Things are really improving!
Saturday, 6 April 2002 07:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
taimatsu
Well, as Oxford people know and most other people probably won't, I have a job.
I got the first one I went for, which is really quite impressive. It's part-time, 9-1 weekdays, as a receptionist/secretary at Edward Greene's Tutorial Establishment (www.edward-greene's.ac.uk), and it pays better than my last job. What's more, I seem to be able to do it, which is cool. I started on Wednesday, and have been early every day since, which is a MIRACLE, honest.
Mostly so far I have been checking and cross-checking the end-of-month accounts, which are HIDEOUSLY complicated and done in a very clunky and idiosyncratic fashion. But it's fun. It doesn't involve complex maths, and even I can cope with adding up lists of figures. I get a feeling of achievement when I finish comparing to complex tables and know it's all correct and sorted. Red ink!
I was worried about answering the phone - I had a dreadful experience with phone systems in my first work-experience session, which was at my dad's company. *cue flashback* I was on the phones while the office manager went out for lunch, and I got a call for a paticular person. So, I put the man on hold and got my list of extension numbers out. Uh-oh. No 'Alan Walker'. But I knew there was such a guy - he was quite new, but I'd met him. How to get the number? Like the 16-year-old idiot I was, I ran downstairs to speak to him. By the time I put the call through, I had made several mistakes, the guy had been on hold for 10 minutes and was fuming, and I was near to tears. Since then, I have had a horror of acting as a switchboard.
Anyway, it turns out that with only three major people in the building, the phone system at Greene's is very simple. I had managed to avoid answering phones till yesterday, when an outside call came in while both Edward (the head, or 'Master' as he is known) and Nick (the Academic Registrar, and the guy who actually does most things) were engaged. So, I took it, and stumbled through an enquiry about tuition which ended in my taking a message, and having given the caller the possibly erroneous impression that we could do French conversation lessons. But oh well, I managed.
Enough ranting about phones. The only downside of the job so far has been, well, something about Edward's attitude. The whole outfit is very traditional in ambiance, with a kind of shabby elegance to its decor. Edward lives next door to the college, his personal accounts are intertwined with the school's, and basically, it's his baby. So, I have also to conform to his idea of what is apropriate. which apparently means no trousers. Never mind that my simple Muji black wool pants are ten times smarter by any sane standard than my thirty-year-old stretchy woolly 'smart' skirts (yes, 30 years old, they belonged to my aunt).
He's very nice, generally, I mean, he's very charming and polite and gracious. He's a big Christian - a Free Presbyterian (Scottish denomination) the house is filled with Scots church history books, and he's on the committee of the Trinitarian Bible Society. So he has every reason to be tolerant. But I just get the slight impression, and maybe it's just be getting rubbed up the wrong way, that he is quite prejudiced and mildly intolerant underneath all this. Even, perhaps, that his prejudices end up dressed up as moral values. That's probably going a tad far, but really, what is wrong, in this day and age, with a woman wearing trousers? Grrrrrr. I have a good mind to claim the innumerable pairs of tights I will have to buy as expenses incurred in the course of my job. Especially as the underside of my desk is rough and will rip them to shreds regularly.
Anyway, rant over. It's good, it pays (well, not till the end of the month unless I ask for an advance), and I enjoy it. And the students coming in and out are nice too. I'm starting to learn names. It helps that one of my tasks is to file all the report slips that come in from tutors after their lessons, and of course, I can't help but read them. So I know, for example, that Mergen is a great mathematician, but is continually late or absent for Economics tutes. Fun stuff. And Edward, after learning that I drink neither tea nor coffee and prefer to avoid hot chocolate in the summer, has bought me three cartons of gorgeous fresh fruit juices and installed them in a fridge for my personal use. Fab. And they have yummy biscuits. I'm enjoying my weekend, nevertheless.
The catch is that at some point I have to tell my parents about all this. The big areas are Job, House, Academic work and Counselling. Job is sorted. House, well, I think I want to carry on living here (have few other options) but three of the five of us are moving out, which leaves just me and jdc. Need three housemates, in that case. My parents were keen on me living in college rather than here next year, so this may well be a stumbling point. Besides which they will want me at home to be Looked After because I need Help, which is counterproductive. So there's that. On the plus side, I could probably* just* manage without them paying my rent next year, if I scrimp and really spend carefully. I would have a margin of error of under £50 per month, not counting my overdraft, but I could in theory do it. And as for counselling, I will be calling the university counselling service asap to contact my counsellor there for her promised tips on where to find an external counsellor. Stupidly, because I am suspending my University membership, I can't continue to get counselling there. They're working on changing this, because, of course, taking leave is just when students need the help. But for now, there it is. So, I am going to have to get help elsewhere, at a cost of about £40 per week, which will really eat into the budget. But in general, I'm positive, and I think I have made enough of a start on sorting my life out that my parents won;t have too much room to throw a wobbly. Academic work I can deal with - a term and a half's work in two terms and the summer? No problem. I can give myself three weeks per essay if I need it, and get it done. I will be ok.
But I'm not telling the parents yet. Can't, because my dad is away on business till the 12th.
Segue into birthday rant. My 21st is coming up on May 8th. Originally, before the whole time off thing came up, I was talking about hiring the Long Room at college and getting a friend to DJ and having a big party. So, my mother has latched onto this as favoured plan. Fine, but now I won't be eligible to hie the room at all, and if I talk about comparing prices with other places it gets kind of awkward. I might have a picnic, but catering for huge numbers is horrible. I'm just not sure what to do, now the 'easy option' isn't available. Anyone got any ideas?
I got the first one I went for, which is really quite impressive. It's part-time, 9-1 weekdays, as a receptionist/secretary at Edward Greene's Tutorial Establishment (www.edward-greene's.ac.uk), and it pays better than my last job. What's more, I seem to be able to do it, which is cool. I started on Wednesday, and have been early every day since, which is a MIRACLE, honest.
Mostly so far I have been checking and cross-checking the end-of-month accounts, which are HIDEOUSLY complicated and done in a very clunky and idiosyncratic fashion. But it's fun. It doesn't involve complex maths, and even I can cope with adding up lists of figures. I get a feeling of achievement when I finish comparing to complex tables and know it's all correct and sorted. Red ink!
I was worried about answering the phone - I had a dreadful experience with phone systems in my first work-experience session, which was at my dad's company. *cue flashback* I was on the phones while the office manager went out for lunch, and I got a call for a paticular person. So, I put the man on hold and got my list of extension numbers out. Uh-oh. No 'Alan Walker'. But I knew there was such a guy - he was quite new, but I'd met him. How to get the number? Like the 16-year-old idiot I was, I ran downstairs to speak to him. By the time I put the call through, I had made several mistakes, the guy had been on hold for 10 minutes and was fuming, and I was near to tears. Since then, I have had a horror of acting as a switchboard.
Anyway, it turns out that with only three major people in the building, the phone system at Greene's is very simple. I had managed to avoid answering phones till yesterday, when an outside call came in while both Edward (the head, or 'Master' as he is known) and Nick (the Academic Registrar, and the guy who actually does most things) were engaged. So, I took it, and stumbled through an enquiry about tuition which ended in my taking a message, and having given the caller the possibly erroneous impression that we could do French conversation lessons. But oh well, I managed.
Enough ranting about phones. The only downside of the job so far has been, well, something about Edward's attitude. The whole outfit is very traditional in ambiance, with a kind of shabby elegance to its decor. Edward lives next door to the college, his personal accounts are intertwined with the school's, and basically, it's his baby. So, I have also to conform to his idea of what is apropriate. which apparently means no trousers. Never mind that my simple Muji black wool pants are ten times smarter by any sane standard than my thirty-year-old stretchy woolly 'smart' skirts (yes, 30 years old, they belonged to my aunt).
He's very nice, generally, I mean, he's very charming and polite and gracious. He's a big Christian - a Free Presbyterian (Scottish denomination) the house is filled with Scots church history books, and he's on the committee of the Trinitarian Bible Society. So he has every reason to be tolerant. But I just get the slight impression, and maybe it's just be getting rubbed up the wrong way, that he is quite prejudiced and mildly intolerant underneath all this. Even, perhaps, that his prejudices end up dressed up as moral values. That's probably going a tad far, but really, what is wrong, in this day and age, with a woman wearing trousers? Grrrrrr. I have a good mind to claim the innumerable pairs of tights I will have to buy as expenses incurred in the course of my job. Especially as the underside of my desk is rough and will rip them to shreds regularly.
Anyway, rant over. It's good, it pays (well, not till the end of the month unless I ask for an advance), and I enjoy it. And the students coming in and out are nice too. I'm starting to learn names. It helps that one of my tasks is to file all the report slips that come in from tutors after their lessons, and of course, I can't help but read them. So I know, for example, that Mergen is a great mathematician, but is continually late or absent for Economics tutes. Fun stuff. And Edward, after learning that I drink neither tea nor coffee and prefer to avoid hot chocolate in the summer, has bought me three cartons of gorgeous fresh fruit juices and installed them in a fridge for my personal use. Fab. And they have yummy biscuits. I'm enjoying my weekend, nevertheless.
The catch is that at some point I have to tell my parents about all this. The big areas are Job, House, Academic work and Counselling. Job is sorted. House, well, I think I want to carry on living here (have few other options) but three of the five of us are moving out, which leaves just me and jdc. Need three housemates, in that case. My parents were keen on me living in college rather than here next year, so this may well be a stumbling point. Besides which they will want me at home to be Looked After because I need Help, which is counterproductive. So there's that. On the plus side, I could probably* just* manage without them paying my rent next year, if I scrimp and really spend carefully. I would have a margin of error of under £50 per month, not counting my overdraft, but I could in theory do it. And as for counselling, I will be calling the university counselling service asap to contact my counsellor there for her promised tips on where to find an external counsellor. Stupidly, because I am suspending my University membership, I can't continue to get counselling there. They're working on changing this, because, of course, taking leave is just when students need the help. But for now, there it is. So, I am going to have to get help elsewhere, at a cost of about £40 per week, which will really eat into the budget. But in general, I'm positive, and I think I have made enough of a start on sorting my life out that my parents won;t have too much room to throw a wobbly. Academic work I can deal with - a term and a half's work in two terms and the summer? No problem. I can give myself three weeks per essay if I need it, and get it done. I will be ok.
But I'm not telling the parents yet. Can't, because my dad is away on business till the 12th.
Segue into birthday rant. My 21st is coming up on May 8th. Originally, before the whole time off thing came up, I was talking about hiring the Long Room at college and getting a friend to DJ and having a big party. So, my mother has latched onto this as favoured plan. Fine, but now I won't be eligible to hie the room at all, and if I talk about comparing prices with other places it gets kind of awkward. I might have a picnic, but catering for huge numbers is horrible. I'm just not sure what to do, now the 'easy option' isn't available. Anyone got any ideas?
