Tedium building

Today was essentially my first day of work. As I said previously, I'm (or will be) a Customer Service Advisor for Scottish Power. The training period lasts 4 weeks and today was the first day. It was ok. I'm among about 200 others starting and I'll be part of a team so there is plenty opportunity to meet new people. We were split into groups of about 20, and did some "team building" exercises, to help get to know everyone. It was more like tedium building; I was only in between 11am and 4.15pm but the day really did drag on.

This wasn't helped by the fact that I only had about 3-4 hours sleep. This is because the central heating in our flat was on constant all night, and although I went to bed around 11.30pm with good intentions, I didn't actually get to sleep until about 4.30am!! It was terrible, as the searing heat from my radiator made it too uncomfortable to sleep. So, I hear you ask, why didn't I turn off my radiator? Well, it's not as simple as that, because the way it works in the flat is that the radiators have no individual controls, and so they are either all on or all off at once. Unfortunately someone had the bright idea of leaving the heating on constant all night and it wasn't pleasant! What's more, the controls are in Alistair's room and by the time I realised that it was on constant, Alistair was fast asleep so I didn't want to wake him. Instead I just suffered the baking heat.

I'm hoping that from now on the heating will always be off at night and that I can finally get into a regular rhythm of sleep - I badly need it, as I haven't slept properly for several nights now! Having something to get up for in the mornings should help!

It's strange now that I'm working after so long doing nothing, but I'll have to get used to it. From a financial point of view I don't actually have to, but I chose to now for a variety of reasons:

• It will force me into a proper pattern of sleep once and for all.
  
• Experience! I've never had a proper job, never mind a full-time job. If I last, it should be a good CV booster.
  
• Call centre work is a great way to meet people.
  
• Doing this sort of thing will make me appreciate the value of a degree-related engineering job.
  
• I'll value my leisure time more.
  
• I'll feel like a better person overall (that's the theory, anyway!).
  
• The extra money wont hurt - at least now my bank balance may occasionally increment.
  
• Don't want to leave too big a gap in my CV.
  

Assuming I stick in at it, and once I've settled in, I hope to satisfy the following short-term plans:

• Purchase some new guitars and record a full album of songs.
  
• Go to the gym regularly and improve my fitness.
  
• Improve my social life - go out more etc.
  

Suffice to say that after (not even) a full day at work, I already appreciate my free time. Compare to before when I had free time all the time and my life felt unstructured and bland. After starting, my first instinct was "oh no I'm going to hate this", but my hope is I'll get used to it and when the proper work starts, perhaps even enjoy it. It's a well-known fact that most people don't last long in call-centre jobs, but I hope to go the distance and at least stay for a couple of months, before greener pastures may beckon.