I had a call Thursday morning to see if I’d be happy/able to go over to Woburn and do some waitressing in the evening – I’d need to be over there by 3:30 and would finish around 8. Not a problem – thankfully Chris’s shifts fitted together with what I needed to do. I needed to wear a white shirt and a black pair of trousers – well I know I don’t have a white shirt – I have a white one with grey and black stripes but it would have been far too “busy” for what was needed. I had a look for my black trousers at speed following the call but I really couldn’t find them – I think that gremlin that steals the odd socks stole my trousers too this time! At about the same time I had an email from another agency in Milton Keynes – they’d picked up my CV from one of the websites I’m signed up to and wondered if I’d be interested in a job (as it would turn out it’s walking distance from my house! YEAH!)
I darted to the local supermarket to see what they had in their clothing department – white shirt/black trousers are always handy for interviews and for work so I’d make use of them (it wouldn’t be like buying a really specific outfit that would get worn once and never again!). The supermarket has recently been having a massive refit (I think we might be getting another Extra store) and so in the actual store they’ve got hardly anything apart from essentials and in the outlet unit which is a discount bit just had two pairs of black trousers – both were in either size 8 or 10 – no way on earth was I going to able to squeeze in those!
I texted my Mum and asked if she had those bits that I could borrow – thankfully she did and so between finishing at the residential home with Mum’s friend and heading down the bypass to Woburn I nipped to her house and tried on the shirt and trousers at high speed. I was quite worried that I wouldn’t make it in time as I would need to through a motorway junction. I jumped back in the car and headed out to the bypass. I made good time and I think I pulled into the car park at 3:20 or something like that.
As I walked to the actual building I would be working in I quickly rang back another agency who had rang me during the morning. The lady I needed to speak to was busy and couldn’t take my call – I politely asked if she could email me rather than call as it would then be easier for me to respond when I finished my shift at 8ish.
I arrived the same time as another girl who I’d later get to know quite well as we stuck together when we realised that we were both temps and both bricking it! We waited at reception and then was met by L who would be running the evening as far as what we needed to do and things like that. We were told to take our things to one room and then come back and meet L who would have a name badge and some uniform for us. She returned with the shirts but the biggest girls shirt she had was a 14 – I said I’d try it but it was far too small – I couldn’t get it done up (given the lack of space in it I think a 16 could have been tight as well).
I went back to find L and explain that the shirt didn’t fit – I ended up wearing my own shirt anyway with a name badge – as I am a temp I get a new name too lol. I was Suzanne on Thursday – I figured if anyone asked I’d say “Call Me Suzi” and just had to remember to answer to it when needed.
As the people we were waiting on tables for had moved their dinner forward we actually finished earlier than expected. I called Chris and ended up collecting him from work. I asked him to make sure there was a cold drink ready for me as I was seriously thirsty (I am still feeling the affects today – I’ve pretty much drank 500ml of water in the last hour – which is probably a really bad move this close to bed but I’d rather have to get up in the night than have a banging headache like today).
At about 9:30/10pm I received an email back from the agency for the job near my house and they wanted me to complete two assessments – preferably so that they could try and get me into the interview list the following day. Great so having spent eight ish hours in two really hot kitchens you want me now to focus on this kind of thing. Well I had a big drink of squash and got on with it. Clearly I didn’t do too bad – these were my results below.
I got one answer wrong because their example field had Woburn Sands spelt Woborn Sands and also I hit another s so it ended up being Woburns Sands. On another question the postcode was completely the wrong format (99% of the time I was processing orders at my old job and typing out postcodes so knew immediately just by reading it I knew the postcode was wrong). I emailed the agency to let them know that I’d done the assessment but did they know that there are mistakes built into their forms.
Chris and I watched Elementary and then headed to bed as we’d both had slightly mad days!
Friday Morning
Friday morning was a lazy start – I was shattered from the day before and was really really glad not to have a 9am start! I had a phone call at about 9:15 from the agency about the job near my house – could I be available for a telephone interview at 11am ish? Not really – Fridays are always a bit crazy in the kitchen and so really I couldn’t stop for 20 minutes and do an interview. The agency were able to organise it for 9:45 so I had half an hour to cram like a mad lady to be able to be fab when they did call. I was quoted about 20 minutes for the interview and it was finished in about 7 minutes – I came back up to Chris and was like “Is it good or bad that my interview finished that quickly…….”
I got dressed and headed off to the kitchen. While I was there my Mum’s friend and I talked about my hours for next week and what would be happening. The permanent person is coming in on Tuesday and Wednesday to learn the ropes and get ready – from Thursday the new person would be taking over. Part of me is sad about it, I’ve got to kind of know the people that I’m working with now – both the carers who look after the residents and the residents themselves. There’s Mr K who sits on the table nearest the kitchen – he’s lovely and regularly talks about his adventures in the Navy. There’s Mrs B on the middle table who always says hello to me, she always asks how I’m doing and when I see them sat in the lounge after dinner she’ll regularly shout hello to me and have a chat with me, there’s little Mrs G she’s really quiet and you sometimes have to ask three times so that she hears you but she’s just so lovely. Also Mrs B and Mrs D think I’m great because I can drive the stereo and the DVD player (Friday afternoons is film afternoon so one week I walked past singing along to Singin’ In The Rain, the following week was Sound of Music and then this week it was The Wizard of Oz – so I skipped down the corridor singing Follow The Yellow Brick Road – as my ex-employer used to say – You’re far too happy!). There are things still in the pipe work but they are up in the air – I guess we’ll just have to see what lands – for now the waitressing kind of balances out what I’m missing next week and hopefully I can find some other temp bits and bobs or something more permanent.
