Life and all of its (annoying) friends

Hello thar. It’s been a while since I last posted. My last post was also a mess. A painful mess that took the blog with it into the bottom of the quality hole. But I’m still proud I wrote it.

Anyway, to the point. I’ve got my Degree (Degree +Master1 for the ones who study in 3-year schools) It’s over. So, here’s how I feel.

Did it worth the time? For the paper itself, only time will tell. Things in Greece are pretty ugly on finding a proper job. So, I’m about to end up doing something completely different than my degree. woo hoo?

Talking on doing something completely different, I found a job. Well I am not WOKING now, since I’m still in training, but that’s what I’ll be doing for the following months.

“hey there, is mr (random name) at home? Are you his wife? I’m calling on behalf of a (not so random company but let’s not say names) for a reduction that you can achieve in your electricity bill.” It’s promotional, outbound sales.

We are trying to be pressing and polite at the same time which is kind of weird to pull off. But then, have you ever tried to talk to a university professor recently? It’s the same thing. But you must face different people.

The customers on the other side of the line may have a bazillion different reactions but they have been narrowed into five.

1. Positive

Especially when there was an advertisement in a morning-zone television show, the inbound calls were ALL like this. Outbound calls not so much but, hey, there are all sorts of people out there.

2. Hesitating

They also want to ask their wives/husbands, want to discuss with someone of trust. The worst case scenario is when, after five minutes of explaining the details, they say “It’s all good as YOU are sayin’ but I need to see it written to be sure about it”. Seriously?

3. Negative

Some of them are polite and say “no thank you” some others just hung up. Others say how annoying it is to call. The worst is when you get a furious one, screaming every curseword of the Greek language.

The last thing I condone is impolite people. Just say “sorry I’m not interested” and hang up the damn thing.

The other two types are everybody’s favorites

4. Answering Machine

and 5. FAX

The training is going fine. The team leader is a cool guy which tries to confort all the newbies, since he was a newbie himself once. Another guy from the higher tiers of the company was also good and fine, trying to tell us not to be afraid of taking new steps in our lives and stuff. Which is, in terms of recruiting new workers, pretty well thought so not to scare newcomers.

Another guy that had to do with the team, didn’t do his best as the others did. He went on a pretty “strong” lecturing inside the telephone center, knowing that there were fresh trainees that he haven’t introduced himself before. The lecturing was also for meaningless things. It was about “not being in the specific program they use to call” while the callbacks aren’t nessesarily recorded by the program or something like that, as the girl working next to me told me.

So, that’s that.

I think that I haven’t made anything funny on this post. Also, I think that I haven’t covered everything that’s going on in my life these days. So, expect a new post soon-ish.

The Phone Tandem nightmare

Phones are here to make us miserable and they must go straight to hell. Even though I am quite fond of being able to communicate with people far away without moving my body the slightest, sometimes I swear I want to go back to the time where Bell stole the invention of the phone from Tesla and tell him that he would never EVER have profit of such device.

As most of you probably know, I like siesta. Meaning, sleeping an hour or so after lunch. It’s some sort of powersleep that maintains my awareness through the rest of the day.

So, in my bedroom there are two beds (the other one is for whoever comes as a guest, and a storage place full of computer components and/or cables) Two little counters and my Desk.

The counter near my bed has a brown landline phone that’s muted most of the time. My mobile phone is hung on the window because living in the basement is like living inside a Faraday Cage. Meaning that no GSM reception can penetrate it. Sometimes I have to OPEN the window, put the phone almost outside and connect my wired hands-free in order to have a proper conversation.

When I’m waiting for a phone call I de-mute the landline phone. Then the shit hits the fan.

Yeah it’s never EVER the one who I wait a call from. It’s usually a random friend, aunt or co-worker of my mother, usually having blond hair shaped like a banana peel saying how manly my voice has grown through ages and other stuff I don’t care to hear about. So I shout to my mom to pick up the phone even though she picks it up by herself because 99% of the phone calls are for her, so she has something like an intuition for picking up phones. Then go back to sleep. Alas.

In a weird subsequent tandem, My mobile phone rings. I have a ringtone from Initial D anime and live action series. While I first put it I thought it’s cooler than north pole, now it’s more annoying than a female penguin staging an orgasm.

So, that means that I have to stand up, open up the window, hook my hands-free and put the phone almost outside so I can talk. And it is the one WHO F*ING KNOWS THAT I WANT TO SLEEP. But my sleep is never a priority.

My beautiful nap is ruined. Thank you.

Oh, and don’t ask why I am grumpy some evenings. Don’t-you-dare.