The New Girl

We finally got someone new for the office. That's a big relief for me. At least my duties as a receptionist and clerk can end for now. It was beginning to get on my nerves having to answer all the calls every couple of minutes. It was eating way into my blogging time ... LOL!

We've only managed to get a replacement for one position, which is the admin clerk so far but at least the new girl can double as a receptionist for now until we can fill up all those vacant slots. I have no idea where my boss found this replacement cos all I know was, yesterday morning she just turned up and said it was her first day at work.

I was totally taken by surprise. My boss could have at least warned me before hand that we had new personnel starting work. Who knows, she could have been some crook and taken me hostage or something ... LOL! Not that I have much money to pay as ransom if she did take me hostage, that is. Once I confirmed it with my boss that it was indeed her first day at work, I breathe a sigh of relieve ...

Now comes the part of getting her used to our system of work, which is always the hardest thing for a new worker. The new faces you meet, the new system of work you'd have to adept to and the new environment to get used to. I remember the first day I started work, I was so scared to do anything wrong. I was among strangers who were already working with each other for quite a while and I had to learn everything from scratch.

That's one reason why I never like changing jobs. I've worked in quite a few places, if I'm not mistaken maybe a total of 5 different places including this and I've resigned from only one of them while the rest was due to the company retrenching me or closing down due to bad profits.

I like to stick in a job for as long as possible. I hate having to start all over again. I hate having to make new friends and colleagues in a new office. That's one reason why I'm still stuck in this office. The other reason being I'm too old for anyone to want to hire. Who wants to hire 40 year olds these days?

I actually do have the intention to look for a different challenge in life. I've been with this company since the first day it opened it's doors and I'm currently the only pioneer staff left with the rest long gone. I honestly have no complains working here, except for one thing. Yeah, it's tough and all that, but which job really isn't? The thing is my salary has remained constant for so long with no signs of it going up that I'm disheartened with things here.

I know I work pretty hard, in fact sometimes a little too hard that I take on too many things at one go. Even wifey says I do too much and should be paid much more. And I agree with her totally! I have always given 100% or more for this company. I've worked on holidays, weekends, put the family second at times even. I've even taken a pay cut a few years back when things were a little bad with us and ever since then, no matter how good things are, my salary still remains the same ... sighhhh ...

It's really very disheartening at times, especially when the cost of everything is going up except your pay check. And to be honest, It's not that I haven't been out there looking for something better but most of these people are looking for applicants who are in the age bracket of 30 and below.

What? Like as if people in their forties like me can't work? What happened to the old days when experience counted for something? Then are are those that need applicants who can converse in a particular language. What happened to communicating in English? Isn't that good enough? Ok, enough with the venting already. I didn't intend for this to be a bitching post ... LOL!

Anyway, it's good to finally have someone in the office to help out. Hopefully she can adept to whatever system they had going for the admin section before or maybe even come up with a better system but I someone how doubt it judging by the things she wrote on her application form.

What really got me snickering inwardly when I had a look at her application form yesterday was what she put down under the hobbies section. Under hobbies she wrote: Shopping and Karaoke ... LOL! I've seen quite a bit of application forms in my career but this is the first I've seen anyone put Shopping and Karaoke! Well, at least she's honest. Most people would have listed down reading, running, dabbling in atomic reconstruction, writing novels and the like. And you know half of it is bull! ... hahaha ...


I guess now I could start planning that trip to New Zealand I've always been dreaming off. I've always loved New Zealand and it has been my ambition in life to one day go for a vacation there. There are a lot of things I want to see there like Auckland's Coastal Rainforest, Great Barrier Island or the Coromandel Peninsula. There are so many things and places I could immerse myself in while I'm there. And getting some Auckland accommodation, Wellington accommodation, Christchurch accommodation or even Queenstown accommodation shouldn't be all that hard to find.

Ok, I'd better stop dreaming already. It's time to get back to work and besides I still need to keep an eye on the girl and make sure she's got everything down pat before I'm comfortable with leaving her alone in the office.
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