Fall from Heaven

I didn’t get enough sleep again but unlike yesterday, the day wasn’t fun. I’m now seated next to a paki female, I explained her faults previously but when we were assigned work throughout the day she would immediately state that she didn’t understand or when she copied the answers off someone else she would offer them to me and act surprised when I declined her offer, she was unable to understand that I wanted to complete the assigned work myself. She also often said that she was bored or tired, not much of a conversation starter, the worst part is that she made those statements while we should have been listening to the conversation taking place in the room. I don’t hate her for being unintelligent, it’s the sloth I can’t stand.

Sitting next to me on my other side now is a smug white guy, the complete opposite of the working class banter machine from the last two days. He was a manager before his department got shut down or something and it sounds like that’s what he’ll be again once training is complete. Thinks he’s more intelligent than he actually is, a fake, a fraud, I see straight through him, I’ve met people with his character before but none with as little to back it up as him. He’s “nice”, so is the female but he thinks he is superior and she is manipulative.

Skipped lunch, no banter, generally felt down throughout the day. Didn’t shower either.

Can’t stand being here much longer. Got to listen in on some calls too and it still feels a bit too much to get my head around and the selling tactics are just disgusting. We’re allowed half an hour or so on each call so I can take my time but it’s not a survival game, if I don’t sell stuff at least half the time then I lose.

I’ve decided to pull a sicky tomorrow and attend the interview/assessment that I have booked. It also involves selling but the range of upsells is far more limited and I imagine the systems will be more modern. I was on the fence until other members of the training went AWOL on Tuesday and today, one on each day. I’m not sure exactly how I want to play it but if I can scam a few more days pay out of these guys while securing the superior gig that would be the ideal scenario. The other call centre pays the same but I imagine it would have a better culture….and fewer pakis.

Realisation of a Fantasy

I got more sleep this time around and was nearly sufficiently refreshed when waking up for another day of of toil. Within 40 minutes there was enough time to shower, groom, dress and everything else necessary to get off to a good start apart from remembering to take my E. On the way to work I listened to Iron Maiden.

Once I arrived I discovered that one of the three white guys has possibly quit. One of the other white guys is POSSIBLY going to be a manager after training due to that being his position before his department got outsourced/shut down or something else. While we were assigned an hour to do 20 minutes worth of work, the playlist we assembled yesterday was playing in the background. The white guy who “bullied”/bantered me yesterday was bemoaning the lack of quality music, I responded that “Wicker Man” should be on soon, to my horror he had never even heard of the song, he didn’t even listen to Iron Maiden and “rock music” was apparently not his thing. If that wasn’t bad enough, his genre is “UK Grime”.

When my song finally played, I asked that the volume be turned up. This made the woman in charge of training aware that I was a metal/Iron Maiden fan and anyone else who was listening. When the song ended, people remarked how glad they were it was over and then the mixed race guy who sits next to me made everyone aware that it was mine. Everyone else was shocked, one said that she’d have never guessed that out of everyone there I’d be the metal head. Got asked a few questions and answered them unconvincingly, iirc it was listing two bands and stating that the louder songs were part of a subgenre of metal (didn’t use the term “thrash metal”). Conclusion though is that they believe I like metal and that I’m unique/interesting since no one else in the room is fan of metal.

During lunch I chose to sit with a paki and converse with him, it was unintimidating as I noticed that both today and yesterday, he was alone. I started by noting how crap the training process was and then he brought up vidya and anime. He hasn’t played games like Final Fantasy XV and God of War but was interested in hearing me talking about them. His taste in anime was in a word “modern”, he likes Attack on Titan and Tokyo Ghoul, I had stuff to say and more, he weirdly cut the discussion short by letting me know our lunch was over. Unlike the other pakis, he’s from a city, not a town, so he’s well-spoken. Not a fan of his humour, during “class” he made jokes where the punchline half the time was just him doing a “white voice”. Still more similar to me than any of the others. He assumed my favourite band was Iron Maiden, just like the quirky guy, perhaps the most flattering thing I’ve heard while working here.

Throughout the day I got a lot of laughs. The white guy attempted to fist bump me a couple of times and the second time told me off for not “tensing up”. I also overreacted when during a quiz I got a question wrong, I threw my notebook to the ground and said “fuck”, prior to getting the question incorrect I also said that it was an easy one. When I’d calmed down and turned my chair back around to face the group, the training lady said “Listens to Iron Maiden and attacks books, not so Mr Innocent afterall”.

The white guy made a joke about my gender saying “women often lie about their age”, this was in a group setting. He also calls me “big man”, I don’t know what exactly this is supposed to mean. The older woman in our group (she’s hilarious) called me tall, I insisted I was average height but she stood her ground.

I’ve said it before but this is proof, I am comfortable in my skin and no longer overly nervous around new people. My heart no longer starts beating quickly and I’m not the omega in group settings, I get attention and am liked.

Only negative is that I laugh at myself too much sometimes, it comes across weird. Nothing compares to finding something amusing in the real world. I also clammed up when the topic of sex and gfs was brought up. The paki female sat next to me when the seating plan was shuffled, she was talkative but I came across as disinterested, probably because I was but the problem being it was too obvious. She was asking for help but also flaunting her unintelligent, I don’t like that quality, a person needs to make an attempt to resolve things themselves before asking for assistance, how else can they know they are incapable. It may also be that I didn’t want to feel “used”, I’m happy to offer help but I don’t want to be put in the position where I’m forced to provide it, reminds me of my father. However, we did hit it off when talking about my hometown being crap, she even said there were too many “Asians”, didn’t know what to say other than rephrase that the place sucked. She also noted like many before that I don’t sound like I’m from the town I’m from, when prompted to be more specific she said I sounded posh.

A paki offered to take me to the barbers to get my haircut. Strange that he would parrot my father but it reinforced my opinion that pakis have little individuality.

On the way home yesterday, I saw some young people, 3 males and 1 female wearing denim waistcoats with KISS on the back.

Among the Animals

I only managed to get 4 hours sleep, too anxious about starting the new job. In order to get a few more minutes I opted out of showering. My shirt was ironed yesterday so there were no mishaps like last time, no unironed shirt, remembered to brush my teeth, moisturise, apply chap-stick and wear deodorant. On the way to the building I listened to Iron Maiden and arrived a few minutes late, this didn’t appear to be an issue at all as I wasn’t the only one however I did appear to be one of only a couple to be wearing “business dress” as instructed. This left me in a sour mood for the first half of the day but at least I can bust out the plaid shirts and slim fit jeans sooner than expected (graphic tees appear to be a hard “no”).

Haven’t even really started the training yet, just intros and generic stuff like an accountability ladder.

There were 14 other people in my training group – 3 white females, 3 white males, 2 probably black/white mixed race, 1 black female, 1 paki female and 4 paki males. So a pretty even split. Over the day I learned the difference between my current working environment and my previous one. At the old call centre, everyone was well spoken and thoroughly nice, never said anything close to offensive. Very soft and babied you. They people there were also cool and cultured.

At the new call centre, almost everyone is a bit rough and common.

During the team-working exercises I formed a small friend group with 2 paki males, a white male and one of the mixed race guys. They were mean to me, bantered me about my long hair, asked about my hobbies and quizzed my lack of facial hair, was told I looked like a mannequin because they’d never seen anyone without even a trace of a beard. People would never have spoken to me like this at the old call centre. Some of the jokes were funny and I laughed along, also liked being the centre of attention but it was excessive, these guys were overly intrigued by me.

For some reason they found it amusing that I spoke with my hands and went for a walk during lunch (my anxiety prevented me from buying lunch). An unintentional compliment came when I was told that I spoke quietly and softly, I was compared to a woman. When asked about my interests, I said “anime” after being pressured, the paki was accusing me of doing nothing in an aggressive/demeaning way. They all then laughed BEFORE asking “what’s anime?”. They mocked me for not knowing regions of my town, I didn’t see why this was a big deal either, I don’t care about the crappy areas they live in and would avoid those parts.

They were also surprised when I revealed my age – one said he would have guessed I was 15 and another that I was young enough for this to be my first job. Most of the guys seem to be in their early 20s. Whenever I ignored one of the pakis invasive questions, he’ll peck at me and say “you didn’t answer my question”, so fucking rude, how does he have so little in the manners department? The white guy was at least funny when he mocked me. It’s a shame I was so bombarded with questions I missed the opportunity to reply when he brought up mosque.

There are a couple of guys I haven’t interacted with yet but they’re well spoken so I should have a different experience with them if I ever do. However, I kinda find of them to be annoying.

Got handed a book where we list one song to put on a playlist, I went with Wickerman (Iron Maiden).

Travelling to this gig is cheaper but takes slightly longer.

Ate a burger meal when I got home since I skipped lunch.