps people, specifically blind and partially sighted people to get the training and support they need to get out of the house and live life.

Apparently this aspect of my job means a lot more to me than I realised.

So... if I'm offered this job... do I take it? For the experience, the pay rise, the opportunity to 'do more', to 'be more'... or do I chalk it up to 'not really me' and apply for more positions in the health, social welfare, public sector or charity type field.....

By the way if my job at Guide Dogs were permanent and not through a temping agency you wouldn't have read all of this because there would be nothing to say.

I'm just airing these thoughts. But advice from those of you far more experienced than I in the ways of the world is always appreciated.